Best campaign in recent F1 memory? Plus: George Russell’s pace problem
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Welcome back to Prime Tire, where I regret to inform you this is my last edition of the newsletter.
For four weeks, while I’m on World Cup duty for The Athletic. Got your hopes up, didn’t I!
Anyway, I’m Patrick, and Madeline Coleman will be along shortly. Let’s dive in.
This Just In: Antonelli is very fast
Kimi Antonelli won another grand prix this weekend. I came across a post about it from theScore’s F1 writer Daniel Valente that got me thinking …
That’s obviously wild. But how much wilder can we get? I dove into some numbers.
Across the six races so far (Australia, China, Japan, Miami, Canada and Monaco), Antonelli accounts for exactly 63 percent of all top-five fastest laps.
But wait, there’s more!
Across the 364 valid flying laps recorded so far in 2026, Antonelli posted the fastest time on 161 of them, meaning Antonelli was the fastest driver on 44 percent of the laps so far this season.
The other fastest drivers? Well, just take a look at the top five …
1. Antonelli: 44 percent
2. George Russell: 14.84 percent
3. Lewis Hamilton: 9.34 percent
T4. Charles Leclerc: 6.87 percent
T4. Lando Norris: 6.87 percent
Why does this matter? Well, because lap time percentage isn’t just a fun party-trick stat. It’s one of the better signals we have for separating the driver from the car. And Antonelli is faster than his own teammate (Russell) on roughly three out of every four Mercedes-led laps, across six different tracks, in different conditions. No wonder it looks like his rivals are out of answers already.
Antonelli’s 66-point lead, five wins in six rounds and the fastest lap on 44 percent of all flying laps this season make a compelling case that this is one of the greatest campaigns in modern F1 history, and that the car isn’t doing all the work.
Trending Down: Russell’s pace problem is real
Russell said he is “bamboozled” by his sudden drop in form. (Resisting the urge to go on a tangent about how much I love the word “bamboozled.”) He’s right — his raw speed has taken an undeniable hit as the season has progressed.
We can look at this by tracking his percentage of absolute fastest laps on track and his deficit to the ultimate pace-setter from race to race, thanks to the lap-by-lap analysis published by the FIA.
At the start of the season, Russell was a constant threat to be the fastest driver on any given lap. By the time Miami rolled around, that presence began to vanish:
Russell went from trading fastest times with Antonelli on nearly half the laps in China to barely registering a single fastest lap in Miami and Monaco.
The single-lap burst data tells the same story. Russell started the year breathing down the neck of the fastest cars, but that gap has widened significantly:
The deficit clearly jumps from roughly half a second in Miami to over 1.2 seconds in Canada, then balloons to over 2 seconds in Monaco.
His bamboozlement, nay, his flabbergastery, NAY, his befuddlement are entirely justified. And the championship is slipping away.
Questa È La Via: Ferrari doing Ferrari things
We got the Ferrari dilemma in one frame last weekend: One driver crashed a car he couldn’t manage, while the other finished second. By divine law, we cannot have both Ferrari drivers thriving at the same time. Instead, we have one on the podium and the other saying, “I look like an idiot.” This is the way.
The silver lining? There are 16 rounds left, and we haven’t seen the last of the twisty tracks. As Madeline writes, there’s hope for Ferrari — but boy, was it a textbook Scuderia weekend.
Now let’s throw it to Madeline for more on why Leclerc was so upset about his brakes.
Inside the Paddock with Madeline Coleman
After the Monaco GP, Leclerc blamed his brakes for his crash at the final turn. And Brembo, an Italian company specializing in braking systems which has had a partnership with Ferrari for more than 50 years, has responded.
First, Leclerc’s comments:
“Out of the four brakes, I had three brakes not working,” Leclerc said, later adding that it was like “the calipers were not even in the car.”
“As long as I was doing consecutive (laps), it was inconsistent, but there was none of those problems, at least to that extent,” he said. “The problem was the safety car. As soon as I did the safety car, three of my four brakes stopped working. I could never switch them on again; nothing was working anymore. I tried to do many actions in the car to try and help it.
“The only solution I had was to not brake in the last corner. But I would have crashed in Turn 1. There’s no way I could have done a lap. There was just no solution.”
Brembo expressed its surprise at Leclerc’s remarks in a written statement.
“At present, the company does not know the causes of the issues experienced by Charles Leclerc and therefore considers it premature to draw definitive technical conclusions before the available data has been analysed. In cases such as this, it is necessary to examine the telemetry data together with the team’s engineers in order to accurately determine the origin of the incident.”
The review will take place in the coming days, and it’s worth noting that brake configurations and preferences typically are dictated by driver style. Leclerc said he’ll try teammate Hamilton’s configuration from Barcelona moving forward.
Outside the Points
💋 Hamilton may have blown Kim Kardashian a kiss from the podium, seemingly confirming the rumors of their relationship. We’re both happy for them and also, we know their relationship is none of our business. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
🔋 The FIA has determined that Red Bull has F1’s best engine, despite Mercedes winning all six races this season. Ferrari, Honda and Audi are more than four percent behind, meaning they get the most development runway — though Hamilton notes the upgrades are “an eight- to 10-month project,” so don’t hold your breath.
👟 Two more athletes have joined a lawsuit against Puma and Mercedes F1 over carbon-plated shoes allegedly causing career-altering injuries.
🚬 Attorneys general from 19 U.S. states and jurisdictions have written to F1 and the FIA asking them to ban nicotine pouch sponsorships.
🏚️ The Monaco track surface began breaking apart with 10 laps to go, something drivers could apparently see before the race even started. Esteban Ocon noticed it on Lap 9 and said nothing, because stopping the race would have cost him his position. Priorities!
🚦 Finally, Cadillac’s first F1 point came and went in about an hour.
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