Right then, with the summer break here and everyone catching their breath, it's time to take stock of who's genuinely stepped up their game in 2026. And honestly, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Mercedes is near the top of that conversation. Yeah, they finished second in the constructors last year and got absolutely demolished by McLaren with a 364-point gap, but the Silver Arrows are making serious moves this season. The switch to turbo-hybrid engines back in 2014 proved Brackley and Brixworth knew how to nail regulation changes, and they've done it again.

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Here's where it gets clever. Mercedes basically played a masterstroke by not immediately spilling all the secrets about their power unit to their customer teams. That gave George Russell and the team a massive head start in Melbourne, where Russell was eight-tenths quicker than Isack Hadjar in qualifying. But the W17 isn't the dominant machine it was early on anymore, and that's because Mercedes hasn't thrown all their upgrade resources at it like everyone else has. Wait until they start bringing proper updates and you'll see what we mean.

Ferrari's been dead impressive too, honestly. Everyone reckons the SF-26 chassis is the best piece of kit on the grid, which is a proper achievement when you've got everyone else pushing hard. Lewis Hamilton sitting ahead of a Mercedes at the halfway stage would've seemed fantasy back in Melbourne, but Ferrari's aggressive upgrade strategy has made it happen. That ridiculous Macarena rear wing they designed, the one that's now being copied by half the paddock, shows just how smart they're being about this.

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The danger for Maranello though is that they've spent their upgrade budget early. If McLaren's Hungary performance taught us anything, it's that teams can absolutely leapfrog you when they bring their own updates later. Ferrari's still 72 points behind Mercedes in the championship, but they've made themselves competitive at nearly every race. That's a confidence boost heading into the second half for sure.

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Alpine and Renault deserve a mention too. They couldn't really go anywhere but up from where they were last year, but the switch to Mercedes customer power units has done wonders. They're comfortably back in the midfield now, which wasn't exactly guaranteed when the new rules kicked in. The jury's still out on whether going customer instead of factory was the right long-term play, but it's definitely worked for 2026.

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