Predictions for rest of 2026: Ferrari champions, Mercedes under threat, emergency rules rethink

The Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort will mark the start of the second half of the F1 2026 season, with Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli leading the championship.

Will Antonelli hang on to become the youngest-ever F1 champion? Will George Russell get his season back on track? Or can Ferrari pair Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc still have a say in the title race? Our writers cast their predictions for the second half of the season…

Throw out the form guide

By Mat Coch

Mercedes might have run away with the opening half of the F1 2026 season, but things were rather closer in the races leading up to the summer shutdown.

Fast out of the gates, the much expected convergence has begun with both Ferrari and McLaren winning races, and Red Bull showing flashes of pace capable of creating heads for Mercedes.

That’s a product of teams beginning to both learn about their own machinery, but from one another too; how to use the power units more efficiently, development trends (the Macarena wings a case in point), and a raft of other miniscule elements that combined can vault a team towards the front.

Conversely, as the pace-setter, Mercedes has less to learn; in the development race, it is always harder to be chased than it is to chase, and so we can expect that trend to continue.

Mercedes will remain supremely competitive, and the championship favourites, but things will close and be far more competitive. There will be more wins for Ferrari, McLaren and potentially Red Bull.

More than that, the midfield will continue to close up. Racing Bulls was best of the rest through the opening 11 races, but there have been signs that Alpine is making progress.

The second half of F1 2026 might initially look like the first half, but by the end of the campaign, it will have an entirely different (and much more competitive) complexion.

Kimi Antonelli will win the drivers’ championship, Ferrari will take the teams’ title

By Michelle Foster

Kimi Antonelli will win the drivers’ title, but Ferrari will beat Mercedes to the constructors’ championship.

Antonelli is racing with the F1 gods on his side, with the Italian on the podium in all but two grands prix.

He has one bad race to his name, which was Silverstone, where he broke a wheel shield and incurred a penalty for exceeding track limits, and one engine-related retirement as he fought for second place in Barcelona.

Even his other two less-than-stellar races ended with the 19-year-old on the podium: Australia, where he lost six places off the line, he finished second, and Hungary, where he had to fight back from sixth place to third.

He has also benefitted from the timing of safety cars, the most notable being in Japan where he went on to win and snatch the lead away from George Russell in the title race.

As I said, the F1 gods are on his side. The young, confident Italian will be crowned F1 2026’s world champion.

However, Mercedes won’t secure the double.

Although the team financially has more scope than Ferrari to develop the W17, having introduced fewer upgrades in the first half of the campaign, Mercedes’ reliability has been lacking compared to Ferrari.

It has cost both drivers points, with George Russell bearing the brunt.

As such, Ferrari will edge ahead in the constructors’ championship and take the title ahead of Mercedes. It will, however, be neck-and-neck all the way to the final chequered flag.

Mercedes to increase its advantage and prove peerless

By Thomas Maher

While things have closed up considerably in the final stages of the first half, I suspect this is primarily down to Mercedes being quite cautious in its upgrades so far this season in light of the budget cap.

With performance-focused parts in the production pipeline and set to hit the W17 soon, my gut tells me that this current field proximity won’t remain in place for much longer and that Mercedes will move back into a dominant position to round out the year.

Of course, that’s assuming the team’s upgrades prove as effective as others, in which swings of performance of several tenths of a second can be unlocked, but there’s no reason to doubt that Brackley’s will be any less potent than the likes of McLaren’s or Ferrari’s.

While I reckon Ferrari and McLaren will each win at least one more race apiece, Kimi Antonelli and George Russell will be largely peerless in the second half – that’s my bold call!

As for further down the order, I think the Racing Bulls vs Audi battle is going to get very interesting, particularly with Audi starting to figure things out.

Racing Bulls has been delivering at a very high level so far this season, but the pressure is on now – can it hold off a resurgent Audi combination?

Given the forward momentum of Allan McNish’s squad, I think this battle will end up finishing quite close in terms of points, with Racing Bulls doing enough to ultimately hold on.

Sepang’s return may not be what it’s cracked up to be

By Henry Valantine

Bear with me on this one.

Of course, while hoping not to see calendar changes necessitated in future, I’m as glad as the apparent majority of the Formula 1 fan community that Malaysia is coming back in October for the ‘Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia’, but the new cars may leave it a less-than-perfect spectacle.

To be clear, for me, it’s a coin toss between Sepang and Istanbul Park being Hermann Tilke’s best circuit design.

However, two long straights in the final sector will be a battery-killer, the left-right thrill ride through Turns 5 and 6 may well be a management game as well. Likewise with Turns 12 and 13, wanting to keep as much power available in the last sector as possible.

I truly hope I’m wrong and, let’s be honest, I probably will be, but I also hope that we don’t come away from a circuit many have been pining to see back on the calendar lamenting the 2026 cars again.

In that regard, roll on 2027.

A serious accident will result in an emergency rules rethink

By Oliver Harden

It’s not often these days that Formula 1 gives you the creeps from a safety perspective.

The start at Spa, usually one of the highlights of an F1 season, was the exception, with some cars running out of energy on the Kemmel straight on the opening lap as others kept on accelerating.

As noted in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from Japan earlier this season, that is the point at which motor racing becomes dodgeball on wheels.

Those kind of speed differentials, the sort that resulted in the death of Gilles Villeneuve in 1982, are by far the most troubling thing about the 2026 rules.

One of the most alarming comments after Spa came from Alex Albon, who was asked about Nico Hulkenberg’s complaints of him moving under braking.

“They all were moving under braking,” Albon told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets. “Everyone’s clipping at different times.

“You back off to avoid a car in front, you go back on power, you get the boost back.”

If that doesn’t set alarm bells ringing, the thought of the upcoming race starts at Monza and Mexico should.

All it will take is for something to go very wrong for the whole viability of these rules to come under serious scrutiny.

Let’s put it this way: if 2026 ends with Oliver Bearman’s crash at Suzuka being the most serious of all, we should consider ourselves very lucky indeed.

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