Formula One 2026: team-by-team guide to the cars and drivers

McLaren could start slowly, Mercedes may set the pace, while newcomers – and returning heroes – add huge interestCar MCL40 Engine Mercedes Principal Andrea Stella Debut Monaco 1966 GPs 994 Constructors’ titles 10 Last season 1st. Held their nerve to close out the constructors’ and drivers’ double last season, albeit with the latter going to the wire as they rather tied themselves in knots trying to be fair to both drivers. Enter this year a little off the front but in a season likely to be marked by a fierce development battle, will expect to exploit their huge strengths in bringing the car on with alacrity and be in the mix in no short order.DriversLando Norris (GB, age 26) car No 1 Debut Australia 2019 Wins 11 Poles 16 Titles 1 Last season 1st. After sealing his first title last year, Norris is enjoying a confidence in his own abilities like never before

Why Norway beats us hollow at sport | Letters

Cath Bishop and Norway are right (Norway’s all-conquering Winter Olympians have a message for us all – and it’s not what you think, 26 February) – too much competition kills the joy of sport and risks putting children off physical activity for life. Ten years ago, I attended a good Football Association safeguarding course for new coaches of children’s football. I learned how, in Norway, development is prioritised over winning: when a team is ahead by two goals, they lose a player. This idea was introduced in a discussion on emotional abuse, and I quickly learned why it is needed here.After a year of watching coaches deny playing time to weaker players, parents screaming at children to win the game, and children in tears, I stopped coaching my local under-nines team

Scotland hoping to party like it’s 1999 and thwart France’s title ambitions

The hosts must conjure the spirit of their last title triumph, 27 years ago, when the sides meet at MurrayfieldEven now, 27 years on, Kenny Logan still remembers how good it felt. Back in 1999, as this year, Scotland were title outsiders before a crunch fixture against the defending champions, France. Beneath a bright blue Parisian sky they gloriously ripped up the script with five first-half tries and, thanks to England’s late implosion against Wales at Wembley a day later, hoisted the trophy at Murrayfield in front of 15,000 fans on the Monday.For Logan, who landed five successful kicks on that famous afternoon, the timeless lessons of the story are twofold. The first is that Scotland have failed to win the tournament since; and the second is that, at times like this, fortune favours the brave: “When we went to France that year we took the game to them

Harry Brook backs ‘awesome’ England to find a way past India into T20 World Cup final

England have abandoned their pursuit of perfection as they plot a path to victory over India and a place in the T20 World Cup final but Harry Brook remains confident they can beat any opponent. “This team is awesome,” the captain said. “We’re never out of the game.”England have faltered and stumbled their way to the last four, impressive at times but always flawed. As Brook said after the victory over Pakistan, when his own performance with the bat got close to flawless: “We haven’t had the perfect game yet, and hopefully that’s just round the corner

Dennis Cometti was erudite, funny and engaging. His witticisms could fill a library | Jonathan Horn

The late Tony Charlton, who called a dozen VFL grand finals and three Olympic Games, said sporting commentators should “produce words like bubbles in champagne”. There have been some sublime sporting commentators in this country. But no one in Australian broadcasting turned words into bubbles like Dennis Cometti. Few could match his repertoire of wit, timing and verve. And few were so professional, so versatile, so fully dedicated to their craft, so capable of meeting the moment

The Spin | Going for gold? Why China’s female cricketers may benefit from Olympic aim

The Cambridge wind had a February chill, and the trees at Fenner’s were still without any spring decoration, but the old bleachers to the side and the pavilion, largely unchanged since the 1980s, were reminders of a new season just a turn of the calendar away.Fenner’s cricket ground sits next door to Hughes Hall, where the Cricket Research Network held their third annual conference last week. The organisation, headed by Raf Nicholson, sometimes of this parish, is a place for cricket academics to exchange ideas, and the conference a chance for rest of us to put an ear to the door of data and detail.Of the many fascinating presentations, the most eye-popping, at least to someone untutored in Chinese sport, was from Max He, who had come all the way from Xi’an Jiaotong University in Shaanxi province, in the north-west of China.He told of a world turned upside down, where cricket is seen as a female sport and one that absorbs not only the resources, but also the glory and the story-telling – both anecdotally and officially