Fernando Alonso described Aston Martin’s recent progress as “incredible” at the F1 Dutch Grand Prix, but team principal Adrian Newey believes there is still even more to come.

The team in green are still running near the back of the field after a disastrous first half of 2026, but everything is very relative. Until recently they had been a laughing stock, struggling to even battle with rookie team Cadillac.

However on Sunday, after Newey’s comments, Alonso picked up the team’s second and third points of the season with a smooth drive to take ninth place ahead of the Alpine of Pierre Gasly.

After Saturday’s action at Zandvoort the two-time world champion Alonso raved about how Newey’s chassis upgrades (he brought a massive 16 to the Hungarian Grand Prix and five more to Zandvoort) are transforming the team’s fortunes.

He explained: “In Budapest we made it to Q2, and here we were just one-tenth away,” Alonso continued. “Plus, this is the smallest margin behind the Q1 leader. Piastri was 1.3 seconds [+0.955s] ahead of us. Before, we had an average gap of 4.5 seconds to the best, so we’ve improved by three seconds over two races. It’s encouraging.

“It’s incredible; everything is working as planned. But it’s a tough sport, and you always have to improve.”

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Newey says there is ‘more potential to unlock’

If Alonso is happy with the evidence from the last two race weekends, he will be even happier when he hears what design genius Newey had to say after Saturday’s action in the Netherlands. He believes there is still more to come.

“Despite the limited practice running of a sprint event, the weekend so far has given us valuable track time to better understand the characteristics of our recent upgrades and the updated power unit.

“Both drivers are reporting significant steps forward with the chassis and aero performance.

“The key takeaway is that we need to improve the drivability, and doing so will help us find more performance.

“Our pace is much improved compared to a couple of races ago – but we know there’s more potential to unlock from this package.”

Honda question mark, and Alonso future

As Newey rightly pointed out, the big question mark right now is that much-maligned Honda power unit. It got its first upgrade at Zandvoort but there are clearly teething problems to resolve.

Alonso’s team-mate Lance Stroll described it as ‘a lottery’ after qualifying on Saturday – saying drivability and power are the two big issues for the team right now.

Whether Honda can prove they are capable of delivering or not could well decide the future of Alonso in the sport. The 45-year-old is currently considering whether to sign a new deal with Aston Martin for 2027 and beyond.

Alonso’s other options right now appear to be a move to another team (limited potential here with Alpine the only real rumoured landing spot) or retirement.

F1 RESULTS: Full times, finishing positions and penalties from Dutch Grand Prix

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Ferrari F1 superstar Charles Leclerc says there is about to be a big change in his family as he teases a ‘very exciting’ event coming later this year.

The 28-year-old Monegasque star is one of the most popular drivers on the 2026 grid, and also part of one of the sport’s power couples alongside his wife Alexandra.

The couple married in a gorgeous civil ceremony in Monaco earlier this year, and are set to have an even bigger ‘second wedding’ next year.

Recently Charles and infuencer Alex have been enjoying some precious family time during the sport’s summer break, and have shared some adorable pictures to show fans what they’ve been up to.

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Adorable summer break photos

Part of the break involved Charles and Alexandra spending time with family – including his mum Pascale and brother Arthur. Also in he party was another Leclerc brother Lorenzo Toletta-Leclerc, his wife Charlotte and their new baby daughter Camilla.

The intimate gathering made for some beautiful pictures, and now Charles has admitted that there could be a rather major change coming soon in his own life.

‘We’re all definitely looking forward to it’

He was asked during an interview with Women’s Wear Daily whether there was anything else we should expect from him during the rest of this year. It’s fair to say Charles understood the assignment.

Laughing as he answered, Leclerc responded: “I know where you’re going with this question; it’s pretty obvious. My life is probably going to change quite a bit before 2027, family-wise.

“So we’re all definitely looking forward to it – it’s a very exciting time.”

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Red Bull can breathe a collective sigh of relief this morning after four-time world champion and star man Max Verstappen put pen to paper on a new, blockbuster deal.

Having been linked with joining one of their rivals – namely McLaren and Mercedes – or retiring from the sport altogether, Verstappen is now tied down at Red Bull through the 2030 season.

And, while Red Bull will be very grateful that Verstappen has decided to stick around, they now owe a deal of gratitude to another driver on the grid, one Kimi Antonelli.

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Mercedes were heavily linked to Max Verstappen

We don’t have to cast our minds back too long to get to a time when Verstappen was being heavily linked with a switch to Mercedes.

Having lost Lewis Hamilton ahead of the 2025 season, Mercedes entered 2025 with Antonelli and George Russell both on one-year deals, handing them great flexibility when it came to determining their drivers for 2026 and beyond.

It feels like an age ago now given his exploits this season, but Antonelli’s rookie struggles only added fuel to the fire that the team might look to add Verstappen to their ranks, with Toto Wolff having missed out on signing him way back in 2014.

However, one crucial factor was not in play in 2025. Max Verstappen’s exit clause.

While his 2026 break clause came into effect during the summer break because he was outside of the top two in the drivers’ standings, that exit clause did not reportedly become active in 2025 due to Verstappen meeting his performance targets at the time, which only required him to be third in the standings.

Over that 2025 summer, Wolff had even confirmed Mercedes were exploring what Verstappen was set to do in the future, all while Russell and Antonelli’s futures remained up in the air.

Crucially, however, with the clause not active, the option to sign Verstappen simply wasn’t there.

We’ll never know what Mercedes would have done if it was, but it isn’t too much of a stretch to think that if the four-time world champion was available, Wolff would have acted swiftly, particularly with question marks hanging over Antonelli at the time.

Kimi Antonelli saved Red Bull; Mercedes don’t need Verstappen

Fast forward to 2026, and Verstappen’s clause did become active, but things had drastically changed at Mercedes.

Antonelli’s ascent from struggling rookie to potentially the youngest champion the sport has ever seen has been remarkable.

The 19-year-old Italian’s six grands prix victories so far this year have proved to Wolff and company that he is very much capable of competing for and winning a championship in F1, even despite his young age. Any question marks over his talent and mentality after a tough rookie season have been firmly put to bed.

In that sense, Kimi Antonelli might have saved Red Bull.

Had the young Italian not had such a tremendous turnaround in form this season, Wolff surely would have acted the second that Verstappen’s break clause became active in 2026.

As much as he likes his current drivers, the Austrian is a serial winner, and would have surely taken the opportunity to tie up the sport’s best driver if the same question marks still hung over the young Italian this season.

But they don’t – while Russell has had his struggles this year, Mercedes have nurtured Antonelli perfectly and he has emerged as a real star of the sport. The bad news for his rivals, is that he will likely continue to get even better.

Of course, you could argue that Wolff could have looked to put Verstappen alongside Antonelli and oust Russell. However, given the way that Verstappen has destroyed some of his team-mates at Red Bull over the years, that would not have been a wise move and certainly would have risked destabilising Antonelli’s progression.

Antonelli’s ascent essentially decided that there was no room at the inn for Verstappen at Mercedes, no requirement to land a driver they knew was capable of winning championships. Because they now already have one.

Former F1 team principal Guenther Steiner summed it up perfectly in a recent appearance on the Up to Speed podcast, explaining: “Mercedes, obviously, I think they found now the next Max Verstappen, so maybe they don’t need the real Max Verstappen.”

Verstappen himself has now admitted that he was closer to retirement than joining another team such as Mercedes, and Antonelli’s rise surely played a role in that.

Ultimately, Antonelli’s emergence has given Mercedes little reason to disrupt what is already looking like a winning formula this season, while at the same time giving Red Bull the breathing room it needed to secure Verstappen’s signature again.

Antonelli has established himself as a genuine F1 title contender in his second season in the sport, and that has meant that the biggest threat to Verstappen’s Red Bull future inadvertently disappeared.

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