00:06Mercedes returned to its Brackley base, thrilled to get another Grand Prix win in Canada,
00:11five from five to start the 2026 campaign, and young gun Kimi Antonelli's record fourth straight
00:17career win. But while its first major upgrade for the year was a step forward, with its cars
00:24sweeping both Saturday's Sprint and Sunday's Grand Prix, Technical Director James Allison
00:29says that joy has been marred by George Russell's DNF, Merck's first for the season.
00:35On George's PU failure, it was an engine kill caused by a failure in the battery, which just
00:43suffered a catastrophic failure a third of the way into the race and brought George's race to an end
00:50there. We could see enough at the end of the race that the battery was fairly unhappy, some heat
00:55damage there. That engine kill also destroyed the thrilling wheel-to-wheel duel between its drivers,
01:02Russell and Antonelli, for the race's lead. But while the garage had its heart in its mouth across
01:07those 30 laps, Allison says the team is not about to intervene, instead letting them race on.
01:14It's a funny experience watching your drivers race as hard as they did in Canada. A bit of you wishes
01:21they
01:21were robots that would just get the performance out of the car without fighting one another. But the
01:26larger and better part of the team, I think, is thrilled by that fight, as long as they don't touch
01:32one another.
01:34The squad's bigger focus is getting upgrades onto the car in this opening season of the super hybrid
01:39era, where development is king and the gains are bigger than ever before.
01:46These are new rules. The development rate is really steep, something like quarter of a second a month.
01:52So if there was a power cut here in Brackley and the same up the road in Bricksworth for six
01:57weeks,
01:58that would be all of the advantage that we've eked out so far this season gone in a flash.
02:11Monaco 2026 marks the start of Formula One's European season, with its most historic events,
02:17its greatest hits coming thick and fast. Starting with three double headers, each separated by a weekend,
02:26up to the summer break. All up, there's nine events, including two sprints, to be held across the sport's
02:32European heartland in just 14 weeks. Monaco, though, also marks the return of the sport's support series
02:40in full force, with FIDA F2, F3 and Porsche's Super Cup. F2 is set to continue on from its inaugural
02:49North
02:50American tour. And there, Italian Gabriele Mini, who is part of Alpine's Academy, is the man to beat.
02:59The 21-year-old has been the most consistent, with one win in Miami. But behind him, just six points
03:05covers second to seventh, including Red Bull's Nikolet Solov in third, who has two wins to Mini's one.
03:14For F3, it's been a long wait since the last race in Australia in early March, and the remaining rounds
03:20all in Europe. But American Ugo Ugochukwu leads the standings heading to Monte Carlo.
03:29The 19-year-old and Spanish rival Bruno Del Pino have one win each, and just seven points are between
03:35them. Del Pino and Great Britain's Freddie Slater are also equal on points. 15 covers the top six.
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