Racing Bulls overhaul Alpine in midfield war as Audi finally scores and Haas flounders

The Formula 1 midfield has rarely been more competitive — or more volatile. As the sport heads into its summer break, the battle for positions five through ten in the constructors' championship has tightened dramatically, with Racing Bulls leaping ahead of Alpine, Audi finally getting off the mark, and Haas continuing to slide.

Racing Bulls pounce past Alpine

Alpine were the pick of the midfield for much of the first half of the season, sitting in fifth place in the Teams' Championship with a healthy margin to the rest. Pierre Gasly scored in six of the first seven Grands Prix, including a Monaco podium, as the A526 delivered on pace weekend in, weekend out.

But that trend has not continued. Racing Bulls overhauled Alpine following a double-points score in Hungary, where both Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad finished in the top 10. The two teams had been tied on 61 points each heading into the race, but Racing Bulls are now five points ahead.

Managing Director Steve Nielsen was candid about the situation. "We did well at the first, I think, seven races. We got lucky a few times but we were always there or thereabouts in the mix of scoring points," he said. "We're in a development war with them, with Racing Bulls. And I keep hearing stories that some of the other teams — Aston Martin, Williams — are also bringing big upgrades, so we'll see. There's an awful long way to go and we're not taking anything for granted."

Alpine's last big raft of new parts was bolted on all the way back in Miami, while Racing Bulls have brought a bigger upgrade package more recently. Audi have also taken a big step forward, with both their cars finishing ahead of Gasly and Franco Colapinto in Budapest.

Neither Alpine driver was happy with the car in Hungary. "It felt bad out there, I really can't drive the way I'd like. The car doesn't respond well at all and there is a lot of work ahead of us," said Gasly. "We started the year probably edging the midfield, we have clearly dropped back in the order and it is going to be very important to find that performance and put it onto the car for the second part of the year."

Franco Colapinto added: "It was quite frustrating. I didn't have the pace, first of all. The balance was really poor. I don't really know what happened. I think we need to go through it and understand a bit more because it felt very far off the pace and [I'm] struggling a lot with the car."

Alpine now lie sixth, 40 points ahead of Haas, giving them a decent buffer despite their recent struggles. But with Racing Bulls expected to bring more parts in the second half of the season and other teams continuing to develop, the battle is far from settled.

Lawson edges Lindblad in Hungary split-strategy gamble

The battle between Racing Bulls drivers Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad has been one of the entertaining storylines of the 2026 season, and in Hungary, split strategies proved decisive as both scored points again.

Lawson had the upper hand through practice, while Lindblad lost most of FP3 to a late power unit change. The Briton recovered to qualify ninth, two places ahead of Lawson, with Audi's Nico Hulkenberg between them. But the New Zealander made the better start, jumping past both rivals and the struggling George Russell to claim an initial eighth.

Both Racing Bulls drivers initially planned a one-stop with a long first stint on the medium tyre. However, Hulkenberg's presence kept them on their toes, and after the Audi driver stopped, Racing Bulls reacted by pitting Lindblad first on Lap 20 and then Lawson a lap later. Hulkenberg's continued threat then led the team to split strategies — Lawson pitting for a second time on Lap 42 while Lindblad stayed out on the original one-stop plan.

On fresh soft tyres, Lawson had stronger pace than Lindblad on older hards, catching and passing his teammate on Lap 62 to take eighth. Hulkenberg also demoted Lindblad to tenth. "We didn't plan on two-stopping, so that was something that was a surprise," said Lawson. "A great call from the team, and the car's been really, really strong today."

Lindblad accepted the outcome philosophically: "It was a bit of a shame the one-stop didn't work, but I fully understand from the team's point of view. It was a big question mark going to the race. Then we saw Nico trigger the two, and we decided to split the strategy with the cars, which made sense, because if the hard hung on better, I would have looked like a hero being P8. And unfortunately, it didn't. So Liam was the one that maximised."

Audi's long-awaited breakthrough

For Nico Hulkenberg and Audi, the Hungarian Grand Prix finally delivered the points that had eluded them all season. The German finished ninth — his first points of 2026 — using a two-stop strategy and overtaking teammate Gabriel Bortoleto and Lindblad in the closing stages on the soft tyre.

"Obviously better to have points than not. It's been a long time coming this season," said Hulkenberg, who finished two seconds behind Lawson. "There were many occasions and opportunities this year where it should've happened but it didn't for various reasons, so that was annoying but that's racing sometimes for you. I and the team knew it's there — it was just a matter of time and putting it together. Finally, the piece fell into place."

The result means Audi move ahead of Williams in the Teams' standings, with the German manufacturer occupying eighth spot in their first season of Formula 1. It also marked three consecutive weekends of points for Audi, following Bortoleto's eighth-place finishes in Britain and Belgium.

"I think it's a very positive thing," Bortoleto said of the team's trajectory. "I think the team have been doing an incredible job and I'm very happy with what we have been doing this season so far." The Brazilian just missed out on points himself in P11, his one-stop strategy not paying off as the hard tyre proved a difficult compound compared to the soft.

Haas in freefall

While Racing Bulls and Audi celebrated, Haas's slump continued. Neither Ollie Bearman nor Esteban Ocon has scored points since Monaco five races ago, and Hungary offered no respite. Ocon qualified 15th and Bearman 17th on the grid, before both went backwards in the race to finish 16th and 19th respectively.

"It was certainly a very long day as we were probably anticipating. The lack of Qualifying pace was almost exacerbated in race trim. So much sliding and degradation," said Bearman, who was also handed a five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags. "On top of that, I couldn't overtake so I got stuck and didn't have any pace anyways. We need to understand why Spa was so good and why this weekend has been so bad because the feeling has been completely the opposite. I lost all level of confidence in the car. I haven't done a lap this weekend and felt good in the car."

Ocon, despite a relatively stronger weekend for himself, acknowledged that more performance was needed. "We need to look at putting more performance on the car. We need to look at the next upgrades on the car and hope that they will make a difference," he said. "Quite happy that we managed to extract the maximum out of the car and we got the consistency from Friday to Saturday to Sunday. Now we obviously need more performance."

Haas are expected to bring an upgrade at some point after the summer break, having slipped down the pecking order after Bearman finished in the points three times across the opening five Grands Prix.

Cadillac: Progress amid persistent problems

Cadillac's first season was always going to be a steep learning curve, and the numbers paint a mixed picture. The team started the year 3.8 percent off the fastest Q1 time in Australia, with that gap dropping to a season-best 1.8 percent in Belgium before ballooning to 3.3 percent in Hungary.

However, when compared to Williams — a team that scored podiums last year — Cadillac's progress is more encouraging. The fastest Cadillac was 1.9 percent off the pace of the fastest Williams in Q1 for the first race in Australia, but in the last six races, the gap has never been more than 1 percent, sitting at just 0.3 percent in Hungary.

The most concerning issue, though, is reliability — specifically brake cooling. Valtteri Bottas retired due to brake overheating in Hungary, just days after team principal Graeme Lowdon told reporters it was still an issue the team was working to resolve.

"That is a really, really, really difficult area of a Formula 1 car to develop," Lowdon said. "It's an area where know-how and intangible IP is really important. We're not allowed to get that from anywhere else, we can't take someone else's brake duct design. You have to do that learning and you have to do it in public as well with a few hundred million people watching."

There are signs of progress at Cadillac, but considering how precious every lap is at such an early stage in the team's life, the brake cooling issue desperately needs resolving to ensure both cars are finishing more regularly. The team only received full approval to race in March 2025, and as Lowdon put it, they have been "building the plane while flying it."

With 12 race weekends remaining after the summer break, the midfield battle promises to remain one of the most fiercely contested aspects of the 2026 season — and every point will count.