00:04Red Bull's sister team, Racing Bulls, were early arrivals in Japan, with the squad launching a special one-off livery
00:11at a Tokyo Drift event, celebrating local car culture, ahead of the weekend at Suzuka.
00:17The Energy Drinks brand brought together 500 cars, 5,000 fans, and drivers from F1, the World Rally Championship, and
00:25drifting, to a Yokohama warehouse, where they threaded the barriers on a purpose-built track, just meters from spectators, during
00:33the neon-lit night.
00:38Before four-time World Drift Champion Mad Mike Widdett unveiled the F1 car's scheme using a Drift Mini, with its
00:45striking white and red design, inspired by Red Bull's Spring Edition can.
00:572025 F1 World Champion Lando Norris has been immortalized, with a wax figure of the McLaren driver soon to be
01:03arriving at world-famous attraction Madame Tussauds London.
01:08Norris has been working closely with Madame Tussauds' studio team, with the highly skilled artists capturing every precise detail,
01:15from colour checks of the star driver to measurements from head-to-toe.
01:21The Brit heads to Japan hoping for a season reset, after he and his teammate Oscar Piastri failed to take
01:28the start of the Chinese Grand Prix, both due to an electrical issue on their power units.
01:38F1 was rocked last week with news that Jonathan Wheatley had left Audi with immediate effect for personal reasons,
01:44less than a year into his role, amid a rumoured potential forthcoming switch to Aston Martin.
01:51Aston Martin has reportedly been hunting for a new team principal since before last year's Las Vegas Grand Prix,
01:58with Adrian Newey's rise to the role allegedly only a temporary solution.
02:03But the green mark has yet to confirm Wheatley, following Audi's statement on his exit,
02:08with the team's executive chairman, Lawrence Stroll, preferring to state his brand doesn't comment on speculation.
02:15It's rumoured that Wheatley would need to serve a long gardening leave period before joining another team,
02:21meaning that Newey could remain as team boss for the rest of 2026.
02:29Kimi Antonelli's race engineer at Mercedes, Peter Bollington,
02:32says that he hopes the 19-year-old's maiden win in China will give him the strength to continue building
02:38his race craft.
02:41Antonelli replaced Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes last season,
02:44but it was a challenging rookie campaign, despite three podiums, with a mid-season struggle.
02:50And Bonington told official podcast F1 Nation that he wants the Italian's win to encourage him to push on.
03:00What I am hoping it does is that it will just give him the confidence in that the process is
03:06working,
03:06and what we're doing is the right thing, and we just need to stay on this path,
03:12not get carried away, and just keep cracking on with the things that we're good at and working hard.
03:23McLaren driver Oscar Piastri is doubtful that his Papaya squad will be able to close the significant gap
03:29to frontrunners Mercedes and Ferrari in Japan, with the squad in its own pocket in third.
03:36Piastri is yet to turn a racing lap in 2026,
03:39with the Melbournian crashing out of his home race in Australia en route to the grid following an energy spike,
03:45while separate power unit electrical issues for him and teammate Lando Norris forced a double DNS in China.
03:53But while McLaren are putting fixes in place,
03:55Piastri says it's unlikely that the squad's pace will be markedly different at Suzuka.
04:04I would be surprised if we can make up all the deficit, Piastri said.
04:08I think China's been pretty representative of where we've been,
04:11which has been kind of in a bit of no-man's land as third quickest.
04:16Piastri says something.
04:17As a Amelia actually
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