F1 2026 Preview: New Rules, New Regs & A Four-Way Title Fight?

Harry Benjamin and Jennie Gow are joined by ex-McLaren mechanic Marc Priestley and former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer from Mercedes’ Brackley HQ ahead of the new F1 season. With the new rules and regulations dominating the build-up to the 2026 campaign, we ask whether they are a good thing for the sport. Will we have a four-way fight for the title? Will Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari have a resurgence after a disappointing 2025? And how will defending champion Lando Norris fare? We hear from Norris, as well as British rookie Arvid Lindblad, plus motorsport content creator Izzy Hammond joins the team.

The countdown to Formula 1’s new era has begun in earnest. There are now just days to go until the teams unleash the new-look cars that will carry their fortunes in the landmark 2026 season. Concepts crafted inside the team’s fiercely-protected factories are about to spring into life on the track.It’s mid-January, and the Cadillac Formula 1 team are preparing for a huge milestone on their journey to the grid. At Silverstone’s famous circuit, the race crew has assembled for a shakedown, a chance to run the 2026 F1 car for the very first time. Sergio Perez, making his F1 return for the American marque, is the first driver to put some miles on the clock for the team. The Mexican fan favourite is confident that Cadillac is “here to do great things” when it joins the F1 grid in 2026. It’s been nearly half a decade since America toasted its last F1 World Champion, 1978 winner Mario Andretti, who has also been offering his words of wisdom to the Cadillac F1 team.The Haas team are also ticking off the milestones signposting the way to F1’s new era. Team principal Ayao Komatsu reveals how Ollie Bearman’s positive attitude is a real asset to the team’s ambitions. The British racer, about to enter his second full season in F1, has goals of his own, winning races and future World Championships.Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff paused his birthday celebrations to outline how he is also developing the team’s next generation, Kimi Antonelli, into a future race-winner. As the sport enters a new era, Wolff is as curious as anybody about how the pecking order is going to shake out when racing resumes in 2026. The first questions were about to be answered when the new Mercedes F1 car took to the track for the very first time - and our intrepid guides Sarah Holt and Holly Samos were there to witness the all-important car shakedown on a rainy day at the Silverstone circuit. After completing the first flying laps, George Russell gave his verdict on the car that carries his hopes for the 2026 season. Mercedes Technical Director James Allison and the Head of Mercedes High Performance Power Trains, Hywel Thomas, were also on hand to give feedback on the fruits of their labours.As Kimi Antonelli prepared to climb into the cockpit for the first time, he spoke of his gratitude to everyone back at base who had got him this far. The Italian has already been on an incredible journey with the Mercedes team but 2026 is just the beginning of what lies ahead in Formula 1’s new era.F1: Back at Base is an IMG Production for the BBC, hosted by Rosamund Pike Co-hosts & Executive Producers are Sarah Holt and Holly Samos The Producers are Alasdair Cresswell, Joe Aldridge, Jack Winstanley and Mitchell Marshall Production Management from Abbie Collingwood, Katie Killeen and Giulia Duggan The Senior Producer is Ollie Kneen The Executive Producer for IMG is Steve Tebb The Story Editor and Scriptwriter is Sarah Holt The Showrunner is Holly Samos And the Commissioning Editor at the BBC is Stevie Middleton

The new year has been rung in and, for Formula 1, 2026 is here at last. The landmark year of change that the teams have been chasing for months. Inside the closely-guarded F1 factories, there are whispers of speculation about the redesigned cars and the potential for a new competitive order. But only when the cars break cover at the first race in Australia will the secret be out at last.For Kimi Antonelli, a fresh start for 2026 began a little closer to home as the teenager flew the nest and moved into his own house in San Marino. The next milestone in his preparations for the new Formula 1 season is a training camp in Florida with his performance coach Sergi Avila, who already has a long list of physical goals for the Mercedes star.Back at base, Mercedes reserve driver Fred Vesti has been putting in the work on the driver-simulator to unlock the secrets of the 2026 car. Holly Samos and Sarah Holt went to meet the Danish driver at the team’s Brackley HQ to find out what he’s learned about the new car so far. For Haas driver Ollie Bearman planning for the race season ahead is also now in full swing. He’s on a flying visit back home to Britain to don his 2026 race suit and the new Haas kit at a series of photoshoots. But, like all F1 drivers, he’s already thinking about getting back inside the car and is seeing the new set of technical rule changes as an opportunity.At Cadillac’s Silverstone base the fledgling team are also counting down to the looming season. There are just over 50 days until the team makes its F1 race debut in Australia and the hustle-and-bustle at the factory is now in fifth gear as Sarah and Holly found out on their latest visit. There is an air of concentration in the race bays as the car build begins, overseen by chief mechanic Nathan Divey. Cadillac Formula 1 team’s CEO Dan Towriss wants to bring an American spin to Formula 1 - and it doesn’t get any bigger than the Super Bowl. The team will unveil the livery for its 2026 car in a TV advert aired during American football’s season showdown - watched by hundreds of millions around the world.F1: Back at Base is an IMG Production for the BBC, hosted by Rosamund Pike Co-hosts & Executive Producers are Sarah Holt and Holly Samos

Formula 1 is in a moment of pause. The 2025 racing cars have been wheeled into storage, and the racetracks have fallen silent. But inside the top-secret F1 factories, each team is facing a winter like never before. Revised rules for 2026 are reshaping the cars and redefining what powers them, and that means the pressure is on for the hundreds working back at base.Before diving into the future, the team at Brixworth, the home of Mercedes High Performance Powertrains, are marking the end of an era. It’s here that the engine - which drove Mercedes to eight straight Constructors’ Championships between 2014 and 2021 - first came to life. Brixworth boss Hywel Thomas has planned a very special celebration to mark the end of this engine cycle and our expert guides Sarah Holt and Holly Samos were there to join in the festivities. This is an important time of transition for Formula 1’s engine suppliers. Thomas and his Brixworth team have been developing the new engine that will power Mercedes and three other teams, on the grid in 2026.There is parallel work going on at Brackley, where Mercedes Technical Director James Allison is overseeing all other aspects of the new season’s car design. The British engineer has more than three decades’ experience in F1 but even he is a little daunted by what he calls the “biggest ever” rule change in the sport’s history.While the work intensifies inside the F1 factories, it is, in contrast, time for the drivers to unwind. Italian Mercedes star Kimi Antonelli is heading home to spend some time with his family and friends, while Haas driver Ollie Bearman is holidaying in the Maldives before spending Christmas with his family in Monaco. Back at base, the Haas team are hard at work preparing for F1’s new era in 2026 and that means both sides of the garage are collaborating too. Laura Muller - who works alongside Esteban Ocon and is an F1 trailblazer as the sport’s first female race engineer - has just wrapped up her first season on the pitwall. Like Bearman, she knows the experiences of 2025 will help her navigate what lies ahead.F1 race-winner Valtteri Bottas is preparing for his return to the grid with the Cadillac Formula 1 team in South Australia. But even in an idyllic spot for winter training, the Finnish favourite is already counting down to pre-season testing and getting to the first race in Melbourne, Australia as he starts the next chapter of his F1 career.F1: Back at Base is an IMG Production for the BBC, hosted by Rosamund Pike.Co-hosts & Executive Producers are Sarah Holt and Holly Samos.

We open Episode Five checking in at the airport with Haas driver Ollie Bearman as he prepares to take off for the final three races of the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship. But there’s only one thing on his mind - will he get the dreaded middle seat?Fellow rookie Kimi Antonelli is also flying high as Formula 1 touches down for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. The Mercedes teenager takes a gamble on tyre strategy but will it pay off when the cars hit The Strip? Antonelli and his race engineer Pete Bonnington are looking back on the teenager’s rookie season in 2025. Bonnington, aka Bono, was one half of F1’s most successful driver-engineer pairing with seven-time World Champion Sir Lewis Hamilton, so how does it compare working with a rookie making his first steps into F1?While the competition is nearly over on track, the race inside the team’s top-secret F1 factories has only just begun. It’s early December, and all the teams are pushing hard to build a completely reimagined car for F1’s new era, when a new set of technical regulations are set to shake up the sport. At Mercedes, our F1 experts Sarah Holt and Holly Samos are given a guided tour by Chief Operating Officer Rob Thomas on the factory’s busiest day of the year.As the sport prepares to move forwards into its new era, the dust is settling on the 2025 season at the finale in Abu Dhabi. There’s time for Bearman and his race engineer Ronan O’Hara to also give their verdict on his rookie season and formulate lessons to take into the British racer’s 2026 campaign. But the clock is ticking on Cadillac’s F1 debut… There are now less than 100 days to go until the US team joins the grid and team principal Graeme Lowdon is beginning to feel the pressure.F1: Back at Base is an IMG Production for the BBC, hosted by Rosamund Pike. Co-hosts & Executive Producers are Sarah Holt and Holly Samos.

The final phase of the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship is hotting up for our rookie drivers Kimi Antonelli and Ollie Bearman with just five races to go. At the start of this episode, we’re flying high with Mercedes driver Antonelli as he boards his flight to Mexico. But when you’re a jetset driver, how do you pass the time during long-haul trips across the world?The high-altitude circuit in Mexico City also sees fellow rookie, Britain’s Ollie Bearman, climb to a career high finish with Haas, after a wheel-to-wheel battle with title challengers Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri. Before joining the F1 grid, Antonelli and Bearman knew each other well, and used to race together as teammates in the junior Formula 2 series. In an exclusive for this podcast, we arranged a fun reunion for them to compare their rookie seasons.As Bearman and Antonelli and the rest of the F1 pack head to Brazil, our guides Sarah Holt and Holly Samos are joining the Cadillac Formula 1 team back at base at Silverstone. Here the team are gearing up for their debut F1 season by competing against their rivals in a race simulation. This is a moment rarely seen in F1 history - but our podcast has been invited inside. Cadillac won’t hit the grid until March 2026 - but it’s crucial they iron out any gremlins now.In the real race in Sao Paulo, there’s another major milestone for rookie Antonelli, who finishes with the best result of his F1 career. His Mercedes teammate, 2025 race-winner George Russell, gives his verdict on the rookie drivers and looks ahead to why he and Antonelli must work together if they are to win future World titles.F1: Back at Base is an IMG Production for the BBC, hosted by Rosamund Pike Co-hosts & Executive Producers are Sarah Holt and Holly Samos.

Hollywood legend Keanu Reeves makes his entrance in Episode Three of the podcast as the actor reveals why he has chosen to document Cadillac’s journey to the Formula 1 grid in a follow-up to his award-winning 2023 series about the Brawn F1 team.Our expert F1 guides, Holly Samos and Sarah Holt, are also closely following Cadillac’s story, and they arrive at the team’s factory for a landmark moment for the team.Under the watchful eye of Race Team Manager Pete Crolla, the team are preparing to send off their first sea freight of the season from their Silverstone headquarters.They are also building the garage that will home the cars at the track for the very first time. The series continues to follow 2025 rookie drivers Ollie Bearman and Kimi Antonelli in-between the races.Bearman reveals what he’s been doing at a test session in Italy. But there are also testing times in the World Championship for the Haas racer who has picked up more penalty points on his F1 Super licence and is in danger of a race ban.Mercedes teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli finds himself in the spotlight for a very different reason, as we go behind-the-scenes at a top-secret photoshoot ahead of the 2026 season.The Italian reveals what team commitments he has outside of the car but, like all F1 drivers, he’s always looking forward to getting back to his job inside the cockpit.F1: Back at Base is an IMG Production for the BBC, hosted by Rosamund Pike Co-hosts & Executive Producers are Sarah Holt and Holly Samos.

The new Cadillac Formula 1 team reveals who they’ve chosen as their race drivers for their debut 2026 season.Returning fan favourites Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez, with more than 500 Grand Prix starts between them, are set to make history as Cadillac’s first-ever F1 driver line-up. In an exclusive for this podcast, former Red Bull race-winner Perez explains why he’s chosen to make his F1 return with the Cadillac F1 team on his first day at work at the team’s Silverstone facility.We lift the lid on life away from the track with Haas hotshot Ollie Bearman. Beside every F1 driver is a family unit that can get left behind, but the British racer’s family have taken the unusual step of supporting his career by relocating to join him in Monaco. But the move has prompted some sibling rivalry over just who gets to use the driver simulator.At Mercedes, Kimi Antonelli has been relying on support from soon-to-be Cadillac driver Bottas in his apprentice F1 season. The Finnish racer is a reserve for Mercedes in 2025 and has taken on a mentoring role to help guide the Italian teenager before his own return to the grid in 2026, when the master will take on his apprentice.F1: Back at Base is an IMG Production for the BBC, hosted by Rosamund PikeCo-hosts & Executive Producers are Sarah Holt and Holly Samos

We’re on a high-speed taxi ride with teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli as he takes series co-host Holly Samos on a thrilling hot lap around Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix. The 18-year-old’s career is also hitting the gas, after Mercedes chose him to replace seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton and handed the Italian his F1 debut in 2025.Already a social media sensation, Britain’s Ollie Bearman is also finding his feet in F1 and co-host Sarah Holt joins him in the passenger seat at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, a summer highlight on the British motorsport calendar. When it comes to life as an F1 driver, the 20-year-old Haas driver is still adapting to being in the spotlight during his rookie season.It’s not only fresh, young drivers who are driving F1 into the future, the Cadillac Formula 1 team are also preparing to join the grid in 2026, when major new technical rules are set to shake-up the sport. On a sprawling industrial estate - just metres from the Silverstone circuit - Sarah and Holly are taking an exclusive first look at the team’s F1 factory.But founding an F1 team - even with backing from U.S. car giant General Motors - is a huge undertaking, as Cadillac team principal Graeme Lowdon reveals in this episode.- F1: Back at Base is an IMG Production for the BBC, hosted by Rosamund Pike - Co-hosts & Executive Producers are Sarah Holt and Holly Samos - The Producers are Alasdair Cresswell, Joe Aldridge, Jack Winstanley and Mitchell Marshall - Production Management from Abbie Collingwood, Katie Killeen and Giulia Duggan - The Senior Producer is Ollie Kneen - The Executive Producer for IMG is Steve Tebb - The Story Editor and Scriptwriter is Sarah Holt - The Showrunner is Holly Samos - And the Commissioning Editor at the BBC is Stevie Middleton

In this eight-part series, hosted by actress Rosamund Pike, we’re going behind-the-scenes with next generation stars, Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli and British Haas hotshot Ollie Bearman, during their rookie Formula 1 seasons in the 2025 World Championship.We are in the passenger seat with the drivers - and we do mean that literally - following the final races of their maiden campaigns and lifting the lid on driver life away from the track with F1 experts Sarah Holt and Holly Samos as our guides.Former teammates in junior categories, Antonelli and Bearman, are now simultaneously finding their feet on motorsport’s toughest grid. In this series we hear from the two drivers, and those closest to them, as their journey to the top continues.From inside the Mercedes team, experienced race engineer Pete Bonnington, aka Bono, reveals how he is guiding Antonelli to follow in the footsteps of his former driver, seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton while Driver Development Advisor Gwen Lagrue explains how he spotted the natural talent that convinced Mercedes to sign Italian teenager Antonelli at a young age.Haas rookie Ollie Bearman already has a huge social media following but the attention directed at an F1 driver is next level. The British racer, who made his F1 debut with Ferrari in 2024 as a stand-in for a sick Carlos Sainz, is feeling a lot of love from the fans as we join him at a special appearance with Haas at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.The 20-year-old can also count on family support and we hear from his younger brother Thomas, also a promising racer, and how they are deciding just who gets to go on Ollie’s race simulator.As Bearman continues to bring home the points for Haas in 2025, Haas Head of Strategy and Driver Development Ed Brand and his race engineer Ronan O’Hara explain how Bearman is growing as one of F1’s next generation stars.But it’s not only the drivers who are driving forward F1’s future - there is also a new team about to enter the top tier of motorsport. The series is also following the start-up Cadillac Formula 1 team as they race to join the grid for the very first time. Their uncharted journey is fraught with jeopardy, but they have unlocked their doors and let us inside. Fan favourites and former F1 race-winners Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez are making their comebacks with Cadillac - and we hear from both of them throughout the series.Cadillac team principal Graeme Lowdon and Executive Engineering Consultant Pat Symonds explain how the team have had a mountain to climb to make it to the grid in 2026, when major technical regulations, governing how the cars are designed and powered, are also set to shake up the sport.Hollywood legend Keanu Reeves is following in our tyre tracks as he documents Cadillac’s journey to the grid. The actor is also predicting drama as F1 enters a new era in 2026. We hear from him in an exclusive interview as he anticipates that the “hopes and ambitions” of all the teams up-and-down the grid will be tested by the sport’s new rules.As one season ends another, fraught with uncertainty like never before, lies just around the corner. In this series, we journey with the Cadillac F1 team and drivers Antonelli and Bearman over the winter as they prepare to go racing in F1’s new era.- F1: Back at Base is an IMG Production for the BBC, hosted by Rosamund Pike - Co-hosts & Executive Producers are Sarah Holt and Holly Samos - The Producers are Alasdair Cresswell, Joe Aldridge, Jack Winstanley and Mitchell Marshall - Production Management from Abbie Collingwood, Katie Killeen and Giulia Duggan - The Senior Producer is Ollie Kneen - The Executive Producer for IMG is Steve Tebb - The Story Editor and Scriptwriter is Sarah Holt - The Showrunner is Holly Samos - And the Commissioning Editor at the BBC is Stevie Middleton