2025 vs 2026: The Big Team Check After the First Four Races | Part 5 of 6

Four races are done, the spring break has arrived – and that makes it the perfect time for the next early assessment. In Part 5 of our big team check, we focus on Falcon Simracing and Blue Horns Racing, two teams whose decline compared to 2025 may have different explanations, but is impossible to ignore on paper.

Falcon Simracing: A decline with context – and a team in a transition year

At first glance, the comparison with 2025 looks brutal for Falcon Simracing. 25 points instead of 51, no win, no podium, and only sixth in the championship instead of third – the numbers clearly show that Falcon have come nowhere near repeating the strong start they produced last year. A team that was fighting near the front early in 2025 has, for now, become one operating more in the extended midfield than in the leading group.

And yet it would be too easy to read this drop purely as sporting failure. Because there is one crucial piece of context that at least makes the decline more understandable: Jan Wiegels’ late move to Horizon Motorsport shortly before the season began hit the team hard. When your number one driver disappears just before the start, it does not only leave a sporting gap, but often a structural, mental and strategic one as well. That is exactly why Falcon in 2026 look less like a team simply stuck in a dip in form and more like one going through a genuine transition year.

So far, this season has been defined by the attempt to reorganise after that blow. There are still some signs of life – for example the strong P2 grid position, which shows that not everything has disappeared. But over race distance, what Falcon had in 2025 is missing: that mix of stability, punch and real presence at the front. Instead, they have only one top-five finish and two retirements to show for the opening phase. That is too little for a name like Falcon Simracing.

What makes the outlook even more worrying is the situation heading into Canada. While other teams are arriving with new parts, fresh momentum and technical hope, Falcon are bringing no updates at all. The reason seems as clear as it is painful: there appear to be significant financial problems behind the scenes. And that changes the perspective on this team once again. A sporting decline is one thing – but when the means to react are also missing, a difficult start can very quickly become a structural danger.

Falcon Simracing therefore find themselves at an uncomfortable point in the season. The regression is understandable, but no less real because of it. Right now, the team are living off what remains: experience, residual substance and the hope of somehow carrying themselves through this phase. But without updates and without any visible outside impulse, this transition year risks becoming a season in which Falcon do not just lose touch with the front, but are forced to watch other teams move past them.

Blue Horns Racing: Searching for former strength – and slipping deeper into crisis

For Blue Horns Racing, the comparison with 2025 feels even heavier, because this no longer looks like an ordinary step backwards. It looks like a team chasing the shadow of its former level. 16 points instead of 35, ninth in the championship instead of fourth, plus weaker qualifying and race results across the board – Blue Horns are currently a long way away from the level they were at least able to show in phases last year.

And yet there had been some hope that things might still turn. Suzuka in particular felt like a weekend where a fresh engine might provide some much-needed lift. But even that spark failed to ignite anything. That is exactly what makes Blue Horns’ situation so uncomfortable right now. Because when even a new engine fails to provide any real momentum, this is no longer just about a few missing tenths or one unlucky weekend. It becomes about a team that may be deeper in crisis than the raw numbers initially suggest.

At the moment, Blue Horns look like a team that are not only searching for performance, but for identity. For a clear direction, for an anchor, for something that can give this project meaning again. And at that point, one name inevitably hangs over the team like an echo of past strength: Fabian Szyrzik. He was the man who launched Blue Horns back to the front in 2024 for the first time since the Volksmobil works team days of 2021. That kind of figure, that kind of sporting reference point, that kind of moment of lift-off is exactly what the team seem to be missing right now.

Because at the moment, Blue Horns are above all else a team in search of something. In search of consistency, in search of confidence, and perhaps even in search of the next driver or the next combination that can reignite genuine hope. The fact that the results have become weaker is one thing. The fact that there is no clearly visible way out of that trend is the much bigger problem.

That is why Blue Horns Racing are slowly slipping into a place where the word crisis no longer feels exaggerated. The season is not gone yet, and there are still races, development opportunities and chances to reverse the trend. But the longer this team keeps chasing its 2025 form – and even more so its old high points – the greater the danger that a weak start turns into a year of missed opportunities.

Two declines – but with very different causes

After four races, the conclusion here is also a clear one: Falcon Simracing and Blue Horns Racing have both lost significant ground, but for very different reasons. Falcon are visibly suffering through a transition year made even harder by Wiegels’ late departure and what appear to be major financial problems. Blue Horns, by contrast, look more like a team that are searching for stability both sporting and mentally, without yet finding the lever to pull themselves out of the downward spiral.

That is exactly why Canada will become an important benchmark for both teams – even if the signs are not especially encouraging. Falcon have to prove that, even without updates and despite difficult circumstances, there is still enough substance left to stop the slide. Blue Horns, meanwhile, simply need a sign of life. Because at some point, hoping for better days is no longer enough – at some point, a team has to start creating them for itself.