������Ƶ

SILVERSTONE, England: Sauber celebrated a rare podium finish with Champagne donated by its Formula 1 rivals. After all, this wasn’t meant to be its year.

Mercedes sent over a staffer to Sauber bearing bottles of Champagne and a message of congratulations after Nico Hulkenberg’s surprise third place at the British Grand Prix on Sunday. It was his first podium as a driver and the team’s best finish in 13 years.

Sauber personnel jumped and sang as the sparkling wine was sprayed around the team’s hospitality site.

Not bad for a “building year,” as Hulkenberg put it in February. Sauber was one of the teams eyeing 2026 opportunities before 2025 even began.

The biggest rule change in a generation brings smaller cars with movable front and rear wings and more electrical power. Teams who have been also-rans in 2025 have the chance to make a big step forward.

The teams eyeing a leap forward

At the halfway point of the 2025 season, Aston Martin, Williams and Sauber – to be rebranded Audi next year – all have ambitious plans for 2026.

Development work at Aston Martin’s brand-new wind tunnel across the road from the Silverstone circuit is 99 percent focused on next year’s car, team principal Andy Cowell said Friday.

It’s the first Aston Martin overseen by design great Adrian Newey, who’s created title-winning cars for Williams, McLaren and Red Bull over nearly 40 years in F1 and is the star signing of the team’s new era.

“He pushes the boundaries,” Cowell said. “He packages 10 things into the space where only one would normally fit.”

It’s been a quiet 2025 on track. Aston Martin had its first double points finish of the season Sunday, with Lance Stroll seventh and Fernando Alonso ninth.

At Williams, driver Alex Albon was testing out 2026 ideas in the simulator before the 2025 season began. The team has invested heavily in behind-the-scenes reforms to recapture its glory days as a serial title-winner in the 1980s and 1990s.

Turning Sauber into the Audi works team brings a new level of expectation, while General Motors joins F1 in 2026 with its Cadillac brand.

Front-runners have more to lose

Top teams in particular face a tricky question to judge when to stop developing this year’s car and go all-in on 2026.

Red Bull was the big winner from the last major changes in 2022 as Max Verstappen won four straight titles. There’s big change this time without Newey and with a new engine partnership between its Red Bull Powertrains unit and Ford.

Verstappen’s future is unclear amid speculation he could leave for Mercedes. It would be a “disaster” for Red Bull to lose him, McLaren boss Zak Brown said on Saturday.

“Sport goes in cycles,” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said last week. “We’ve had two incredibly successful cycles in Formula 1, and what we want to do is build toward the next cycle.”

“Of course we want that to be with Max but we understand the pressure that there is next year, with us coming in as a new power unit manufacturer.”

The last time the rules changed, McLaren showed it’s possible to start a new F1 era slowly but evolve into a title contender. It took over two years until the breakthrough win, though.

EAST RUTHERFORD, United States: Chelsea’s young side are targeting a place in the final of the Club World Cup when they take on Fluminense in the last four on Tuesday, with the Brazilian team marshalled by former Blues defender Thiago Silva who is still going strong at the age of 40.

Silva was already a veteran when he signed for Chelsea in 2020 before going on to have an impressive four-year stint at Stamford Bridge.

One of the finest center-backs of his generation, Silva arrived after eight years at Paris Saint-Germain and in his first season at Chelsea won the UEFA Champions League.

He played 155 games for the London club and left 12 months ago after helping oversee the development of some of the young talents now featuring regularly under Enzo Maresca.

“He’s a legend of football, a top player,” Marc Cucurella, a teammate of Silva’s for two years, told English media, adding that the two had exchanged messages about their impending reunion.

“We have the opportunity to play against him again and hopefully we can do good things, win this game and play in the final.”

Silva initially made his name at Fluminense, featuring in the team that reached the Copa Libertadores final in 2008 before losing to LDU Quito of Ecuador.

He returned there upon leaving Chelsea, once again pulling on the green, red and white of the Rio de Janeiro outfit who won the Copa Libertadores in 2023.

The evergreen Brazil international was then reunited earlier this year with Renato Gaucho, the coach in 2008 who is now in his sixth spell in charge.

An impressive run at the Club World Cup has seen Fluminense hold Borussia Dortmund in the group stage, eliminate Inter Milan in the last 16 and get the better of Saudi powerhouse Al Hilal in the quarter-finals.

“If you had asked me beforehand if we would have got this far I would have said we were a long way away from doing so,” Silva told broadcaster DAZN after the victory over Al Hilal.

“We know the financial size of these teams, the difference is enormous, absurd. But often our collective, the family atmosphere that we have, gives us strength that you maybe don’t think you have.”

It is not just Silva raising the average age at Fluminense. There is also 44-year-old goalkeeper Fabio, wing-back Samuel Xavier at 35 and 37-year-old Argentine forward German Cano.

But the man giving them the X-factor is 27-year-old Colombian winger Jhon Arias, unquestionably one of the players of the tournament.

“I have watched some games that they have played and you can see that they are very well organized. They have some very good players. The manager is doing a fantastic job,” Maresca said as he prepares to face Brazilian opposition for the third time at the tournament.

They lost to Flamengo in the group stage but beat Palmeiras in the quarter-finals in Philadelphia.

“The energy from Brazilian teams in this competition has been high – probably the reason why is because they are at the start of their season while we are finished the season,” Maresca added.

Chelsea now get their first taste of the MetLife Stadium, the hulking 82,500-capacity venue in East Rutherford, New Jersey, just outside New York City.

Many of Maresca’s players may not have been sure what to make of FIFA’s new tournament which came at the end of a campaign in which they finished fourth in the Premier League and won the UEFA Conference League.

But suddenly they stand one game from the final, in which they would face either Real Madrid or PSG.

With Silva gone, Maresca has been working with a young squad at Chelsea, and the average age of his starting line-up against Palmeiras last Friday was just 24.

There are more young players coming in too, with 23-year-old Brazilian forward Joao Pedro, formerly of Fluminense, making his debut in the quarter-finals.

Brazil prodigy Estevao Willian, 18, will join from Palmeiras ahead of next season and 20-year-old winger Jamie Gittens has just signed from Borussia Dortmund.

Moises Caicedo, the midfield linchpin who is still only 23, will return to the midfield against Fluminense after suspension.