Star drivers, biggest surprises and who has work to do – Our writers reflect on the first three rounds of 2026

With a short break in the F1 action until Round 4 in Miami, now feels like a good time to reflect on an eventful opening three rounds of the 2026 season. We asked our writers Lawrence Barretto, Chris Medland, David Tremayne and Alex Jacques to give us their take on the big talking points so far, from the standout drivers and teams through to the biggest surprises, as well as looking at who has the most work to do going forward…

Which drivers have impressed you the most so far in 2026?

Lawrence Barretto (F1 Correspondent & Presenter): We've been treated to several outstanding performances so far this year – but none more so than from Kimi Antonelli. The Italian has taken to having the best car on the grid with aplomb and been unfazed by competing against his more experienced team mate George Russell. His fightback after dropping from pole to P6 in Japan was outstanding, as was his pace in clear air, and he more than deserves to be the first teenager to lead the World Championship.

Ollie Bearman is also very worthy of a shoutout here after taking to these new regulations like a duck to water. The Ferrari junior's fifth in China, after a P8 in the Sprint, was particularly eye-catching and he's consistently enhancing his credentials for a promotion to Ferrari in the future.

Chris Medland (Special Contributor): I don’t think it’s a surprise to say Kimi Antonelli for the form he showed in Japan in particular, and he looks very comfortable at the moment with a race-winning car. Ollie Bearman, too, was so impressive in the first two rounds, even if Suzuka was memorable for the wrong reasons for him.

Pierre Gasly gets a shout here too for maximising everything at his disposal, but if those three are obvious, I’d put both Racing Bulls drivers in there too. Arvid Lindblad has shown some excellent pace and potential, while Liam Lawson has then delivered good points in each of the last two races in response to that.

David Tremayne (Hall of Fame F1 Journalist): Kimi Antonelli. Quelle surprise to choose him, right? I got it wrong predicting he would win a race last year – he was 10.388s away from that in Brazil – and I’ll be wrong again this year since he’s already taken two of the three I predicted, and will almost certainly win more. This year he’s smoother, calmer and very determined, and those two successes thus far will only boost his confidence but not his ego. He’s a great guy, and his success at 19 is a huge boost for F1. Congratulations for having the faith in him, Toto.

Pierre Gasly. Poor old Pierre so often gets overlooked, but how many times in the recent past has he surprised with his Qualifying performances? It was great to see him fending off Max for the entire Japanese Grand Prix, showcasing the talent that’s always been there.

Arvid Lindblad. He’s been in F1 for a year and three races, hasn’t he? Well, of course not, but that’s exactly what it looks like. His debut performance in Australia was outstanding, and he was quick from the moment he turned wheels in Suzuka. Fast and assured, he’s left a huge impression. Isack Hadjar and Arvid – dear old Helmut Marko might be retired, but both were his choices… As were Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen…

Shout outs to Isack and Ollie Bearman too. The former has been unlucky, but it’s great to see that a Red Bull team mate can get respectably close to Max. The latter has always been very fast and continues to get the most from his Haas.

Shout outs to Isack and Ollie Bearman too. The former has been unlucky, but it’s great to see that a Red Bull team mate can get respectably close to Max. The latter has always been very fast and continues to get the most from his Haas.

Alex Jacques (F1 TV Commentator): I'd have to pick the current championship leader Kimi Antonelli for continuing his end of season form into the new year.

Next it's Pierre Gasly for backing up his always superb one-lap pace with increasingly strong race stints in the Alpine, and Ollie Bearman for finding impressive speed in a totally new regulation set.

Which teams have impressed you the most?

LB: Mercedes have created a world-class chassis and power unit for these new regulations, and they thoroughly deserve to be comfortably topping the Teams' Championship with three wins from three. A shoutout here to Audi, whose debut as a works team with their first F1 power unit has exceeded even their own expectations and put them at the sharp end of the midfield, and to F1's newest and 11th team Cadillac, who have already earned the respect of their rivals by hitting the ground running and making consistent progress through the first three rounds.

CM: Mercedes for obvious reasons as the dominant team, but then I’d have to say Haas – working with the smallest number of personnel and developing a car late last year but still hitting the ground running this time around too. Racing Bulls should get huge credit as well given the fact the Red Bull Ford power unit is so new and in both cars, but it again looks competitive and compliant as a chassis, and Cadillac might be struggling for raw pace but they have met every challenge so far in a short space of time and appear to be learning quickly.

DT: Mercedes, of course, since Toto Wolff and his (once again) merry men seem to have rediscovered the mojo they lost under the ground effect rules. Ferrari have a much better car than previously that suits both drivers, and they’re hungry. It’ll be fun to see how they develop the SF-26’s challenge in the coming months.

McLaren. Really? With those three lost races (two for Oscar Piastri, one for Lando Norris)? Well, yes. Most of the problems there were not of their making and the manner in which they held their tongue, said nothing negative publicly, then bounced back and might actually have won in Japan had there not been that Safety Car intervention speaks volumes for their fundamental strength. They clearly now understand much better how to get more out of the Mercedes PU since Shanghai, and their Suzuka performance suggests only Mercedes are currently superior.

Audi. They’ve been much closer to the upper midfield pace than I think most of us expected, and their PU seems to be performing well. A good start to their debut season. Racing Bulls – the VCARB 03 looks neat and well-behaved. And quick. Alpine – Max said it best in Suzuka: “That car is fast!” And Cadillac – yes, they are ‘only’ ahead of Aston Martin, but this is their first rodeo and to get five finishes from three races is a great start.

AJ: Mercedes have been superb in the first three rounds of the new season, once again understanding a new power unit regulation change brilliantly.

I'm not even convinced they're running at their full potential right now, given reliability concerns of a new regs set. I think these wins have been achieved with a bit in hand.

Who has the most work to do after the first three races of the season?

LB: Aston Martin Honda's painful start to 2026 has been well-documented. They know there's a mountain to climb to peel themselves off the bottom of the Teams' Championship and as a minimum haul themselves into the midfield. The five-week gap comes at a good time for the team, as it gives the new partnership a chance to try and fully cure the issues with the vibrations and improve reliability to the extent they can get both cars to the finish as a starter before starting to add performance and see just how good Adrian Newey's first Aston chassis is.

CM: Two teams jump out at me here, and Red Bull is definitely one of them. What Racing Bulls are able to do with the same power unit shows that there is potential for Red Bull to be closer to the top three teams than they are so far, and they seem to have a carryover of issues from the middle of last year when the car is really not responding in the way the drivers want.

Aston Martin are probably on everyone’s list, though, and top this category by some distance. Not only do Honda have a big job on their hands improving reliability and performance, but the car itself seems to be a long way off and even the strongest power unit in the back would not be competitive with the top teams. You could argue that means there are plenty of obvious areas to target for improvement, at least.

DT: Aston Martin Honda, clearly. I think a lot of people expected the PU supplier to carry on where it left off with Red Bull and Racing Bulls, but the year’s hiatus in 2022 has hurt the Japanese company since it lost crucial PU development time and moved engineers elsewhere. As Ron Dennis once said, if you stand still in F1, you go backwards. There are indications that Adrian Newey’s AMR26 also has things that need sorting, but until it gets a PU that works as planned, it may be a little harsh to judge the car side too much just yet.

Red Bull have a mountain to climb with the RB22, whose balance and general behaviour is clearly vexing Max. The new Ford-badged PU isn’t a winner yet, but it’s hard to assess it fairly with the car behaving the way it currently does. And Williams seem to have lost a lot of ground – we know that the FW48 is overweight, but there seem to be other issues that need resolution, too. Alex Albon is not a happy man.

AJ: Of our normal front runners, Red Bull. The team seemed mired in the midfield with a poorly balanced car, with both drivers struggling to drive consistently.

What has surprised you the most so far?

LB: Alpine and Pierre Gasly have been the positive surprise package of the season for me. They looked like they were top of the midfield in testing but were oddly slow in Australia. But they've made big gains since, including starting to cure their weakness with understeer in high-speed, to not only emerge as the best of the rest but also show glimpses of being able to shut the gap to the top teams. Gasly has been a star and in my mind is the only driver to have maximised their result in every single event so far this season. Alpine's decision to abandon 2025 development to focus on 2026 is paying off.

CM: The racing. I think we all listen to driver comments a lot during pre-season, and there was a real lack of confidence that we’d get much overtaking or on track action – certainly Charles Leclerc is a great example of a driver being concerned before the first race and admitting their pleasant surprise since. There are clearly areas to improve and it’ll be a busy spell before Miami analysing what has been seen so far, but I think there has been real potential shown for these rules to deliver good racing right through the field as they evolve.

The field spread has also surprised me a little. Mercedes are clearly quickest, but the gaps are not as big as we’ve seen when there have been major regulation changes in the past. 2022 had cost cap implications, plus stability in terms of power units, and the third round (Australia) saw the field spread between the quickest and slowest team in Q1 stand at 2.6s. This year, the same spread was 2.7s, on a longer track in terms of lap time at Suzuka.

DT: The closeness of the racing has surprised – and delighted. Under the new aero rules it would appear that cars can indeed genuinely run closer to one another, and though the plethora of overtaking owes much to the 50-50 power split and the Overtake button, one hopes that it will continue.

AJ: It's impossible to say anything other than Aston Martin. They've got a historic power unit supplier who won a world title as recently as 2024, the greatest designer of all time and a superb factory, and it all resembles a back of the grid effort from the 1990's. They need fundamental fixes and fast because this can't be how it ends for Fernando Alonso.

Which driver and team will be under the most scrutiny in the next few races?

LB: There will be a lot of eyes on Max Verstappen and Red Bull when the season resumes in Miami after their slow start to the year. Verstappen has failed to take a single podium in the first three races for the first time since 2018, while Red Bull are looking like a midfield team on pure performance as they sit P6 in the Teams' Championship behind Haas and Alpine.

Their bright light is that sophomore Isack Hadjar has hit the ground running and is keeping pace consistently with Verstappen – but they know they are up against it to turn their season around, with the energy drinks firm already nearly 120 points behind leaders Mercedes.

CM: For a driver separate to the team, I think it’s got to be Max Verstappen. Things haven’t clicked for Red Bull yet, and that’s left Verstappen unable to fight with the top three teams, in what hasn’t been an enjoyable start to the year for the four-time World Champion.

As a team, it has to be Aston Martin, and how quickly they can start to improve reliability and performance. Williams, too, have to better – starting with trying to get weight off the car as quickly as possible before Miami. This was meant to be a big chance for a step forward for Williams, and they have missed the mark by a long way so far.

DT: It may seem odd to say so, given the results, but primarily George Russell and Mercedes. George, rightly in my opinion, began the year as favourite. But Kimi’s sudden and dramatic accession, allied to George’s run of poor luck in the last two races which wasn’t down to him, has created an interesting dynamic. How will Mercedes cope, once again, with having two bulls in the same field? Also, how much longer will Max put up with his current situation chez Red Bull Ford?

AJ: George Russell will want to shut down the Kimi Antonelli hype with a run of wins, and Williams will want to prove they can salvage something from their season after missing the boat with a regulation change they've been talking about for years.