Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic’s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason.Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today I’m looking back on this past weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix and the first half of the season overall.I’m also baffled by one country agreeing to hold a race, but naming it after another.I’m Alex, and Madeline Coleman will be along later.Halfway Heroes: Winners after 11 racesThe Hungarian GP was Round 11 of a seemingly ever-changing 2026 F1 calendar. Right now, there are 23 rounds scheduled, which makes the season’s exact halfway point Lap 36 of 72 at the Dutch GP on Aug. 23.But this F1 season may not reach 23 races.There’s still too much uncertainty around the Middle East conflict to be sure the Qatar and Abu Dhabi races will happen in late November and early December, respectively. If they don’t, F1 should make a return to Imola (Italy) and finally make up for the race lost there due to the awful floods of 2023.So, we are both at and not at the season’s halfway point. Schrödinger’s calendar, I guess. But right now still marks a good spot to assess the 2026 campaign.And there’s one clear winner: Kimi Antonelli.The Italian Mercedes driver leads the standings by 50 points, has six GP wins, six poles and looks to have a commanding measure of these new, complex cars that his supposed main championship rival — teammate George Russell — cannot match.It also helps make Mercedes a big winner, with eight GP wins out of a possible 11. It has once again used a major F1 engine rule changes to vault to the top of the pecking order.At McLaren, the team may be several months behind Mercedes in terms of car development, but Lando Norris’ Budapest win finally got it back in the winners’ circle.Other winners include Lewis Hamilton for finally getting his Ferrari GP victory tally going with that win at Barcelona. And his teammate Charles Leclerc, for his Silverstone triumph that snapped a 37-race losing streak.Ferrari’s winless streak was only one race shorter than Leclerc’s, before Hamilton’s breakthrough in Spain. It must feel a winner right now, too.Others to praise so far this year have to be the Madrid race organizers for building F1’s newest track. Ferrari was able to drive it nine weeks ahead of the first Spanish GP at the Madring in September.And props to Cadillac for trudging through its first F1 season.I must also include my colleague Patrick Iversen in the winners’ column, for this withering review of the $100 hot dog at the Miami GP. Check out Friday’s PT for Pat making his long-awaited return to your inboxes after covering the World Cup for The Athletic this summer!Not So Heroic: Losers after 11 racesAs ever in F1, there are more losers than winners.But no one, surely, has lost as much as Russell this year, even though he has already matched his victory tally from the last two seasons with wins in Australia and Austria.Still, it was a frustrating first half for Russell, the preseason favorite. His luck has been awful (with Mercedes’ start system really not helping in Hungary), but he’s also failed to adapt to the new cars as well as Antonelli.Oscar Piastri has not been the threat he was while challenging for the 2025 title. His pre-race crash at home in Australia was painful to watch, and Norris has had the edge with pace at McLaren.