The track
4.381km lap
14corners
C3 C4 C5compounds
0DRS zones
Fourteen corners, almost no straight worth the name, and a single real braking zone at Turn 1. Track position beats raw pace here, which is why it has been called Monaco without the walls for forty years.
There is no DRS any more. It was dropped for 2026 after fifteen years. Cars now switch between a straight-line and a cornering aero mode, and overtaking help comes from energy instead: a driver within one second at the detection point gets an extra 0.5MJ, roughly 67bhp, to deploy on the following lap.
Pirelli brought their three softest compounds, so thermal degradation on the rear axle is the flagged risk. The surface is the live issue after a botched resurfacing at Turns 1 and 12. For the circuit's 40th anniversary all fourteen corners have now been formally named, seven after legends.
Practice
47.0°FP1 track
33.7°FP2 track
54.5°FP3 track
All three sessions were red-flagged, which shredded everyone's programme, and track limits were rampant at Turns 1, 7 and 14. FP1 doubled as a rookie session with five stand-ins, so Friday morning's order is distorted.
The temperature swing is the thing to hold on to: 47°C track in FP1, down to 33.7°C for the cooler FP2, then 54.5°C in final practice. That makes FP2, where all the long runs were done, the least representative session of the weekend.
Ferrari were the class of Friday. McLaren's new floor transformed their Saturday. Mercedes looked ordinary on one lap but strong on heavy fuel. Red Bull's deficit looked real rather than a fuel artefact. Racing Bulls and Audi headed a compressed midfield, and Williams, Aston Martin and Cadillac were genuinely off the back.
Final practice, gap to fastest
Norris
fastest
Hamilton
+0.117
Antonelli
+0.129
Leclerc
+0.352
Piastri
+0.499
Russell
+0.602
Verstappen
+0.717
Hadjar
+1.004
Lawson
+1.149
Hulkenberg
+1.221
Soft tyres throughout, so this is the cleanest single-lap read of the weekend. Not a grid.
Mercedes
Cleared Russell of the driving-style theory that had followed him for weeks: it was a power-unit software calibration fault sitting on both cars all along. The bigger upgrade is being deliberately held back until after the summer shutdown, so what is here in Budapest is small circuit-specific aero.
Ferrari
Brought an aggressive new high-downforce rear wing, the max-downforce option Hamilton had been asking for since Monaco, and immediately looked like the fastest car over a single lap. Vasseur publicly refused the favourite tag, and the long-run data suggested he was right to.
Charles LeclercTopped opening practice by half a second, then lost his second run to an apparent power unit or gearbox problem that left him limping back to the pits. Stayed pointedly guarded afterwards, saying he did not expect the same gap to hold.▶Charles Leclerc Knows One Speed... FAST 💨768k views · 24s Lewis HamiltonLed a Ferrari one-two in second practice. Took full responsibility for a poor Spa weekend after a five-second penalty Vasseur called mega harsh, and joked that his 2025 Hungary low deserves its own documentary.▶This Angle Of Piastri & Hamilton 😮💨669k views · 11s McLaren
The redirected development approach finally produced something you can bolt on: a redesigned floor, plus an experimental pivoting rear wing that ran in first practice only and was then removed. Andrea Stella had flagged this weekend as the checkpoint for whether the new direction works.
Lando NorrisRan the new floor first while his team-mate stayed on the old spec, a deliberate back-to-back. Off track he became the grid's loudest critic of the 2026 rules, arguing the sport has gone too heavily led by the fact it is a business.
Oscar PiastriWaited a session for his upgrade and was blunt about the engines and deployment control. Carried damage from a Spa clash with Leclerc that stewards declined to penalise, and pushed back on the Verstappen-to-McLaren speculation.
Red Bull Racing
The reworked Macarena rotating rear wing returned after two mechanical faults were fixed and demonstrated to the FIA, and it worked correctly. Everything else did not: Pierre Waché listed low grip, bumps upsetting the balance, a peaky setup window and a returning ground-effect problem.
Max VerstappenNoted by stewards for a Turn 12 moment after gesturing at a slow Sainz, then cleared once he told them he had not considered it dangerous. Sharpened his attack on the regulations: you are not allowed to make a difference, because it just penalises you on the next straight.▶No Updates From Max Verstappen 🤐1.3M views · 22s Alpine
Turned up with no upgrades at all while most of the midfield brought packages, and after Spa still would not say when the next one lands. Competition director Dave Greenwood admitted the car has no satisfactory balance window yet.
Pierre GaslyBlunt for a fortnight: the package is not good enough, and Racing Bulls were miles ahead at Spa. Reported zero grip and zero feel on Friday and suspected something was actually wrong with the car rather than just the setup.▶Big Crash For Pierre Gasly 😬271k views · 19s Racing Bulls
Lawson finally has the same full VCARB 03 package as his rookie team-mate, including a smaller squarer airbox and two new flow-deflector fins feeding the rear wing. Fifth in the constructors is now level on points with Alpine, and both power units were swapped as a precaution on Saturday morning.
Liam LawsonRefusing to oversell the upgrade: it is good to have the full package, but it does not solve all the answers. Leads the team on points and is out of contract beyond 2026, with Spanish reports linking another driver to his seat that the team will not confirm.
Arvid LindbladExtended his points run to five straight races at Spa, the run that pulled Racing Bulls level with Alpine. His Saturday was wrecked by the precautionary engine change, leaving him just six laps and a single set of softs in final practice.
Haas F1 Team
Talking about rules of engagement and 2027 seats rather than performance, after the two cars collided on the opening lap at Spa and both picked up punctures. The only new hardware is a high-downforce rear wing with more aggressive Gurney flaps.
Esteban OconPunctured by his own team-mate at Spa in what he called not even a real fight, blaming a gearshift issue on the other car. Guenther Steiner reckons he has no future at the team and tipped a replacement, though that remains rumour rather than anything the team has said.
Williams
James Vowles has publicly conceded the rate of adding performance is not what the team needs and ordered a review of the whole upgrade programme. Only two circuit-specific items here; the real fix is a near-complete new car promised for Baku.
Alexander AlbonMakes his 100th start for Williams this weekend, one of fewer than thirty drivers to reach a century with a single constructor, marked with a commemorative helmet. A tidy but toothless Spa where he said the pace just dropped away.
Carlos SainzA busy Friday with the stewards: warned for erratic driving after baulking Verstappen, plus a black-and-white flag for impeding, with a disconnected radio cable meaning he never heard the warning. Has moved up his own timeline for deciding his future.
Audi
Their best fortnight of the season, with only a conservative rear-wing tweak added. The live thread is regulatory: the second ADUO monitoring window closes at this race, and manufacturers judged more than 4% behind earn extra engine development, which Audi are in line for.
Gabriel BortoletoThe in-form Audi driver, with points in back-to-back races after a 2.1-second stop under a virtual safety car leapfrogged both Racing Bulls at Spa. Bullish in Budapest that if everything aligns they can be ahead of the same rivals again.
Aston Martin
Effectively launched a new car: a 16-part B-spec AMR26 covering nose, front wing, floor, diffuser, sidepods, rear suspension fairings and rear wing, after a season Adrian Newey calls a complete nightmare. Spares had to be flown from Silverstone mid-weekend, and Honda's B-spec engine follows at Zandvoort.
Fernando AlonsoCalled the revised car a first step of good things coming, saying it felt more glued to the ground and easier to drive, with correlation matching expectations. Turns 45 this week and says his 2027 decision rests on the regulations rather than this year's form.▶Fernando Alonso's In World Cup Final Spirit ⚽️🏆697k views · 13s Lance StrollLost most of the weekend's mileage when a suspected left-rear suspension failure spun him at Turn 2 and red-flagged first practice after eleven laps, with the damage ruling him out of second practice entirely. Newey stressed the failed area had not been changed.
Cadillac
Formula 1's newest team is buying mileage and chasing a rear-brake thermal problem that has followed them from Austria to Spa to Budapest, bringing new brake drum components specifically to address it. Colton Herta took the second car for first practice.
Sergio PerezA rough fortnight: a rear inboard suspension failure ended his Spa race on lap 13, then final practice ended one corner out of the pits with smoke off the rear, the axle locking and a radio call about the brakes being on fire.
Valtteri BottasSat out first practice for Herta, then comfortably out-paced his team-mate on his return and banked the team's long-run work. Team boss Graeme Lowdon publicly praised his Spa drive as comfortably ahead of the Aston Martins.