Picture the harbor at Monaco, the parkland of Monza, the old airfield at Silverstone, and Eau Rouge at Spa, then add the floodlit streets of Singapore and Las Vegas. That’s the F1 stage. The cast is just as grand: Ayrton Senna, a three-time champion; Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton, seven titles apiece, with Hamilton holding the record for wins; Max Verstappen, champion four years running until Lando Norris pipped him to the 2025 crown by two points.
Then somebody hit the reset button. The 2026 power units — F1-speak for the whole hybrid engine — split their output roughly evenly between combustion and electricity and run on sustainable fuel, while smaller cars gain movable aerodynamics. The grid has grown to 11 teams, with Cadillac arriving and Audi taking over Sauber.
Not every badge is a works team, though, meaning one the car maker owns or runs itself. Red Bull runs Ford-branded power, Renault-owned Alpine buys customer Mercedes engines, and the rest are independents. That leaves six manufacturers who pump out state-of-the-art road cars that you can buy, as well as rocketships that race around some of the most iconic circuits on the planet at well over 200mph each and every week. And their fortunes couldn’t be more different.
Mercedes
Juan Manuel Fangio won the 1954 and 1955 titles for Daimler-Benz, largely in the W196, before the company withdrew after the 1955 Le Mans disaster. Its engines later carried McLaren to titles for Mika Häkkinen and Hamilton before Mercedes bought Brawn GP and returned as a works team in 2010.
After early teething problems with a veteran Michael Schumacher at the wheel, the hybrid era brought eight straight constructors’ titles from 2014 to 2021, six drivers’ crowns for Hamilton, and one for Nico Rosberg. Then 2022’s ground-effect rules bit: one win, none in 2023, Hamilton gone after 2024.
George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, paired since 2025, revived the dynasty. Online betting sites made Russell the favorite for the title this season, and he duly won in Melbourne to rubber-stamp his credentials. Then, his young Italian teammate stole the show.
Antonelli won five on the spin following the curtain raiser Down Under, and with just six races remaining, he sits a whopping 102 points clear at the summit of the championship standings. As such, it will come as no surprise to hear that Russell is no longer the favorite for a maiden title, not even close. Instead, the latest odds from Lucky Rebel sportsbook make 20-year-old Antonelli a 1/100 favorite to become the youngest champion in history, and it would take a monumental slip-up from here if he were to somehow miss out.
Ferrari
No family tree runs deeper. Ferrari has contested every F1 season since 1950, winning its first through José Froilán González at Silverstone in 1951 and taking titles with Alberto Ascari in 1952 and 1953. In all, it holds 16 constructors’ and 15 drivers’ crowns, from Niki Lauda to Schumacher’s five straight from 2000. Yet Kimi Räikkönen’s 2007 title and the 2008 constructors’ trophy remain the last.
What does it say about F1 that its most decorated badge has waited this long? Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, and Charles Leclerc all fell short; 2020 brought sixth in the standings, the worst since 1980.
Hamilton managed no Grand Prix win in 2025, then ended a 686-day drought in Barcelona, the oldest winner since Jack Brabham in 1970. Leclerc’s Silverstone win was Ferrari’s 250th. Harmony, however, is patchy: a team-orders row at Zandvoort, then a Monza clash Leclerc admitted “went too far.” Ferrari sits second in the constructors’ standings, with Hamilton third and Leclerc fifth in the drivers’. Those two need to get on the same page and quickly if 2027 is to yield a championship challenge,
McLaren
Bruce McLaren founded his team in 1963, debuted at Monaco in 1966 and won at Spa in 1968 before tragically passing away while testing at Goodwood in 1970. Emerson Fittipaldi’s 1974 double and James Hunt’s 1976 title followed, then a golden age: seven drivers’ titles for Lauda, Alain Prost, and Senna from 1984 to 1991, the MP4/4 winning 15 of 16 races in 1988, plus crowns for Häkkinen and Hamilton.
The fall since, however, was brutal — a huge fine for the 2007 spying scandal, Alonso’s “GP2 engine” jibe, eight full winless seasons from 2013. Under Zak Brown and Andrea Stella, McLaren was suddenly reborn.
The team won the 2024 constructors’ title, its first in 26 years, and retained it in 2025. This year opened with neither car starting in China. Norris has since won in Hungary and the Netherlands; Oscar Piastri, his teammate since 2023, is still waiting for his first win of the campaign.
Aston Martin
The badge’s first attempt flopped: the DBR4 of 1959 was obsolete on arrival and never scored. Today’s team descends from Jordan, born in 1991, via Midland, Spyker, Force India, and Racing Point, for whom Sergio Pérez won at Sakhir in 2020, before Lawrence Stroll renamed it in 2021. No win has come since.
Alonso’s eight podiums made 2023 the high point; by 2025, the team had slid to seventh. Can money and Adrian Newey really buy a winning car?
Stroll funded a new Silverstone factory and wind tunnel, hired Newey, and signed Honda as works partner. But the Honda unit vibrated so violently that Newey, then also team principal, warned of nerve damage to the drivers’ hands. Alonso’s eighth at Sepang lifted the team to seven points, tenth of 11, while Lance Stroll, his teammate since 2023, hasn’t scored.
Audi
Behind the four rings sit the Auto Union cars of the 1930s and later conquests at Le Mans and in rallying, but the F1 team is built on Sauber, an entrant since 1993. Its finest hour came as BMW Sauber: second in 2007 after McLaren’s exclusion, then Robert Kubica leading a one-two in Canada in 2008, still the team’s only win.
Nico Hülkenberg, fresh off his maiden podium at the 239th attempt at Silverstone in 2025, heads a rebranded Audi team in 2026 alongside Gabriel Bortoleto, and the pair are closely matched, though points arrive in ones and twos. Hülkenberg’s eighth in Singapore, holding off Russell, equaled the team’s best finish, catapulting Audi to eighth of 11 in the championship standings. It doesn’t sound like much, but that, believe it or not, is somewhat of an overachievement.
Cadillac
Long before F1, Briggs Cunningham took Cadillacs to Le Mans in 1950, and the marque has since won the Daytona 24 Hours, including 2019 with Alonso in the crew. Andretti’s bid was rejected in early 2024, but a revised General Motors entry won approval in 2025, making Cadillac the 11th team and the first new entrant in a decade, running customer Ferrari engines until GM builds its own.
Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez bring 16 Grand Prix wins between them. They collided on the opening lap in China, where Bottas’s 13th remains the team’s best result. But in their debut year, reliability has bitten hard, and Pérez lost a Monaco point to a post-race penalty.
How does a brand with this pedigree end up last? By starting from scratch. Pérez, runner-up in 2023, has generally had the upper hand, and he calls 2026 one of his best years. Whether they can kick on with newfound experience in 2027 is the question on every American motor racing fan’s lips.
