Six-times world champion Lewis Hamilton and his team will take centre stage, hoping for another year of dominance after winning both titles for the past six years and ending up fastest in winter testing. Ferrari can be trusted to provide plenty of headlines with four-times champion Sebastian Vettel fighting to reassert himself at the team after being outshone by quick newcomer Leclerc, a double winner in 2019.
Daniel Ricciardo kept calm and carried on to win a tense Monaco Grand Prix for Red Bull on Sunday after power unit problems threatened to wreck his hopes of victory in Formula One's showcase race.
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel let rip with a blast of swear words after two first lap collisions with Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat dumped him out of the Russian's home race on Sunday.
Formula One has lost another of its principals.
Red Bull are hoping that engine and chassis upgrades will help them beat Ferrari and Formula One champions Mercedes more often after Max Verstappen's Spanish Grand Prix victory on Sunday.
On a rainsoaked afternoon that saw the race twice stopped and re-started with the safety car deployed five times, there were also those who felt the sport had erred too far on the side of caution.
Max Verstappen was compared to Formula One greats Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher on Sunday after the Dutch teenager's sensational drive to third place in a wet and chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix. Even father and former racer Jos, the 19-year-old Red Bull driver's biggest fan and fiercest critic, was astonished. "What Max showed here today was really special," he said of a race likely to go down in the sport's annals as one for the ages. In the last 15 laps, after a change to extreme wet tyres, Verstappen passed more than half the starting grid as he went from 16th place to the podium.
The front row lockout was a record-equalling 65th for champions Mercedes.
Reversed starting grids, one of several proposals under discussion by Formula One team bosses on Tuesday in meetings about the sport's future look and direction, would spell "disaster", according to French driver Romain Grosjean. The concept of setting the grid by reversing the order of the top 10 drivers from qualifying, so that the fastest starts 10th, has been discussed previously to make races less predictable. The usual front-runners would then have to fight through the field rather than pulling clear at the front without being challenged. Championship points would be awarded for qualifying to give drivers every incentive to chase pole position. Grosjean, now with the new U.S.-owned Haas F1 team, experienced the reversed format on his way to winning the GP2 feeder series. "Disaster," he told Reuters when asked about the idea during pre-season testing. "I've been doing it in GP2 and it's probably why you win the title but it's not why you win races." Grosjean said making cars harder and more physical to drive, and drivers more susceptible to fatigue and mistakes, would have the same end result in terms of adding to the excitement without being artificial.
In a race of safety cars and surprises, Verstappen's former team mate Pierre Gasly made a first podium appearance in second place for Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso, a rare Honda-powered one-two.
The Red Bull Formula One factory in Milton Keynes has been raided and thieves stole over 60 trophies.
Red Bull, drivers' and constructors' champions for four years in a row from 2010, have fallen out with underperforming Renault and are casting around for a replacement engine provider with Ferrari their only real option given Honda's woes.
Red Bull's Mark Webber faces a 10-place grid penalty at the Korean Grand Prix after being reprimanded for hitching a lift on Fernando Alonso's Ferrari at the end of Sunday's race in Singapore.
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton won the Hungarian Grand Prix from pole position for Mercedes on Sunday to go into the August break with a 24-point lead over Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel.
Silverstone can provide the antidote to Austria for Lewis Hamilton this weekend, with a record sixth British Grand Prix win -- and his fifth in a row -- there for the taking.
Mercedes won the Formula One constructors' title for the fourth year in a row on Sunday but Lewis Hamilton was made to wait despite cruising to a U.S. Grand Prix victory at one of his favourite circuits.
'I'm the first one to say we shouldn't be speaking bad about things on TV, but I think the new qualifying format is pretty rubbish'
Lewis Hamilton took a huge stride towards a fourth Formula One title on Sunday with victory in an incident-packed Singapore Grand Prix after Ferrari title rival Sebastian Vettel crashed out at the start.
There has long been speculation about whether Audi might be tempted into Formula One.
Hamilton said he would still be "incredibly proud" to pull level with "an icon like Michael" and seven was way beyond his wildest dreams, but numbers and titles maybe meant more to those on the outside.
Three-time world champion Lewis Hamilton dominated practice at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Friday, putting Mercedes on top of the timesheets and leaving his Formula One rivals with plenty to ponder before the weekend.
Red Bull are among a number of team frustrated by their inability to keep up with Mercedes, who dominated Formula One last year and cruised to an easy victory in Sunday's season-opening Australian Grand Prix
'Every great Formula One season is marked by a great rivalry. Last year it was our internal battle between Lewis and Nico and this year it seems that the fight is on between Ferrari and Mercedes and Lewis and Sebastian'
The German secured his first pole since Spain in May when the red flags came out with 36 seconds remaining, leaving team mate and championship leader Lewis Hamilton no chance of claiming a 12th pole in 14 races.
A prototype 'halo' head protection device made its Formula One test debut in Spain on Thursday, with Kimi Raikkonen declaring visibility to be 'okay' after lapping with it attached to the cockpit of his Ferrari.
Formula One had been braced for crashes and mayhem in Azerbaijan's race debut in Baku on Sunday but instead the drivers defied all expectations and barely put a wheel out of place.
Max Verstappen gave himself a perfect 20th birthday present by winning the last Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday, while Lewis Hamilton stretched his Formula One world championship lead to 34 points.
Formula One champions Red Bull recognised on Saturday they were well behind rivals in pre-season testing but dismissed reports that Sebastian Vettel had "thrown a hissy fit" about the situation.
'I'm so grateful for everyone who helped me be here, to raise the bar and lift the cup'
Sebastian Vettel's hopes of vaulting back into the overall Formula One world championship lead were wrecked by a first corner collision on the opening lap of the Singapore Grand Prix.
The last time Kimi Raikkonen stood on top of a Formula One podium, Lewis Hamilton had just joined Mercedes with one championship to his name and Sebastian Vettel was riding high with Red Bull.
Fernando Alonso is leaving Ferrari at the end of the season because he wants a fresh environment and needs to be winning again, the Formula One team's ex-chairman Luca di Montezemolo said on Wednesday.
Formula One is braced for the next episode of the Max Verstappen show as Red Bull's teen sensation heads for Ferrari's home circuit only days after making the Italian team's drivers see red. While triple world champion Lewis Hamilton is aiming for his 50th grand prix win on Sunday, to become the first since Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio in the 1950s to win three years in a row at Monza, Verstappen will be the talk of the town.
Lewis Hamilton heads into Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix fired up to complete a hat-trick of victories and seize the lead in the Formula One title race for the first time this season.
Lewis Hamilton won his home British Grand Prix for the third year in a row on Sunday with Mercedes team mate and title rival Nico Rosberg finishing second but under a stewards' investigation.
Max Verstappen's sensational first Formula One victory, at just 18 years of age, had former champions and grandees of the sport casting around for superlatives at the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday.
'I was never Mad Max. I was just Max who was trying to get the best result for the team'
Formula One has banned from next week's Singapore Grand Prix all radio communications that help improve the performance of the car or driver in a move that could add another twist to the title battle between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.
Formula One has a reputation for being exclusive and inaccessible compared to series like the world endurance championship, where fans have much more access to the paddock and drivers during race weekends. But the sport is set for a revamp.
Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel battle to match the late Argentine's 1950s feat of five world championships.
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