Why almost EVERY driver is up for grabs as F1’s most explosive silly season yet explained

The 2026 season hasn’t even started yet, but the race 2027 has already begun.

It began, in fact, years ago, when most drivers ensured they’d be out of contract this season. Even the few with deals spanning into 2027 will have clauses based on performance this year.

It’s not by accident that we’re set for a potentially explosive silly season.

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The dual chassis and engine regulation changes have been known for years. The new rules are so significantly different that their potential to reimagine the competitive order is massive, and drivers have deliberately kept themselves unattached in a bid to capitalise on any shifts in the competitive landscape.

No-one wants to be tied down for the long term at the wrong team.

Formula 1 teams love to announce drivers have signed on ‘multi-year’ contracts. Unless the actual duration of a deal has been subsequently confirmed, the below list assumes ‘multi-year’ is two seasons and that any possible extra campaigns exist as options that must be activated rather than as automatic extensions.

Drivers out of contract in 2026

McLaren: none

Mercedes: George Russell, Andrea Kimi Antonelli

Red Bull Racing: Isack Hadjar

Ferrari: Lewis Hamilton

Williams: Alex Albon, Carlos Sainz

Aston Martin: Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll

Racing Bulls: Liam Lawson, Arvid Lindblad

Haas: Esteban Ocon, Oliver Bearman

Audi: Nico Hülkenberg, Gabriel Bortoleto

Alpine: Franco Colapinto

Cadillac: none

Lance Stroll is included in this list given he was last confirmed as racing into the new F1 era, though his contract is widely believed to be rolling at the pleasure of his father, team owner Lawrence Stroll.

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There are also two drivers who reportedly have favourable exit clauses in their contracts that could be activated this season if the drivers lose faith in their teams or the sport generally.

Drivers with reported exit clauses

Red Bull Racing: Max Verstappen (contracted until 2028)

Ferrari: Charles Leclerc (contracted until 2029)

That’s not just a majority of the grid; it’s practically everyone.

The only drivers known to be under contract this season are Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri (until at least 2027), Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas (2027), and Pierre Gasly (2028).

That means as many as 17 drivers are either up for renewal or able to move this year.

We’re yet to see how much the F1 environment will change. Even if at this early stage it looks as though the top four are still clear of the midfield, development trajectories have yet to be established. We could also find out that all the signs from testing were wrong.

But it’s already clear that some drivers have some serious thinking to do.

DRIVERS LIKELY TO STAY PUT

George Russell is believed to be on a one-plus-one contract at Mercedes, with 2027 activated based on performance. He described his future as being entirely in his own hands. If Mercedes is as good as is widely suspected, the Briton should have no trouble hanging onto his seat.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli is a Mercedes protégé. Despite some very rough patches last year, the Italian came good by the end of the season to show some of the promise of his junior career. While the rule changes could present a bump in the road, he’d have to have a shockingly poor year for the German marque to consider binning him and the investment it’s already made in him.

And let’s be honest about Lance Stroll. His father owns the Aston Martin team. He’s not going anywhere else, and he’s unlikely to retire — not least because the team is probably the least attractive on the grid right now based on its abysmal preseason showing. That situation could change later in the year, but it’s likely to be several seasons before it becomes a destination for the calibre of drivers that might convince Papa Stroll his son’s career has reached its peak.

DRIVERS WITH SOMETHING TO PROVE

You’d never have bet Lewis Hamilton would appear on this list when he first announced he was moving to Ferrari, but his 2025 season so at times so dire that he enters 2026 potentially the last year in his deal, with questions to answer.

The Briton says his deal is longer term than just two years, and that may be the case — Italian media reports there’s an option for 2027 — but it’s difficult to see this partnership continuing if he remains so stubbornly adrift of teammate Charles Leclerc and can’t demonstrate a solid upwards trajectory.

A podium is beneath minimum expectations, Hamilton now owning the record for longest stint with Ferrari without a rostrum finish. Victories — assuming the car is up to it, and it looks like it is — must be the first bar.

Really Hamilton wants to contend for his eighth title with Ferrari. It looks like long odds after 2025. This year it’s up to him to prove everyone wrong.

Isack Hadjar is in F1’s most ejection-prone seat this year, joining Red Bull Racing as Max Verstappen’s fourth teammate in 26 races.

The young Frenchman, in just his second season, hopes that the rule changes will unknot some of the driveability problems that had established themselves in Red Bull Racing’s cars during the ground-effect era, but he might also be concerned that the way the new car wants to be driven — with aggressive downshifting that destabilises the rear axle — achieves effectively the same thing.

With no Christian Horner or Helmut Marko at the helm, a poor season might not be enough to have him mercilessly axed, though it would depend on how strongly Arvid Lindblad was stating his case at Racing Bulls.

Either way, he’s about to step under the harshest spotlight of his career.

Esteban Ocon is in the unusual situation of having already been criticised by his team boss before the year had even started, with Haas principal Ayao Komatsu having explained that he was disappointed in the Frenchman’s form in 2025, having expected a driver of his experience to be better.

He’s kept the faith Ocon, but there’s no clearer writing on the wall than that.

Ocon started as the Haas steady hand but was usurped by rookie teammate Oliver Bearman — including on the championship table — before the end of the year. Ocon had no answer for Bearman’s speed, and the young Englishman scored the team’s standout results.

Another year on that trajectory — assuming Bearman were to stay at Haas — would negate the need for the experience Ocon. The question for him in 2026, therefore, is existential.

DRIVERS KNOCKING ON THE DOOR

Oliver Bearman, though, is an interesting case all on his own. He’s on loan at Haas from Ferrari as the Italian team’s protégé. While he still has to prove he has the composure to race at the front, his trajectory has him destined for Maranello.

The early-season scrappiness in particular mustn’t return. Likewise the red flag infringements, for which there is no excuse, even for a rookie. A team fighting for wins can’t afford that sort of sloppiness.

He would need Lewis Hamilton or Charles Leclerc to vacate their seats given their standing, but a strong season and an opening would be enough for his elevation.

Arvid Lindblad is in a theoretically similar position. Promoted rapidly by exited Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko — rapidly than perhaps the remaining management would have liked — he’s now in the deep end and must prove he can swim. With Liam Lawson as his teammate, he’ll be measured against a known quantity. He’ll know that if Hadjar were to struggle at Red Bull Racing, he’s next in line and must be ready.

Liam Lawson, though, is in a slightly different position. No driver has ever returned to Red Bull Racing after being axed.

Perhaps that rule will be less strictly enforced under new management, but few consider him likely to return to Milton Keynes. That means his job this year is boost his stocks enough that he might be able to continue his career elsewhere in 2027 or 2028, with three years conventionally the maximum stint at the junior team.

The only driver pushing up from Red Bull’s junior driver roster below, however, is Nikola Tsolov. A runner-up in last year’s Formula 3 series, championship, albeit at his third attempt, he’s embarking on his first full-time Formula 2 campaign this year. His results are directly tied to Lawson’s future.

DRIVERS AT THE END OF THEIR TETHERS

These are the potentially big movers — and if they were to move, the consequences would be seismic.

Fernando Alonso, 45 years old in July, is first in the queue.

If Alonso endures another winless season — almost certain based on Aston Martin’s dire straits — he’ll have gone as long without winning as he did between his first and most recent victories, in 2003 and 2013 respectively. It’s a bizarre and unbecoming scenario for the two-time champion still considered by many to be among the greatest to have raced in Formula 1.

The Spaniard spoke openly last year about contemplating retirement at the end of this contract cycle, saying it would depend on how he felt physically and mentally about continuing.

Intriguingly, however, he said he was more likely to call it quits if this year’s car was competitive, with a poor car representing a job unfinished.

“If the car goes badly, there is a chance that it will continue for another year to end up with a good taste in the mouth,” he told Spanish paper AS last year. “If the car did well, 2026 is likely to be my last year.“

On paper that would suggest Alonso is practically guaranteed to continue — but, then again, it’s unlikely he thought the car could be this bad and the road back would be this long.

Charles Leclerc, meanwhile, is entering the peak of his career and determined to get himself into a competitive seat.

Ferrari has long built its Formula 1 efforts around Leclerc, its long-term protégé. The Monegasque is arguably the fastest qualifying driver on the grid but has rarely had the machinery to convert his 27 poles to victory.

He described this season as “now or never” for Ferrari given a bad start would likely condemn the Italian team to a years-long rebuild.

Leclerc is contracted until 2029, but reports in the Italian media suggest he has a favourable exit clause that could see him quit if the car isn’t up to fighting for the title.

Him leaving Maranello would amount to a massive no-confidence vote in its direction, though of course he’d need alternative options. Rumours last year big-bucks approaches from Aston Martin would obviously no longer be considered favourably.

Finally, there’s Max Verstappen, who spent half of last year answering questions about whether he could quit Red Bull Racing due to its declining form. Christian Horner’s sacking, however, appeared to alleviate concerns he would leave early, and the car came good by the end of the year, keeping the faith.

But amid the speculation, the Dutch media reported that Verstappen’s contract would have allowed him to quit had he been outside the championship top three halfway through last year. Subsequent reports revealed that that condition becomes a top-two title threshold at the same stage this year.

The biggest risk is that the Red Bull power unit isn’t up to scratch, though fears that’d be the case seem to have been allayed by pre-season testing. The car looks like it’s in the ballpark too.

But Verstappen has made no secret of his dislike for the new rules, and he’s suggested they’re likely to see him exit the sport eventually. That’s likely to mean he leaves at the end of his contract in 2028, but if the title is just out of reach and no changes are made to the rules, you’d be brave to second-guess the decisive Dutchman.

WILDCARDS

Franco Colapinto starts a high-pressure second season in the sport and his first full-time campaign. He failed to score in an admittedly dog of a car last year. In more competitive Alpine machinery, he’ll be expected to give teammate Gasly a push or risk the wrath of ruthless team boss Flavio Briatore — or, if the rumours are true, incoming chief Christian Horner sometime later this year.

Audi signed Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto across regulations to give it a stable baseline from which to develop. Carlos Sainz had already turned down the Audi project by joining Williams in 2025 given the expected long journey towards the front, but if the team can make some confident steps forward this year and if the power unit is in reasonable shape, an Audi works driver could begin to look attractive, particularly to a younger driver with time on their side.

Perhaps that could include Carlos Sainz or Williams teammate Alex Albon, both of whom are out of contract this year. Williams’s trajectory looked strong last year, including behind the scenes, where team boss James Vowles has been modernising the historic team, but its failure to be ready for testing and rumours the car is significantly overweight has knocked it off course.

Perhaps it’s only slightly adrift, in which case the team should end the year strongly and Sainz and Albon would be encouraged to stick to the plan. If, however, Williams struggles, it would be interesting to see which teams came knocking for these two highly rated drivers.