Nine things we learned on day one of F1's British Grand Prix
British Grand Prix Thursday featured a horde of drivers lamenting how bad the 2026 Formula 1 car experience will be around Silverstone, and plenty of insight into what’s going on behind the scenes at teams up and down the grid.
When Honda will bring new engine (and what it's working on)
Ahead of the British GP, Adrian Newey revealed the upgraded Aston Martin car will arrive at the Hungaroring, one race prior to the summer break.
And we now know when the upgraded Honda power unit is targeted for arrival - one race after the summer break at Zandvoort.
While ADUO has granted Honda two upgrades for this year (and two for 2027), Honda's Zandvoort upgrade will be the only mid-season update.
"Our focus point is to improve engine performance," Honda's general trackside manager Shintaro Orihara explained.
"So we are working on combustion chamber shape. And also we modify the pre-chamber. And also we will change the combustion chamber shape to improve combustion performance. Also we are working to reduce friction by modifying the lubrication system. That is we are working on.
"Also to improve reliability because if we increase performance we need to increase reliability. So still we have a quite big list to complete. But we are working hard to achieve that to bring it to the Netherlands."
How big a step will it be? "How [big] the number from dyno, but I can't disclose the number. But we are aiming to get some reasonable big steps rather than bring a small step".
But Honda is being realistic that it can't catch the benchmark engines with this step alone.
"We need another step for the future to catch up to the top competitors," added Orihara. - Josh Suttill
(Almost) everyone thinks Silverstone will be a mess
The discussion over how F1's 2026 regs have transformed races and individual laps had abated in recent rounds with a more favourable run of tracks. That run is over, with drivers almost-uniformly sounding the alarm (except George Russell, who thinks "it will be great") over how the 2026 formula will cope with an 'energy-starved' Silverstone.
The whole sequence between Brooklands and Stowe is widely recognised as a massive problem area, and most are in agreement Silverstone's unique challenge in F1 machinery will be particularly nerfed.
There's a whole buffet of quotes to chose from. "Completely different track," said Lewis Hamilton. "Quite sad," said Fernando Alonso. "Most of the drivers feel probably a bit sad," concurred Charles Leclerc. "Not as rewarding and challenging," said Esteban Ocon. "A very different Silverstone, unfortunately," lamented Sergio Perez. And Max Verstappen just laughed.
There's a small 'wait-and-see' caveat, and the expectation at least that drivers won't be deliberately lifting - but just clipping on throttle as they run out of power - but if F1 had felt it had weathered the storm of driver disdain, there's clearly more precipitation on the horizon.
"But let's not speak too soon," joked Bearman, "because we have Spa next. Maybe Silverstone will feel mega compared to that." - Val Khorounzhiy
Norris's surprisingly open response to Verstappen rumours
You wouldn't blame Lando Norris if he quickly shrugged off Verstappen's talks with McLaren over a potential F1 deal in the future, but instead it prompted some surprisingly open answers on how Norris would approach it.
"To be honest, a lot of drivers want to come to McLaren. So I don't know why you just highlight Max!" Norris joked when asked about it in the press conference.
"There's quite a few others that I know that want to come as well. I mean, it's a cool thing.
"It's a good thing that a four-time world champion wants to come on board and wants to - potentially! - join the team. I don't know how much of it's true, but it's a cool thing.
"And if there's an opportunity for me to drive with other people, it's something I've always looked forward to. But it's not a thing for now. It's not a serious thing. And I'm also just excited for my future with McLaren. I'm still going to be here for many, many more years."
Norris backed himself to beat any F1 driver in the same car, adding: "I believe, whether it's him [Verstappen] or having a chance to go against Lewis or Fernando, any of the drivers that people know are some of the best.
"I think it's a cool opportunity for me, at the same time, so excited for whatever may come my way in the future."
Verstappen was more dismissive, saying "Yeah, I'm not going to involve myself in that. I've said what I wanted to say already before.
"If there is something new or something that changes, you will hear it from me, not from someone else writing it. I just focus on the job that I have with my team." - JS
Ocon will experiment with repaired floor
Esteban Ocon is a driver under pressure. There's at least a three-strong queue of serious contenders for his Haas seat for 2027 and his F1 future is hanging by a thread.
Not helping his cause is a lack of consistency of performance from his car that he has been questioning repeatedly, on and off, for the past 18 months.
Last year it was the brakes but this year it's the aerodynamic performance of the car and the consistency of performance of certain components.
This can and does happen up and down the grid. It's something Valtteri Bottas says has hampered his side of the Cadillac garage until recently - a rogue floor not doing what it's supposed to.
It's also the case that sometimes old and patched parts are reused to save money - it happens even at the top teams now F1 runs to a cost cap - so you can very easily end up compromised.
For the Silverstone weekend, Ocon revealed he'll be using a patched up version of the floor his team-mate Bearman used at Barcelona, in an attempt to help figure out this rear grip problem that Ocon says has persisted on his car for "quite a few events".
"We are going to be scanning through different parts again this weekend - we have a different rear wing, we have a different floor," Ocon confirmed.
"It's not a new one. It's one that has been on Ollie's car in Barcelona, I think. It's an older one which has been repaired, but it should be fine. Visually it looks good. We've seen it, the team has chosen it. We'll see."
Team boss Ayao Komatsu agrees with Ocon's assessment, up to a point. He says Haas is generally "lacking rear downforce in high-speed corners" but that the team is "not lacking downforce because something is broken, it's just that we haven't delivered in this area".
Komatsu there is talking about a lack of aerodynamic performance his team needs to find, not a parts inconsistency problem - but he does accept that Haas has a "parts consistency issue" that manifests on each of the cars at different times.
"For instance, Ollie's car in Montreal FP1, rear wasn't working at all," Komatsu added. "And then Ollie's car in FP3 of Barcelona, it was terrible.
"And then Esteban had a bit of an issue on Friday in Spielberg, but Saturday was fine.
"So, again, in terms of magnitude of issue, it varies. But it's all within, let's say... I wouldn't say noise, but the area, the magnitude that we can measure.
"But it's not like Esteban's got an issue and Ollie hasn't. As a team, we have an issue.
"It's about the quality issue, in terms of multiple issues on the parts quality on its own.
"And also the assembly quality as well. It's very, very sensitive - so our ability to get on top of doing certain things at certain accuracy that other teams can do.
"It's including the windtunnel model. Our capability is still not the same as a top level team. So all those small inaccuracies build up."
Figuring out this inconsistency is going to be particularly crucial during this summer heatwave, because Ocon says the problem is forcing him to run the lowest front wing flap setting he can - to bias grip away from the front and towards the rear - and yet it's still "killing the tyres".
"We are quite a lot more rearward in terms of our balance compared to Ollie's car. And more importantly, in a race with high degradation, I'm killing the tyres, basically, because I need to sustain some pace to be fighting with the other people," Ocon added.
"I'm still managing the tyres a lot, but when I want to push, I'm just doing double the damage than what I should be doing." - Ben Anderson
Sainz has a plan for a new F1 rule
Verstappen's Austria qualifying crash and Russell's (legal) pole under yellow was much discussed in the paddock on Thursday.
But while many were wondering whether rules around slowing under single yellows need to be tighter, Carlos Sainz had a different priority: penalising drivers who cause red or even yellow flags in qualifying.
He plans to raise his proposal for grid penalties for causing stoppages or yellows with the rest of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association.
And the big motivation for it isn't actually Verstappen's Austria incident - which he accepts the Red Bull driver did lose out from - but what he says is a trend for drivers to deliberately cause yellow or even red flags to disrupt rivals' laps. He says that happens far more than most realise.
"You've seen it. The other thing is that you don't know, but you've seen it," he said, somewhat cryptically. - Matt Beer
Hamilton's had to 'realign' with Ferrari's higher powers
Hamilton's always had the support of Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur but when talking about his big year-on-year improvement at Silverstone, Hamilton revealed he'd realigned with the "higher powers" at Ferrari.
"One being a car that I really have helped develop. There's items on the car, for example front suspension that I'd asked for last year and had it made for the sim and tested it on that," Hamilton said when asked about the factors behind his turnaround.
"This year, I finally got the brakes that I wanted [in Japan when he switched to Carbon Industrie], which was a big push.
"Engineer changes in my personal team, readjusting some of my team and how they connect with the team.
"Realigning myself with the higher powers within the organisation so that we're making sure that we're on the same track and we're allies rather than foes."
"So that's just now in a much better place, and that's enabling us now to just move forward in synergy."
That would imply it's the senior figures above Vasseur within Ferrari with whom Hamilton has had to realign himself.
He said difficult weekends last year meant "naturally when you're having that, people tend to listen to you less. 'Why are we going to listen to you when you're getting these results?'
"So that's taken a long time to build that trust, and I think that trust is now there and things that I ask for get done."
For Silverstone this year, as a nine-time winner at the circuit, Hamilton feels his opinion has been valued; "My engineers, they have been asking me like, 'How did you do it? What did you do? How do you normally run the car?'
"And so, I hope that I've steered them in the right direction." - JS
But Hamilton expects engine weakness to punish Ferrari here
Ferrari's much-anticipated upgraded engine endured an underwhelming debut in Austria, where the high heat forced the team to open up cooling vents on the car and its engine's smaller turbo design was punished by the higher altitude because of how hard it had to work.
The Ferrari lacked overall grip as downforce was sacrificed for cooling - and the power unit also had such an unusual energy deployment strategy that Antonelli almost rear-ended Leclerc during their early laps battling in the race.
Silverstone won't repeat the altitude problem of the Red Bull Ring but it will punish the Ferrari's overall lack of power, high-drag aerodynamic configuration and the power unit's weak energy deployment at the end of what will be some of the longest full-throttle sections on the calendar.
"I think it was like four-tenths of a lap we lose in a straight line," said Hamilton of Ferrari's Austria "reality check". "So it's hard to recover that through corners.
"I think this is going to be the most unprecedented weekend in terms of the power deployment. All us drivers have been talking in the drivers' chat just how poor the power is going to be through this track. We run out of battery power.
"There's only a few corners to charge the engine, so the [MGU-]K will be switched off for a large portion of the lap. That's where we will struggle probably the most. The deficit could be twice as big." - BA
An unexpected most polarising topic
Drivers were more or less fully aligned on Silverstone being "downgraded" by the 2026 cars, but interestingly, it wasn't the prospect of the F1 grand prix that proved to be the most polarising topic on Thursday.
Instead, that award went to the varying levels of enthusiasm or dread for the return of the Lego Drivers' Parade in which the drivers will battle it out in Lego F1 cars, constructed from 28,000 Lego bricks each.
Four-time world champion Verstappen doesn't understand the need for it.
"No, I just get it overwith it as quickly as possible. Wave to the fans, because they deserve that. Of course, if it's up to me, I would just like a normal driver parade," Verstappen said.
"What is wrong with just an electric truck or whatever driving us around? I think that's fine. But it's not in my control."
Lance Stroll delivered his deadpan verdict in the press conference to much amusement from onlookers; "I'm indifferent. I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I'm not going to wake up super early in the morning excited about it. It's just another one of those drivers' parades".
He added: 'I think if they had another 600 horsepower, then it would be interesting. Then we'd be more excited".
Hamilton called it "the most dangerous part of the weekend" and suggested he wasn't sure if he'll partake or not - although Ferrari has since confirmed he will.
But drivers who missed it last year in Miami like rookie Arvid Lindblad and returnee Valtteri Bottas are excited.
Lindblad joked: "I was very excited when I heard that we will be driving the Lego cars. For me, I don't think that race is going to be about winning. It's just about having some fun and maximum damage."
That might be why Lego has attached bumpers to the cars this year after a demolition filled 2025 race in Miami.
Bottas said "saving distance is my strategy, and using tow" as cars are capped at 25km/h.
World champion Norris said: "If it's like Miami, of course, then I think whoever can make it back to the start line will be a winner already.
"It's a cool thing to do. It's different. Obviously you're all together and you can have a little chitchat and see the fans when you're on the truck. But I think it's nice to do something different every now and then.
"So as long as it's safe and we all behave, which we shall, then it will be a jolly good ride." - JS
Alonso complicates Newey's wish for his F1 future
Speaking ahead of the weekend, Aston Martin team boss Adrian Newey said: "Fernando is really looking forward to the [Hungary] upgrade and, if it performs, we hope he'll be in the cockpit for another season".
But Alonso laid out why it's not as simple as that on Thursday at Silverstone when asked how connected his future was to the upgrade.
"I don't know, I would think over the summer break, but yeah, I don't know, I cannot say that it's really connected, because if the car is good or bad, there are other factors that I need to think about," Alonso said.
"Maybe the car is super good and still, feelings that the sport is going in the wrong direction, or I think the next two races are going to be a different experience than what we've been driving in Silverstone and Spa.
"I think this year is going to be very different and not fun to drive, the cars, looking at the simulator lap and things like that is going to be quite sad."
He added: "it would be nice to have a good race in Budapest, just before the holiday, but it will not be, let's say, the only point".
Alonso joked "the rain starts, they are normally in the 14th, 15th of August, so yeah, we look at the sky at night and make the decision…" - JS
