Thursday served up a little bit of everything in F1 land: cost-cap tremors, a McLaren reset, whispers from Neuburg about Audi’s horsepower, the golden arches on a Red Bull, and a reality check for Jack Doohan. Here’s the state of play.
First up, the money talk. Aston Martin has accepted a minor procedural breach of the 2024 financial regulations while the FIA continues to comb through last season’s accounts. That review is running longer than teams would like, and there’s a bigger subplot too: one rival is understood to be facing allegations of a “substantial” overspend. No names, no totals, no verdicts—yet. But the paddock knows how this movie can end. Financial regulations don’t just bite reputations; they can nibble at wind-tunnel hours and testing restrictions as well. Until the FIA signs off, a few team principals will be sleeping with one eye open.
At McLaren, the air’s been cleared. Oscar Piastri says the team has dropped internal “repercussions” against Lando Norris after their intra-team bumps—first the tap in Singapore and then the opening-lap chaos during the Austin sprint that wiped out both orange cars. The message now is a “clean slate.” That’s good timing. With 2025 already underway and McLaren chasing the front, united execution matters more than point-scoring in the debrief room. Norris and Piastri remain one of the sharpest pairings on the grid; the trick is keeping it sharp without it turning prickly.
The big tech rumour of the day belongs to Audi. Numbers doing the rounds suggest the German manufacturer’s 2026 power unit could be as much as 31bhp down on Mercedes in current simulations. That’s a headline figure and not much more, at least for now. Remember, dyno data in the winter rarely survives first contact with the racetrack, and there’s a long road between prototype and parc fermé—especially under F1’s new engine formula for 2026. What matters is Audi’s cadence: they’ve completed their takeover of Sauber and are deep into integration for the rebrand that’s due with the rule reset. If the number is accurate today, it’s a target to chase, not a sentence.
Red Bull, meanwhile, brought a new colour to Interlagos late last season: a flash of yellow. The team announced a São Paulo Grand Prix tie-up with McDonald’s, marking the first time the fast-food giant appeared on an F1 car on-track. The arches landed on the RB21’s Halo, and the partnership dovetailed with activations in Brazilian outlets. The origin story traces back to Sergio Pérez’s personal deal with McDonald’s in 2024, which opened doors for a wider collaboration. It was a neat piece of local flair for a title-winning operation that knows its way around a sponsor roster.
Finally, a tough one for Jack Doohan. Hopes of an Alpine race-seat comeback for 2026 have dimmed after an ambitious late-2024 push to step in for Franco Colapinto over the final three rounds fell apart. Doohan had been swapped out for Colapinto earlier in the season, and the attempted reversal didn’t stick. With driver markets moving early and fast ahead of the 2026 regulations, timing is everything. For now, the Australian’s path back to a full-time seat looks steeper than it did a few months ago.
Big picture? The 2025 F1 season is marching on, the 2026 reset is getting louder by the week, and the sport’s fault lines—money, power units, driver politics—are exactly where you’d expect them. Some stories will fade as the on-track narrative takes over. Others will define the next chapter. As ever, it pays to read the small print.
