Antonelli didn’t even make it into our top 10 midseason rankings in 2025. Twelve months later, he’s a comfortable number one both here and in the drivers’ world championship standings. Antonelli has banished the erratic mistakes and struggles from his rookie F1 year and is now one of F1’s quickest and most consistent performers. If his car hadn’t failed him in Barcelona and Silverstone, he’d have been on the podium at every single race to this point. It’s a consistency that few would expect of a 19-year-old. Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team boss, referred to it as a “serenity.” But when Antonelli has needed to turn up the pace, he’s been able to deliver it in blistering fashion, leaving George Russell, his teammate and primary title rival, regularly unable to respond. Luck hasn’t been on Russell’s side, but even if that were to improve through the season’s second half, he’d still have to make a serious improvement to beat Antonelli. What started as a novelty over Antonelli becoming a new winner and the youngest points leader has turned into the true emergence of F1’s newest generational talent. And he could well smash the record for the sport’s youngest ever champion in 2026, if he can continue keeping things together.

This isn’t the kind of title defence that Norris would have wanted, going into the summer break with just a single victory and sitting more than 100 points adrift of points lead. But the reality is that McLaren’s car development lag, in part due to its late-season focus on 2025’s successful title bid, gave Norris and his teammate Oscar Piastri a car that was not capable of much more than top-five finishes for much of 2026’s opening half. Reliability woes in that period, most notable in China with McLaren’s double DNS, hardly helped. When the McLaren car has been on-song, coming alive with updates in Miami and Hungary and finally unlocking some extra understanding of the Mercedes engine in Hungary, Norris has flourished. He’s been a step ahead of Piastri, with a dominant performance leading to victory in Budapest being a deserved way to go into the summer break. Because Hungary wasn’t a one-off. Norris was flying at Spa, superb at Silverstone and kept pressure on Antonelli in Miami. He’s rarely made mistakes and does seem to be a more complete driver than he was 12 months ago. Norris certainly thinks so himself.

Red Bull doesn’t have the benchmark car this season, leaving Verstappen to yet again shine in inferior machinery. But a first win of the season eludes him as he battles his car. The Dutchman has gone from dominant victories to snaring only opportunistic podium finish chances. He’s still been able to pull off some masterclass moves, such as his pass on Lewis Hamilton during the recent Hungarian GP. But the RB22 has stopped Verstappen stringing together the high profile results F1 grew used to seeing from him in recent years. The car has a narrow operating window around consistent aerodynamic issues. And even though Verstappen secured his third podium in four races after finishing the Hungarian GP in second, he was left surprised by the result. Verstappen’s execution remains strong, with driving errors rare, and he’s managed to maximize the car’s limited potential. He has outqualified teammate Isack Hadjar, 8-3, and holds the same edge in race result, but that’s closer than it should be with Verstappen’s caliber of driving.

There’s no denying that Antonelli has the edge this season, but Russell has endured significant bad luck too – reliability failures and plenty of issues outside of his control. Russell won the season-opener in Australia and outqualified his teammate by 0.293 seconds. But a hugely bumpy run followed, while Antonelli thrived. Some life was breathed into his campaign, with the pair of second-place finishes in Spain and Silverstone, along with another victory in Austria. And Russell’s underlying pace hasn’t completely disappeared. Without the issues outside his control, the gap between the Mercedes teammates would be closer. The Briton’s competitive edge hasn’t slipped, as he’s largely avoided unnecessary mistakes and raced at or near the car’s maximum. He’s also managed to start on the front row seven times this season in a grand prix, four of which have been from pole. There’s no reason to doubt that Russell could win more races in the second half of the season, particularly if Mercedes improves its reliability issues.

Is it the regulations? The new engineer? Kim Kardashian? Whatever’s changed for Hamilton, it has sparked a revival that has changed the narrative of his Ferrari move. Because 2026 has been a far cry from the misery of Hamilton’s first year with Ferrari in 2025. The shift back toward slightly lighter, more nimble cars has suited Hamilton, and Ferrari has taken a step to run as the second-fastest team behind Mercedes through much of the season so far. Barcelona was Hamilton’s golden moment. He was rapid all weekend and Ferrari’s aggressive strategy put him in victory contention and he duly converted. It silenced his doubters after so much 2025 criticism, and proved a point to himself. Yet there have been some missed chances elsewhere. A handful of mistakes, copping four penalties in the last three race weekends, have cost Hamilton a chance to chip into the 50-point gap to Antonelli going into the summer break.

Leclerc’s 2026 season so far is a tale of two halves. Hamilton outshone him during the first portion, but Leclerc’s confidence began to grow again after Ferrari made changes to his brakes from Barcelona onwards, as evident in his British GP victory and his second-place finish at Spa. He’s still a strong qualifier, starting on the front row in three of the last four races before the summer break, and his consistency is improving as Ferrari’s competitiveness grows too. “I’m confident in saying that I made a step forward. Whether I’m at the level where I want to perform, not yet,” Leclerc said after the Belgian GP. “There are still things in the car that I need to drive around. I cannot drive completely naturally, and that is slowing me down.” If Leclerc continues to get back towards his best, he is capable of contending for regular victories. If Ferrari keeps up its competitive trajectory, he could help the Italian team challenge Mercedes in the constructors’ championship.

Compared to the 2025 drivers’ championship battle that unfolded between Norris and Piastri, this year has started on a disappointing note for the Australian driver. Expectations were high heading into the 2026 campaign, but Norris has had the edge and McLaren is behind on car development compared to the other frontrunners. He didn’t start his home race, after crashing on the reconnoitering laps ahead of the grid forming up, and he endured an engine battery electrical issue that led to him (and Norris) being unable to start the Chinese GP. Reliability has been an issue for both McLaren drivers this season. Piastri has not been quite as strong in qualifying compared to 2025 and it appears that he hasn’t adapted as well to the new regulations, due to his smooth driving style not helping when the new cars reward drivers that attack and catch regular slides (Russell has a similar issue). The potential is still evident from Piastri, and he could be a podium threat at times as McLaren further upgrades its car. But to date, he has performed below the high preseason expectations.

Isack Hadjar knew what he was walking into alongside Max Verstappen at Red Bull. Not since 2018 had there truly been consistent performance in the team’s second, besides some fleeting promise from Sergio Pérez. Bucking that trend in just his second F1 season was a tall order for Hadjar. But he’s done it. Moments of struggle, such his early crash in Miami or a disappointing Japan weekend, could have bred doubt. Yet Hadjar responded brilliantly. He’s consistently got plenty out of the Red Bull car, even outqualifying Verstappen at times. Beating the Dutchman overall was never a realistic aim, yet he’s been close enough, which is just what Red Bull needs. Spa proved what’s changed. Hadjar started 21st due to an engine change penalty and in the last couple of years, whether it was Pérez, Yuki Tsunoda or (briefly) Liam Lawson, fightbacks never really ignited. But Hadjar nailed his strategy and carved through the field with arguably his finest F1 performance to date to finish sixth. The Red Bull isn’t easy to drive, but Hadjar has made the best of it and seized his moment. At last, Red Bull might have the answer to a problem it’s been trying to answer since 2018, when Daniel Ricciardo left.

Pierre Gasly is an underrated driver, who is spending the prime of his career contending in the upper-midfield. He remains Alpine’s lead driver and has regularly extracted the near-maximum potential from this year’s car, which is significantly more competitive compared to 2025. Across the first seven race weekends, the Frenchman scored points in six. The standout moment came in Monaco, when he rose from a ninth-place starting spot to finish third (around the race’s pitlane speeding controversies). His 15-point Monaco haul marks his biggest of the season. Gasly has since endured a mid-season plateau, partly fueled by Alpine slipping back in the competitive order as its rivals introduced car upgrades. And it’s worth noting that Gasly only narrowly holds a 6-5 lead over teammate Franco Colapinto in the grand prix results head-to-head comparison.

Lawson not only rediscovered his form and confidence in the early part of 2026 after his Red Bull demotion two races into last season, but he’s arguably produced his finest F1 performances to date. Lawson at last has team stability and a solid car underneath him. When opportunities have arisen, he’s regularly been the Racing Bulls driver there to take them, only twice seeing the checkered flag outside the top 10 (Australia and Belgium). Given the Racing Bulls car should only really be finishing ninth at best each race due to the might of the four teams ahead in the pecking order, for Lawson to have two sixths, two sevenths and two eighths to his name is hugely impressive. Arvid Lindblad, Lawson’s teammate, has been much closer than anticipated given it’s the 18-year-old’s rookie season. But Lawson has still been the team leader. He’s finished ahead of Lindblad in all but two races that both have finished and brought in close to double the points. In a year where Lawson needed to deliver to prove he had a long-term place within the Red Bull setup, especially with more young talent set to come through, he’s done exactly that.