Students at Stan State who watch Formula 1 (F1) are looking forward to the 2026 season, which began during the weekend of March 6-8 in Australia and will continue through early December with races around the world.
As new regulations, teams and drivers enter the scene this year, students are excited for what is to come.
As F1 consists of drivers and teams from many different countries, fans enjoy seeing their favorites take the spotlight on the race track.
Kaihli Miner-Hill (Sophomore, Creative Media) began watching F1 after seeing a lot of related content on social media. She enjoys watching F1 for the fun and culture of the sport.
“I like getting to see the drivers interact with each other, because they’re just normal people, getting to do a fun sport, and that’s their dream. So it’s fun to get to see them achieve what they wanted,” Miner-Hill said.
Some of Miner-Hill’s favorite drivers are Lando Norris from the McLaren team, Charles Leclerc from the Ferrari team, and Carlos Sainz from the Williams team.
She was happy to see Norris win the 2025 championship and hopes Norris and all the drivers have a strong season.
“All these drivers do deserve a win. For my favorites, I’d love to see them win at least once. I do hope Lando gets a couple more wins, but I hope everyone else still gets at least one good win,” she said.
Alexis King (Senior, English) adores watching F1 for the thrill, and her favorite teams include McLaren and Williams, while her favorite drivers include Norris, Piastri and Williams driver Carlos Sainz. King sided with Piastri and hopes he does well throughout this year’s season while reflecting on his performance from last year.
“I think they will do very well because he was so close last season, and they dominated last season with it. Like the cars themselves, I think they’ve created such a great team that the drivers feel supported, as well as the engineers have what they need to succeed, and to actually give a good car,” King said.
King also talked about a few of the young drivers starring in the 2026 F1 season, notably Kimi Antonelli from the Mercedes team. With Antonelli advancing in the races and reaching the podium, she imagines F1 shifting toward younger winners, rather than the top drivers constantly expected to win.
“Having like Max and all of the people who have dominated and Lewis specifically, who has seven world championships, I feel like that kind of shifts the lens if it’s a younger guy and a guy that nobody really expects to win, making us question what it takes to be world champion,” she said.
As far as teams and drivers potentially not doing well during the 2026 season, Jason Schlenker (Junior, English) feels that the newer teams joining F1, Cadillac and Audi, might not do as well as other teams. He is still excited to see them compete.
“So I’m like, expecting to see these new teams just kind of figure it out. You know, if they don’t do too well, unfortunate, but you know, maybe I’m down on them right now, but just because they’re new teams, they’re kind of figuring it out,” Schlenker said.
For the new teams, Schlenker is excited to watch Sergio Perez return to the races with Cadillac. He looks forward to seeing how Perez performs with Cadillac this season.
“My personal favorite is really Sergio Perez, Checo. I’m really excited to see that, you know, after being let go by Red Bull, now he’s going to perform for Cadillac. I’m really interested to see how he does, how that team does,” he said.
With the 2026 F1 season running from March through early December, Stan State students are looking forward to watching the races and keeping up with drivers’ performances.
