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 I’m wondering if Lewis Hamilton has won a race with Ferrari while I wasn’t away covering the World Cup? No? So I’m the problem, then. Got it.I’m Patrick, back just in time for summer break (classic), and Luke Smith will be along shortly. Let’s dive in.Oh, and, also, a quick ask today: If you know someone who might like Prime Tire, forward this email their way. Or if you think, “Get a load of these guys,” then that’s also valid. Spread the good/bad word. Send the heralds. Etc.Sports Crossover: Lessons from the World CupI have returned from four weeks of World Cup duty and, I regret to inform you, I spent most of it thinking about F1. Here are five things the World Cup can teach F1, should it care to listen.1. Everybody is exhausted.As the World Cup began, there was some worry about player burnout from an expanded 48-team tournament, on top of a Club World Cup and club seasons stacked into one year. A record 104 World Cup games later, it’s hard to argue with that. Soccer never really got an offseason this year.Neither did F1, after 24 races in 2025 and an early start to testing in February. Every year, we hear similar warnings from drivers and the people who work in the paddock. There is a real cost to expanding the schedule.2. Nobody likes post-match steward chicanery.The Folarin Balogun red card reversal is multifaceted. Something about it in particular is also emblematic of F1: Results can change 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!F1 fans have long known that results often aren’t decided until hours or days later, in stewards’ rooms and after appeals. Thanks to VAR reversals and the Balogun controversy, fans watching the World Cup learnt the same lesson.I don’t really have a solution for F1. 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 merit-based dominance and some sense of parity. F1 markets itself as “the pinnacle of motorsport” — the best drivers in the best-engineered cars win. Develop the best, drive the best and the glory is yours. If you can’t keep up, that’s on you.And yet, the World Cup showed you can pull the lever, expand and level the playing field a bit, and it doesn’t dilute the end product or keep the top dogs from being top dogs. 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; the ceiling stayed exactly as high while the ever-moving floor made the stakes more interesting.