‘Shedding a few tears’: Stroll recounts wrist agony from early comeback; McLaren opens Red Bull engine talks — F1 Pit Talk

There aren’t many Formula 1-MotoGP crossover opportunities out there, but Lance Stroll found one in Spain as he faced the prospect of sitting out months of the season with broken bones.

The connection was Dr Xavier Mir, the renowned trauma surgeon famous in part for his work on the constantly troubled forearms and wrists of motorcycle riders.

Stroll put his banged-up hands in Mir’s golden ones, and lo and behold he found his way to sixth in the first race of the season — and, in what will come as no surprise to any MotoGP fan, he did so months ahead of when conventional medical wisdom assumed he’d be back.

And wasn’t he glad he did. Sixth place in Bahrain, behind teammate Fernando Alonso’s excellent podium, confirmed Aston Martin’s massive move up the grid.

Elsewhere, McLaren has been assessing its options for a potential new power unit supplier when the engine rules change, and the struggling English team is casting its net far and wide — including to another rival team.

And there are reports that the first grand prix has been chosen for an experimental qualifying format that the sport hopes will insert a bit of extra jeopardy into the Saturday action at two venues this season.

Stroll defies medical prognosis to race in Bahrain

Lance Stroll was told that he wouldn’t be able to drive a Formula 1 car before April at the earliest after breaking his wrist in a bicycle crash two weeks ago.

Stroll was forced to miss pre-season testing after breaking both wrists and a toe in the crash, with his right wrist requiring screws to set.

Aston Martin took until the Thursday before the race to confirm the Canadian would be in the car following an evaluation in the simulator.

Speaking after finishing sixth in the race, Stroll revealed he’d defied medical prognosis that he wouldn’t be fit for at least another month.

“It’s just been an insane journey,” he told Sky Sports. “The last two weeks has just been the most insane two weeks of my life — terrible time to crash on a bicycle!

“Doctors were telling me maybe Australia (2 April), maybe Baku (30 April). The light at the end of the tunnel was very hard to see.

“But I had an incredible medial team that helped me along the way — my osteopath, Henry, who was with me 10 Hours a day; the surgeon in Spain, Dr Mir, who without him I wouldn’t be here, it’d be impossible to be driving.

“There’s a list of people that I could name, and without them I wouldn’t be here, so a huge thankyou to them and well done to everyone back at the factory for building this incredible car that’s a pleasure to drive.”

The 24-year-old said he expected pain to worsen in the next few days before he saw more improvement later in the month.

“My right wrist is feeling more and more solid every day, getting more and more mobility in it, the one that I got surgery on. My left wrist has a couple of hairline fractures, so it should just improve.

“The doctor said it should be stable for this weekend and then it was just about managing pain, and then it should get better over the next couple of weeks. So I’m hoping I’ll definitely feel a lot better in Jeddah.”

He admitted, though, that saving himself from an almost disastrous crash with teammate Fernando Alonso on the first lap took an extreme physical toll.

“My wrists were on fire after that,” he said. “I was shedding a few tears after that one!”

McLaren could become red bull customer in 2026

McLaren could become power unit customers of Red Bull Racing under the new engine regulations due in 2026 after preliminary talks between the two teams last week.

Brown was reported to have visited Milton Keynes to open exploratory talks about a relationship, which Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner confirmed in Bahrain.

“I thought he was coming for lunch!” he joked. “It’s obvious that as a power unit manufacturer for 2026 it’s inevitable that discussions are going to be held regarding potential powertrain supply.

“It’s only natural that we would speak with potential customers.”

New McLaren team principal Andreas Stella said McLaren was currently satisfied with its engine supply from Mercedes High Performance Powertrains but was keeping its options open for the new rules cycle.

“We have a solid partnership with HPP,” he said. “At the same time, it’s obvious that looking far forward, you want to understand what‘s available.

“I think that‘s natural. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.”

A switch to what will be Red Bull Ford Powertrains in 2026 would represent McLaren’s fourth different engine partnership in 10 years, having joined with Honda (2015–17) and Renault (2018–20) before returning to Mercedes in 2021.

It had previously been the de facto Mercedes works entry for almost two decades from 1995.

The Race has reported that McLaren has also contacted Honda about renewing the relationship that ended acrimoniously five years ago.

Honda is without an engine customer for 2026 but has lodged an intention to build power units under the new regulations with the FIA.

Assuming Honda commits to the new formula, the sport will feature five different suppliers — Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault Red Bull Ford and Audi — with Porsche still attempting to gain a foothold in the sport after its deal to buy into Red Bull Racing collapsed last year.

New qualifying rules to be trialled in Imola

Formula 1 will tweak the qualifying rules at two grands prix this season, including the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in late May.

Autosport has reported that Imola has been selected but not yet announced as the first venue, with the other track likely to come after the mid-season break in August.

The changes will affect which tyres drivers are allowed to use during the three segments of qualifying. Currently they have free choice throughout the hour, with the soft tyre used on almost all occasions.

The tweaked rules will force drivers to use the hard compound in Q1, the medium compound in Q2 and then the soft compound in Q3.

The rule is aimed at reducing the overall number of tyres each driver has access to during a non-sprint race weekend. Currently every driver starts Friday with 13 sets comprising two hards, three mediums and eight softs. The trial weekend would reduce the overall allocation to 11, with three sets of hards and four sets each of the mediums and softs.

Teams will still be required to give back five sets before the end of FP3 to ensure that practice running isn’t sacrificed despite the reduced allocation.