After four weeks on World Cup duty, The Athletic's F1 newsletter editor Patrick Iversen has returned — and admits he spent most of the tournament thinking about Formula 1. Fresh off a record-breaking 104-game World Cup, he has compiled five lessons the pinnacle of motorsport could stand to learn from football's great carnival.

1. Everybody is exhausted

Even before a ball was kicked, concerns were raised about player burnout at an expanded 48-team tournament piled on top of a congested Club World Cup and full club seasons. With a record 104 matches played, Iversen argues it is hard to disagree. "Soccer never really got an offseason this year. Neither did F1, after 24 races in 2025 and an early start to testing in February." Year after year, the same warnings echo from drivers and paddock staff. "There is a real cost to expanding the schedule."

2. Nobody likes post-match steward chicanery

The Folarin Balogun red-card reversal struck Iversen as emblematic of a sport whose results keep changing after the whistle. "Pierre Gasly can lose a podium he won in Monaco hours after the race! And then get it back days later! And this is normal!" Thanks to VAR reversals and the Balogun controversy, World Cup fans learned what F1 devotees have always known — that outcomes are often decided hours later in stewards' rooms and after appeals. "Post-race scrutineering and bureaucracy are baked into the sport. But it's also quite a buzzkill sometimes!"

3. The people cry out for underdogs

There is a constant tug-of-war in F1 between meritocratic dominance and some sense of parity. The World Cup, though, showed the ceiling can stay exactly as high while the floor rises to make the stakes far more interesting. "Spain still won it all as a worthy champion, but a 48-team format let Cape Verde captivate fans and led to traditional powers such as Germany bowing out early in thrilling matches." For F1, Iversen points to the existing levers of the number of teams, tighter spending ceilings and resource-allocation rules.

4. Hydration breaks opened a door

Everyone hated the mandatory hydration breaks, but they "seemed to work seamlessly while presumably making Fox Sports a lot of money." With heat hazards at races becoming more common and Europe warming faster than anywhere on Earth, Iversen can imagine mandatory red flags twice a race "for safety" while the ads roll. "Not saying I want this to happen, but … we're in a timeline now where it could!"

5. The bill comes due

Sky-high prices — some World Cup final tickets reached $12,000 — did not stop a 99.7 percent occupancy rate and a record 6.8 million attendance. But, Iversen warns, "you can't buy back goodwill." FIFA is in turmoil and federations are in open revolt over president Gianni Infantino's plan to sell stakes in the tournament to private investors. F1 race attendance is becoming a similarly pricey luxury, with Silverstone general admission having more than doubled since 2016.

"The thing that's a shame is that Formula 1's (become) too heavily led by the fact it's a business nowadays and not how can you make the sport the best possible. It's how can you just make the most money as a business, and that's just not what it should simply be. That's not how a sport should be run." — Reigning champion Lando Norris

"The public opinion debt does not come due as gradually as it erodes. Ask FIFA!" Iversen concludes.