F1's silly season has arrived early. With the 2026 cars finally sorting the genuine order of the grid, more than half the field is out of contract at the end of the year — and the sport's biggest YouTubers and podcasters are already drawing up rival versions of the 2027 grid. Line their predictions up and they barely agree on anything beyond the scale of the opportunity.
Start with the paperwork. Mr V's Garage walked through a contract board that ties down only a handful of names: Charles Leclerc is locked to Ferrari through 2029, with Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly signed to the end of 2028. George Russell, Lando Norris and Cadillac's pairing of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez are covered through 2027. The rest are, in theory, on the market. "We have 14 out of the 22 drivers on the grid without a contract for 2027 so far," the channel pointed out, "and so this thing could get spicy." The Crash Happy podcast tallied it from the opposite angle, finding only seven fully signed seats and treating everything else as fair game.
A quieter forecast came from LawVS, who thinks the real turbulence stays on the circuit. "The majority of the chaos of 2026 may be on the track rather than what's going on behind the scenes in contract negotiation," he argued, predicting a grid that barely moves: Bottas and Perez seeing out their careers at Cadillac, Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto continuing at Audi, and Liam Lawson held alongside rookie Arvid Lindblad at Racing Bulls to keep the second team stable through the rule change.
Where the panels diverge most is Fernando Alonso. Mr V's Garage is sure the 44-year-old retires at season's end, citing a Canadian Grand Prix DNF triggered by a seat working loose, a newborn at home in early 2026, and an Aston Martin recovery the channel pegs as "a 3 to 5 year project" — a wait Alonso doesn't have time for. Crash Happy flips that, leaning on Alonso's recent remarks to BBC Sport that he wants to still be racing in 2027, and casting him as the man "holding the team together" at Silverstone. LawVS split the difference: Aston, he said, "are really going to have to do everything in their power to keep Fernando for 2027," one more year while the project matures.
Then there's Carlos Sainz. Mr V's Garage has him leaving Williams to take Alonso's place at Aston Martin, judging that Williams have settled into a ceiling as "the fourth best Mercedes engine team." LawVS isn't buying it as the base case — he keeps Sainz beside Alex Albon and parks the Aston move in his "spicy version," even floating a Franco Colapinto homecoming if Sainz ever did walk.
The wildest call touched a seat nobody expected. On Crash Happy, one host wondered aloud whether Piastri — under contract until 2028 — might one day want away from McLaren to step out of Norris's shadow and become an outright number one, half-seriously linking him to Red Bull further down the road. To the other forecasters, that lineup is settled.
On the long-running retirement watch, Mr V's Garage was firm about two of the three names. Hamilton, it noted, has talked about wanting to stay in the sport until it races in Africa again, while Verstappen's appetite for racing anything and everything elsewhere isn't likely to pull him out while Red Bull can still hand him a car capable of winning.
Strip it all back and the curious thing is the consensus on the premise and the chaos on the detail. Most of the grid is free, the new cars have redrawn the hierarchy, and nobody can say yet whether 2027 becomes the messiest market since 2022 or quietly holds its shape.
