Real life barged into F1 this week, and Ferrari felt it first.
Lewis Hamilton has stepped back from Ferrari’s Mugello running after revealing his beloved dog Roscoe is in a coma following pneumonia complications. The seven-time champion said the 12-year-old bulldog’s heart briefly stopped during treatment on Wednesday night, calling it a “scary” few hours for the family.
Ferrari shuffled its plans accordingly. Zhou Guanyu, on reserve duty for the Scuderia, jumped into the car on Friday to share Pirelli’s 2026 tyre development workload with Charles Leclerc. Hamilton had been due to drive but withdrew as Roscoe’s condition became the priority.
It’s a very human story cutting through the usual Friday churn. Hamilton’s Ferrari switch has been a stop-start affair so far and the Mugello test would’ve been useful mileage, both for him and for Ferrari as teams try to make sense of the 2026 tyres and aero-window they’ll live with next year. Instead, the team did the pragmatic thing: keep the programme moving, keep Hamilton out of the spotlight, and keep one eye on the bigger picture.
Elsewhere, a very different kind of drama is warming up in London. Felipe Massa’s long-running challenge to the 2008 World Championship outcome is set to land in the High Court next month, with the Brazilian reportedly seeking up to $82 million in damages. It’s the courtroom sequel to “Crashgate” — the Singapore Grand Prix scandal that detonated Renault’s 2009 season and, in Massa’s view, derailed his title bid the year before.
Can he actually win? Legal arguments over limitation, governance and what F1’s rulebook does (and doesn’t) allow are complicated, but the stakes are obvious. If a court starts picking at the scab of an FIA-sanctioned final result from 17 seasons ago, the precedent will make more than a few people in this sport nervous.
The driver market’s rumour mill, meanwhile, is orbiting Faenza. Ralf Schumacher has floated the notion that both Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson could be moved on by Red Bull after 2025, with the Racing Bulls seats potentially earmarked for a youth-charged combo of Arvid Lindblad and Alex Dunne. File that under: intriguing, not confirmed.
Tsunoda has matured, Lawson is doing what reserve-turned-race drivers usually do — solid laps, limit mistakes — and yet Red Bull’s junior ladder has never been sentimental. Lindblad’s raw speed is obvious, and Dunne, although aligned with McLaren’s programme, has been on Helmut Marko’s radar. The energy drink behemoth has form for ripping up plans overnight if it smells upside; just ask Daniil Kvyat or Pierre Gasly.
And if you thought the Christian Horner saga had gone quiet after his eye-watering exit from Red Bull, Guenther Steiner would like a word. The former Haas boss doesn’t see Aston Martin as a logical landing spot for Horner, suggesting that the reported friction with Adrian Newey — now decoupled from Red Bull himself — wouldn’t translate well into Lawrence Stroll’s set-up in Silverstone.
Aston’s technical project is already packed with personalities and direction. For all Horner’s obvious qualities as a race-operations boss and political streetfighter, Steiner’s line is simple: not every super-team needs another superstar manager. And perhaps, after a decade and a half in the Red Bull vortex, neither does Horner.
Quick hits:
– Ferrari’s Mugello test day was always going to be a box-ticking exercise for Pirelli’s 2026 tyres; without Hamilton, it became even more so. Expect muted lap-time chatter and lots of tyre-temperature data.
– Massa’s legal push will bring fresh attention to how F1’s governance responded to 2008’s revelations in real time. The court’s appetite to wade into sporting finality will be the headline.
– The Racing Bulls narrative won’t resolve tomorrow. But if Red Bull does decide to load 2026 with fresh blood, the ripples will reach much further than one junior team.
There are months left in a long season and Hamilton will have other tests to chew through before 2026 dawns. For now, Ferrari covered the bases, the paddock sent its best to Roscoe, and F1 rolled on — a sport that never quite manages to stay inside the white lines, even on a Friday.
