Fourteen of the 22 race seats on the current grid have no contract beyond this season, and with the new-for-2026 cars finally exposing the real pecking order, F1's creator community has already started war-gaming the 2027 grid. The forecasts don't line up — which is exactly what makes them worth reading side by side.
The starting point is the contract board. As Mr V's Garage laid out, only a small group is genuinely tied down: Charles Leclerc is signed to Ferrari through 2029, while Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly hold deals to the end of 2028. George Russell, Lando Norris and both Cadillac drivers — Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez — are covered through 2027. Everyone else is, on paper, available. "We have 14 out of the 22 drivers on the grid without a contract for 2027 so far," the channel said, "and so this thing could get spicy." The Crash Happy podcast reached the same conclusion from the other direction, counting just seven locked-in seats and treating the rest as open season.
Not everyone expects fireworks. LawVS was blunt that the drama may stay on the asphalt, arguing "the majority of the chaos of 2026 may be on the track rather than what's going on behind the scenes in contract negotiation." His main call is a largely unchanged grid: Bottas and Perez continuing at Cadillac as their careers wind down, Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto staying at Audi, and Liam Lawson kept alongside rookie Arvid Lindblad at Racing Bulls for the sake of continuity into the new rules cycle.
The sharpest disagreement is over Fernando Alonso. Mr V's Garage is convinced the 44-year-old walks away at the end of 2026, pointing to a Canadian Grand Prix retirement caused by a seat coming loose, the recent arrival of a new baby, and an Aston Martin rebuild the channel reckons is "a 3 to 5 year project" that Alonso simply won't wait out. Crash Happy reads it the opposite way, pointing to Alonso's recent comments to BBC Sport that he is looking to still be on the grid in 2027, and crediting him as the one figure "holding the team together" rather than heading for the exit. LawVS sat in the middle, saying Aston "are really going to have to do everything in their power to keep Fernando for 2027" — one more year until the project comes good.
Carlos Sainz is the other fault line. Mr V's Garage predicts he jumps from Williams to fill the seat Alonso vacates at Aston Martin, reasoning that Williams have hit a ceiling as "the fourth best Mercedes engine team" and won't climb higher. LawVS keeps Sainz next to Alex Albon at Williams as his main call, filing the Aston Martin switch only under his self-described "spicy version" — and even sketching out a return for Franco Colapinto if Sainz ever did leave.
Even the seats that look settled drew a wildcard. On Crash Happy, one host floated the idea that Piastri — contracted through 2028 — could eventually want out of McLaren to escape Norris's shadow and establish himself as an undisputed number one, even musing about an unlikely Red Bull move down the line. The others treat that pairing as locked.
As for the perennial retirement names, Mr V's Garage delivered a firm verdict on two of the three. Hamilton, the channel argued, has shown no desire to stop, having said he wants to stay in F1 until the calendar returns to Africa, while Verstappen's frequent outings in other categories are unlikely to drag him out of the sport while Red Bull can still build him a winning car.
With most of the grid technically free agents and the new machinery only now revealing which teams are quick, the forecasters agree on the setup if nothing else. Whether it detonates into the wildest silly season since 2022 or fizzles into continuity is, for now, anyone's guess.
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