When I did my 2025 predictions, I wrote that predicting a Formula 1 season has rarely been as difficult, which seems a bit laughable now, because trying to guess how things were going to pan out last year was a heck of a lot easier than it is this year.
For instance, it was at least fairly obvious heading into 2025 that Lando Norris and McLaren were the title favourites and that the Brit would battle it out with Max Verstappen for the Drivers' Championship. That was three easy wins right there.
There are no such luxuries this time around, with the only certainty being uncertainty.
As always though, pre-season testing provided some clues as to what's to come, as have comments from teams and drivers, and whispered rumours swirling around the paddock.
Taking all of that into account, here's what I think we're in for in 2026.
The title fight
Let's start with the biggest question of all: who will be the 2026 Formula 1 World Champion?
The McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari drivers are all genuine possibilities along with Max Verstappen, but for me, there are two that stand out as likely victors: George Russell and Charles Leclerc.
All evidence suggests Mercedes and Ferrari will be a step ahead of their rivals, at least to start with, and both Russell and Leclerc are just too good to be beaten by drivers who have inferior machinery over the course of the season; as I've said a few times in my columns, I think they're the best two on the grid after Verstappen.
What about their teammates? At Mercedes, it's hard to see Kimi Antonelli keeping up with Russell, and Toto Wolff will see to it that the youngster falls in line rather than risk a messy intra-team battle like McLaren's last season. At Ferrari, I think Lewis Hamilton will be much, much closer to Leclerc with a car he's more comfortable in, but won't quite have the outright pace to fight for an eighth world championship.
As Verstappen showed last season, he's good enough to be in title contention even if his car isn't, but I just don't think he, reigning champion Lando Norris or the other McLaren of Oscar Piastri will have the machinery to beat Russell and Leclerc.
Picking between those two is really tough. I see Leclerc as the slightly faster driver, but Russell as the more consistent, and adding in the fact that Mercedes operate much better as a team than Ferrari, I'll go with the Brit.
The best of the rest
Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso are pretty comfortably the best drivers in the midfield in my eyes, but I don't think the standings are going to reflect that with Williams and (especially) Aston Martin starting the season on the back foot. Instead, I think Pierre Gasly will score the most points out of those outside the top teams.
Going by testing, Alpine - now equipped with a Mercedes engine - have taken a bigger step forward than anyone, and in Gasly, they have a top driver who will get every drop of potential out of their car.
As for the final spot in the top 10 in the standings, Ollie Bearman will surely be in the mix, with the Haas looking good and him looking like a top talent after enjoying an excellent rookie season. However, I think they'll be caught by Williams in the development race, and so will give the edge to Sainz.
Audi look to have produced a solid first car and should be in the mix, but they just don't have a driver on the level of Gasly, Sainz and Bearman.
I can see Alonso having a good enough car to score a decent amount of points once engine supplier Honda sort out their issues, given his abilities and what is surely a strong Adrian Newey-designed chassis, but it will probably be too little too late for him to really climb up the championship.
The Constructors' Championship
There looks set to be an almighty shake-up in the Constructors' Championship this season, all through the field.
At the very top, I'll give the edge to Ferrari. Hamilton will have a much better campaign and Mercedes will sacrifice a fair few points on Antonelli's side to help Russell as much as possible, giving the Scuderia their first team title in 18 years.
Below them, Norris and Piastri scoring more combined points than Verstappen and new teammate Isack Hadjar is a pretty safe bet, assuming the teams have evenly-matched machinery. I can see Hadjar being the Dutchman's best teammate in years, but not yet on the level of the McLaren pair.
As I've already said, I think Williams will leapfrog the lesser-resourced Haas over the course of the season in the midfield, and back Audi to as well, with all three finishing just behind Alpine.
They'll start at the very bottom of the field, but Aston Martin will surely improve as the season goes on, and given Racing Bulls have quite a weak driver lineup, Newey's team could just about avoid a bottom-two finish.
It's hard to see anything other than Cadillac finishing rock-bottom, but I do think they'll be fairly close to the midfield at times and will maybe even score a few points, which would be a massive achievement in itself, given they're a brand-new team starting from scratch.
Predicted standings: Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, Alpine, Williams, Audi, Haas, Aston Martin, Racing Bulls, Cadillac.
Intra-team battles
With the driver lineups being one of the few things that hasn't changed radically since last year, intra-team battles is one of the easier things to predict.
At the top, the only one I found really difficult to call is the one between Piastri and Norris, but I'm just about leaning towards the Aussie. It feels like Norris is already at the peak of his powers whereas Piastri has room to improve further, and the Brit may also be less motivated now that he's become a world champion.
In the midfield, I can see Sainz establishing himself as Williams' lead driver over Alex Albon and Gabriel Bortoleto taking another step forward to edge veteran Nico Hulkenberg.
Speaking of veterans, who will come out on top between Cadillac pair Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez is really tough to predict, but I'll go with the Finn, just as he looked slightly better in his last season on the grid than Checo. It'll be fascinating to see how they compare given that it was so hotly debated who was the better driver when they were battling it out at the top with Mercedes and Red Bull.
Predicted winners: Russell, Leclerc, Piastri, Verstappen, Gasly, Sainz, Bortoleto, Bearman, Alonso, Lawson, Bottas.
Silly season
Right then, time to make a fool of myself.
A huge number of driver moves could be announced over the course of the year with so many contracts (16 of 20!) expiring at the end of the season, and I'm going to predict that the biggest of them will be one that will send shockwaves through the sport: that Max Verstappen will leave the grid altogether.
He's often said that he's not interested in chasing records, that he's already achieved everything he wanted to achieve and that he doesn't want to sacrifice time with family to be an F1 driver well into his 30s. That doesn't necessarily mean he'd walk away at 29 if he still had the chance to add a fifth title to his collection, but what if he doesn't?
It's very possible he ends up in such a position. Red Bull could well fall behind their rivals with teething problems likely for a team building their own engine for the first time; Mercedes won't drop Russell if he's just won a title, or Antonelli given they view him as a generational talent; it's not in Ferrari's nature to put another top driver alongside Leclerc if Hamilton retires, with academy product Bearman a more likely option; McLaren's drivers both have contracts beyond 2026.
That would leave Verstappen to choose between just fighting for podiums and occasional wins, or walking away to be more present for the first years of his daughter's life and maybe try his hand at other racing categories, two things he's said he wants to do. I can see him picking the latter for a year and returning in 2027, either taking a spot that opens up at one of the top three teams or joining a Newey project at Aston Martin that has started to deliver.
As for who would replace him at Red Bull, Sainz and Alonso will probably be the best drivers who would consider moving to Red Bull, and they would be more likely to go with Sainz given he's a product of the Red Bull academy and 44-year-old Alonso would surely only stay for a season before retiring.
If Aston Martin don't improve, I wouldn't be surprised if the veteran decides to spend that season with old friend Flavio Briatore at his former team Alpine, given the personal connection and the fact that they're moving in the right direction.
Beyond that, I actually think most other drivers will stay put for another season, although I could see American driver Colton Herta replacing one of the Cadillac pair if he impresses in Formula 2.
