06 - 2026 Season Wrap Up: Rounds 17-24
- guffaluff
- Feb 24, 2025
- 4 min read
Hello, and welcome to my saga of Atlantic Racing, a small fish in a big pond, trying to make an impact in Formula 1! If you're new to the series, I urge you to take a look at the previous posts to be up to date on our story! :)
The 2026 season is now in the books, and we're going to take a look at the last few races of the season and the final standings!
----
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Rounds 17-24
Atlantic Racing
F2 / F3 Final Standings
----
ROUNDS 17-24 / FINAL STANDINGS
The pattern continued with more of the same through the last races of the season. Red Bull and McLaren were the only teams fighting for wins, with McLaren/Piastri keeping their supreme form. McLaren won 5 of the last 8 races, Red Bull managed to win 3.
After a early season Red Bull dominance, Oscar Piastri took over and won 15 out of 18 races, securing his first Championship, and clinching a Constructors title for McLaren, despite a rather lackluster performance by his teammate, Lando Norris. Huge congratulations to Oscar and McLaren, suberb job!
This means that in three seasons, we have three different constructors and driver champions! 2024 was Ferrari's year, with Leclerc taking the title. 2025 was the RedBull revenge tour where Max and Red Bull secured both titles, and now it was McLaren's turn. It will be very interesting to see if we get the first repeat title in 2027!
Max had to settle for 2nd in the WDC, with his teammate Carlos Sainz following not far behind in 3rd place. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't top Verstappen, but has proven himself to be a challenger. Red Bull seems to have gotten their dream lineup, and Sainz and Max have buried the hatchet after their early career conflicts.
Ferrari took 3rd in the constructors and was in a bit of no man's land there, but the biggest shocker of the season has to be the fall of Mercedes. In 2025, they finished 3rd overall in the constructors standings with 411 points, but in 2026 they ranked number 8, failing to even score in triple digits, only 90 points! 2026 introduced major regulation changes, and it seems like Mercedes is having troubles understanding their car under these new technical regulations. Given their history, it wouldn't be a surprise to see them bounce back in 2027, but only time will tell.
ATLANTIC RACING - 4TH PLACE!
As can be seen from the standings above, we managed to finish the season in 4th place! In the last entry, it was looking ever so more likely that Aston Martin would snatch 4th place away from us, but a couple of new upgrade packages to our car, along with decent performance by our drivers, were enough to keep them at bay through the last races.
This is a huge success for the team, which will further solidify our position in Formula 1. Goal for the next season is of course to build on this year's success and at least stay in the mix as best of the rest, but hopefully we can start mixing it up with the big dogs in the fight for the Top 3.
Between our drivers, Iwasa was the clear winner:
The duo's first full season as teammates went similarly as 2025, where Iwasa joined the team in-season. Iwasa has established his place in the team as the lead driver, comfortably beating Bearman again. Unfortunately the qualifying data is missing since I gathered the data after I moved into 2027, and the game deletes all qualifying data from previous seasons. But I can safely say, Iwasa did beat Bearman in that aspect as well.
Both drivers performed consistently, though, with only 1 DNF each, minimizing unexpected expenses. Hopefully, that trend continues in 2027.
We're now entering the final year in the contracts of both Iwasa and Bearman, so this season we will have to make tough decisions. With the team improving, we might need to be on the lookout for stronger drivers to get the most out of our car going forward. Bearman has not lived up to expectations, and his development has not been as good as we expected. Maybe 2027 can be a breakout season for him, but I think it's safe to say that we will be keeping our eyes open on the driver market, so the heat is on.
F2 / F3 Final Standings
Here are the final Top 10 standings in F2 in 2026:
Zane Maloney takes the 2026 F2 title! His teammate at Trident, Antonelli, finished P2. Definetaly some promising prospects, and soon we'll see if any of them will make the F1 grid for 2027.
Doris Meier takes the F3 title comfortably, in a historic season, becoming the first female F3 winner! The Ferrari affiliate looks like she'll have a bright future, and perhaps a F1 seat one day. Exciting times in the world of motorsports, with the presence of promising female drivers on the rise.
CONCLUSION
So this marks the end of the 2026 season. Pretty eventful season, with a new champion and McLaren's first constructors title since 1998. F1's newest team, Atlantic Racing, making a splash, on the verge of breaking out of the midfield and into the top fight, and Mercedes tumbling down the order!
In addition to that, many drivers were on their final contract year going into 2026, so it will be interesting to see how the grid looks like for 2027, but we'll cover that in the next entry, coming soon!
So stay tuned! :)
Comments