00:09Mercedes returned to its Brackley base, thrilled to get another Grand Prix win in Canada,
00:14five from five to start the 2026 campaign, and young gun Kimi Antonelli's record fourth straight
00:20career win. But while its first major upgrade for the year was a step forward, with its cars
00:27sweeping both Saturday's Sprint and Sunday's Grand Prix, Technical Director James Allison
00:32says the joy has been marred by George Russell's DNF, Merck's first for the season.
00:38On George's PU failure, it was an engine kill caused by a failure in the battery, which
00:46just suffered a catastrophic failure a third of the way into the race and brought George's
00:51race to an end there. We could see enough at the end of the race that the battery was
00:56fairly unhappy, some heat damage there.
01:00That engine kill also destroyed the thrilling wheel-to-wheel duel between its drivers Russell
01:05and Antonelli for the race's lead. But while the garage had its heart in its mouth across
01:10those 30 laps, Allison says the team is not about to intervene, instead letting them race
01:16on.
01:17It's a funny experience watching your drivers race as hard as they did in Canada. A bit of
01:23you wishes they were robots that would just get the performance out of the car without
01:28fighting one another. But the larger and better part of the team, I think, is thrilled by that
01:33fight. As long as they don't touch one another.
01:37The squad's bigger focus is getting upgrades onto the car in this opening season of the
01:41super-hybrid era, where development is king and the gains are bigger than ever before.
01:49These are new rules. The development rate is really steep, something like quarter of a second
01:55a month. So if there was a power cut here in Brackley and the same up the road in Bricksworth
02:00for six weeks, that would be all of the advantage that we've eked out so far this season, gone
02:04in a flash.
02:14Monaco 2026 marks the start of Formula One's European season, with its most historic events,
02:20its greatest hits, coming thick and fast.
02:25Starting with three double-headers, each separated by a weekend, up to the summer break.
02:30All up, there's nine events, including two sprints, to be held across the sport's European
02:35heartland in just 14 weeks.
02:40Monaco, though, also marks the return of the sport's support series in full force, with
02:45FIDA F2, F3 and Porsche Supercar.
02:50F2 is set to continue on from its inaugural North American tour. And there, Italian Gabriele
02:55Mini, who is part of Alpine's Academy, is the man to beat.
03:02The 21-year-old has been the most consistent, with one win in Miami. But behind him, just
03:07six points covers second to seventh, including Red Bull's Nikolet Solov in third, who has
03:13two wins to Mini's one.
03:17For F3, it's been a long wait since the last race in Australia in early March, and the
03:22remaining rounds all in Europe. But American Ugo Ugochukwu leads the standings, heading
03:28to Monte Carlo.
03:32The 19-year-old and Spanish rival Bruno Del Pino have one win each, and just seven points
03:38are between them. Del Pino and Great Britain's Freddie Slater are also equal on points. Fifteen
03:44covers the top six.
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