A different world
An interesting aspect that has now clearly emerged in this 2026 Formula 1 season is the performance difference between drivers of the same team compared to last championship. The change in technical regulations has produced quite significant upheavals within the four top teams: in Mercedes Antonelli is dominating over Russell, whereas last year it was exactly the opposite; in Ferrari Hamilton – who in 2025 had almost never put his nose ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc – leads the teammate in the standings by 24 points; in McLaren the balance between Norris and Piastri is only a distant memory and the Englishman is now firmly ahead of the Australian. The only constant is the dominance, within the Red Bull team, of Max Verstappen, but even in this last case the Dutchman’s teammates – first Hadjar and now Lawson in the last three races – have come closer to him as had not happened for years.
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A matter of style
One of the ‘losers’ of this World Championship so far, George Russell, tried to analyze this particular trend. Speaking with journalists present in Madrid at the end of last Spanish GP Russell pointed out precisely the new type of car and the ‘style’ with which these cars must be driven as the main reason for the internal balance changes within the teams. “It’s quite a strange season if you think about how competitive Oscar Piastri was compared to Lando Norris last year, Charles compared to Lewis, and even Max Verstappen’s dominance over all his teammates in previous years”, Russell commented.
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The Englishman believes there are similarities in driving style among all the top team drivers who are outperforming their respective teammates this year: “This year, Charles, Oscar and I are having much more difficulty compared to our teammates. And as for Max, his teammates have come significantly closer to him, more than has happened with any other driver in the last six years. And I think we all have quite similar driving styles. Kimi Antonelli, Lewis and Lando, for example, have quite similar driving styles – Russell emphasized – as for me, with this car and these tires, it is therefore quite clear what I have to do. The trends are evident, as I said, in the four drivers I just mentioned“. Now it would be ‘just’ a matter of putting them into practice.
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