A field journal for motorsport.
Past 15 places, F1's grid rule stops adding and sorts by qualifying. Ferrari's full power unit change at Interlagos put Lewis Hamilton one slot lower than a new engine alone would have, and Max Verstappen's decision to sit out Q2 left him a place further back still.
Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa came to the finale 17 points clear and left 18 clear, classified 10th. Aitken, Bourdais and Bamber won for Cadillac, and post-race penalties cost Aston Martin what would have been its first Hypercar podium.
Kimi Antonelli spun away the lead on lap 20 and George Russell spun leaving the pits, but 22 points to Ferrari's 6 closed the teams' title with 129 left. Lando Norris won, and Max Verstappen went from 21st to second.
Flag & Clock is a field journal for motorsport. The regulated lanes and the world adjacent to them. F1 at the centre. Formula E, Le Mans, MotoGP, and rally as equals. Engineering and the rulebook, the billion-dollar business of the sport, rivalries between manufacturers and individuals, drivers and principals, culture and fanbase, and the technology that eventually ends up on the road.
Alan Jones, the 1980 world champion, has died aged 80. Read race by race from 1975 to 1986, the official results give him 12 world championship wins: one for Shadow in 1977, and 11 of the 15 races Williams won between July 1979 and October 1981.
Liberty Media's third-quarter release puts primary Formula 1 revenue at $2,052m for the first nine months of 2026, against $2,089m, from 15 races against 17. The release books F1's season-based income as a share of the calendar, 15/23rds against 17/24ths, while race promotion follows the races held. Team payments fell 4.8 percent.
Article C5.2.8 of the 2026 Technical Regulations cuts ERS-K power by car speed. Without Overtake, full 350 kW ends at 290 kph and power reaches zero at 345. With it, the taper starts at 337.5 kph and ends at 355. Above 337.5 kph, every kph an Overtake car gains costs it 20 kW.
Marquez turned a 19-point Saturday lead into 44 with Jorge Martin out injured. Pedro Acosta won the Sprint and took second on Sunday. With Martin scoring nothing, a title at Lusail needs a Sprint top five plus the Grand Prix win, or a Sprint win plus second, and Lusail is set to run without Yamaha or Alex Marquez.
Kimi Antonelli needed ninth and took third, 119 points clear of Max Verstappen with 100 left. Verstappen beat Lewis Hamilton after Charles Leclerc's first-lap penalty gave Red Bull the lead at the stops, and post-race penalties then rewrote the points below sixth.
Yamaha will not race at Lusail, citing a company travel ban. The FIM's Grand Prix regulations commit every entry to every round, allow a later-round withdrawal only for medical reasons or force majeure, and split the judgment between three bodies. The one consequence the book applies by arithmetic, the concessions table, cannot hurt Yamaha.
Cadillac has committed to Sergio Perez "until at least 2029", four days before his 300th Grand Prix start. The FIA's 2025 approval puts the first GM power unit in 2029 too, so Perez is the one Cadillac race driver whose announced contract reaches the season the team plans to switch from Ferrari engines to its own. The second seat has no 2027 commitment yet.
After round 18, nine points cover the four drivers behind Kimi Antonelli and six of the drivers behind him can still reach second place. Mercedes must outscore Ferrari by at least 40 in Mexico City to close the constructors' title there, and George Russell gives his car to Frederik Vesti for first practice.
Rebuilt from the FIA practice classifications for all 18 rounds: Mercedes has never put a nominated rookie in Russell's car, Racing Bulls has never put one in Lindblad's, and no round since Monza has cut the total. Issue 09 of the Sporting Regulations also made each remaining run harder to bank.
Marquez went from a Q2 crash to pole by 1.494 seconds and won Saturday's Sprint by 0.323 seconds after Jorge Martin crashed out of the lead fight and broke his wrist. On Sunday all three races were cancelled because the medical helicopter could not fly, which leaves Marquez 10 points clear with four rounds scheduled and Martin unsure for Sepang.
Kimi Antonelli won the United States Grand Prix from pole and leaves Texas 123 points clear of George Russell with 125 left. Russell's eighth place, after a five-second penalty for leaving the track to stay ahead of Oscar Piastri on the first lap, and Lewis Hamilton's fourth kept the title open. McLaren and Red Bull are now level on 355.
Issue 01 of the 2027 Sporting Regulations, approved on 19 October, added three words to Article B8.2.3 and still prints nothing between its two conditions. An FIA spokesperson said in July, as RacingNews365 reported, that the penalty-free allocation stays the same in 2027 and 2028 as in 2026. Unlike in 2026, the printed words also allow a reading that gives the extra unit only to newcomers.
The World Motor Sport Council replaced the Manufacturers' Championship on 19 October with a title open to independent tuners that enter every round of 2027. Project Rally One's target also falls below the eight rallies the FIA's December participation rule asks of a new car on a 15-round calendar, which leaves the seven-event Teams' title as the one its plan reaches, at the top of its range.
The #8 Toyota of Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa won the first 6 Hours of Barcelona by 0.583 seconds from the #7, with a five-second penalty served on the way. Toyota is 58 points clear of BMW with 44 left to score, and the drivers' title is now a fight between two Toyotas at Mike Conway's last race.
Toyota Gazoo Racing's initials are on the team name and its drivers get Haas test days. Rafael Camara's multi-year deal shows where the published partnership terms stop, and none of them mention a race seat.
The 13 October release fixes the length of the deal, a site in Bugesera and FIA Grade 1 status. It names no race date, hosting fee or build cost, and a start reported a week earlier as 2030 became "the early 2030s".
Marco Bezzecchi passed Raul Fernandez, riding hurt after a Sprint crash, on lap 19 of 27 and won. Jorge Martin's third place put him back ahead of Marc Marquez, who had won the Sprint after Martin sat up with four laps left. Five rounds remain and the gap is the two points it was on Friday.
Max Verstappen took Sprint pole, the Sprint, Grand Prix pole and the Grand Prix at Marina Bay for his 73rd win, at his 250th start. Ferrari called both cars in under the second Virtual Safety Car and only Charles Leclerc came. Kimi Antonelli left Singapore 102 points clear with six rounds to run.
Porsche raised its stake in the Nürburgring team from 51 to 67 per cent on 8 October, with no price and no seller named. The release files Manthey under a new sports-car structure and lists kits, few-off models and racetrack experiences as the plan.
From 2027 a 15-minute Sprint Qualifying sets Saturday's grid and every rider runs Q1 for Sunday's. Four commission members approved it; Bagnaia says four riders agreed, Martin says riders were not asked.
Toyota's British driver stops after the 6 Hours of Monza in November, his 94th race for the team. The car he shared led Le Mans in 2017 and 2019 and lost both before its first win in 2021.
Max Verstappen beat Kimi Antonelli by 2.307 seconds in a Bahrain Grand Prix run in Malaysia after a formation lap the FIA had to abandon. George Russell was running third when his Mercedes stopped after 49 laps, and Antonelli left Malaysia 84 points ahead of him with seven rounds to run.
Porsche Penske won a ten-hour race interrupted by 16 full-course cautions and a lightning red flag. Jack Aitken clinched the GTP title by taking the start, and Acura signed off its paused programme from pole with sixth.
Elfyn Evans finished fifth in Rally Italia Sardegna, nearly five minutes back after a puncture on the penultimate stage, and is world champion with Scott Martin. Oliver Solberg needed only to beat him on the Power Stage, was quicker at the splits, and went off in the final stretch.
