Seven mind-blowing F1 facts that show just how long GTA 6 took
Photo: Race Pictures
Tobia is a Formula 1 journalist at GPblog with experience at international circuits. Since 2022, he has covered Grands Prix across Europe, delivering reliable coverage and insights from the paddock.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is finally set to be released on 19 November 2026, more than 13 years after GTA 5 first hit the shelves on 17 September 2013. While fans have been waiting for Rockstar Games' next instalment, Formula 1 has undergone some extraordinary changes.
Entire dynasties have risen and fallen, legendary teams have been rebuilt from the ground up, and some drivers have spent the entire period chasing achievements that still elude them. Others have gone from being virtually unknown teenagers to world champions.
But just how much can change in Formula 1 while the world waits for a single video game? These seven remarkable facts put the 13-year gap between GTA 5 and GTA 6 into perspective.
Fernando Alonso has not won a single Grand Prix
When GTA 5 was released in September 2013, Fernando Alonso was a two-time world champion driving for Ferrari, having celebrated his most recent victory at the Spanish Grand Prix just four months earlier.
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Fast forward to November 2026, and the Spaniard is still searching for his 33rd career victory. In the meantime, he has left Ferrari, endured a difficult spell at McLaren, taken a two-year break from F1, returned with Alpine and moved to Aston Martin. Despite all those changes, his victory tally has remained stuck at 32 throughout the entire wait for GTA 6.
Photo: Race Pictures
Nico Hulkenberg has finally made it onto an F1 podium
Nico Hulkenberg was already an established Formula 1 driver when GTA 5 arrived in 2013, but he had never finished a race in the top three.
What followed was one of the longest waits for a podium in the sport's history. The German raced for Force India, Renault, Racing Point and Haas, while also spending time without a permanent seat.
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His breakthrough finally came at the 2025 British Grand Prix, where he finished third for Sauber after 239 Grand Prix starts without a podium.
It took almost 12 years after GTA 5's release for Hulkenberg to achieve something he had been chasing since his F1 debut in 2010.
Formula 1 has gone through several major regulation changes
The cars lining up on the grid when GTA 5 was released were dramatically different from those competing in 2026.
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Back in 2013, Formula 1 was still using naturally aspirated 2.4-litre V8 engines. Just a few months later, the sport introduced 1.6-litre turbo-hybrid power units, beginning an entirely new technical era.
The regulations changed again in 2017, bringing wider and faster cars, before another major overhaul in 2022 introduced ground-effect aerodynamics.
By the time GTA 6 arrives, Formula 1 will have undergone yet another technical revolution, with the 2026 regulations introducing new power units, active aerodynamics and smaller, lighter cars.
In other words, GTA 5 has remained the latest mainline Grand Theft Auto release through multiple generations of F1 machinery.
McLaren has ended a nine-year winless streak and won two world titles
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When GTA 5 was released, McLaren was enduring a difficult 2013 campaign, having failed to win a race since the previous year's Brazilian Grand Prix.
Things would get considerably worse. The team's reunion with Honda in 2015 turned into a nightmare, and McLaren spent several seasons struggling in the midfield.
It was not until the 2021 Italian Grand Prix that Daniel Ricciardo finally ended the team's winless streak, securing its first victory in almost nine years.
McLaren then completed an extraordinary recovery, winning the Constructors' Championship in 2024 and retaining it in 2025. Lando Norris also secured the Drivers' Championship in 2025. All of that happened before Rockstar released GTA 6.
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Ferrari has still not won another world championship
Perhaps the most remarkable statistic concerns Ferrari. When GTA 5 was released in September 2013, the Italian team had already gone five years without winning a Constructors' Championship and six years without a Drivers' Championship.
Despite the enormous changes Formula 1 has undergone since then, Ferrari has still not added another title in either category. Its most recent Drivers' Championship remains Kimi Raikkonen's triumph in 2007, while its last Constructors' Championship dates back to 2008.
Since GTA 5's release, Ferrari has challenged for titles with Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc, while also bringing seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton to Maranello. Yet neither championship has returned to Ferrari during the entire wait between GTA 5 and GTA 6.
Mercedes has won nine Constructors' Championships
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When GTA 5 was released in September 2013, Mercedes had not won a single Constructors' Championship since returning to Formula 1 as a works team in 2010. Just a few months later, the introduction of the turbo-hybrid regulations would completely transform the competitive order.
Mercedes went on to claim eight consecutive Constructors' Championships between 2014 and 2021, establishing one of the longest periods of dominance in Formula 1 history.
Although that remarkable run ended in 2022, the German manufacturer returned to the top in 2026, securing its ninth Constructors' Championship at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.
The team also celebrated the Drivers' Championship that season, with Antonelli becoming the youngest world champion in F1 history.
Incredibly, Mercedes went from having no Constructors' titles as a modern works team to winning nine of them, all between the releases of GTA 5 and GTA 6.
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Photo: Race Pictures
The Red Bull team that dominated F1 in 2013 barely exists anymore
When GTA 5 was released, Red Bull was approaching the end of one of the most dominant periods in Formula 1 history. Sebastian Vettel was on his way to a fourth consecutive Drivers' Championship, while the Austrian outfit was preparing to secure its fourth successive Constructors' title.
Behind that success was a leadership group that had helped transform Red Bull from a relatively new entrant into a championship-winning operation.
Christian Horner was team principal, Adrian Newey was the technical mastermind behind the cars, Helmut Marko oversaw the team's driver development programme, and Jonathan Wheatley was a key figure in its trackside operations.
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More than 13 years later, almost the entire group has disappeared from Milton Keynes.
Newey left Red Bull in 2024 before joining Aston Martin in 2025, while Wheatley departed to take on a leadership role at Sauber ahead of its transformation into Audi. Rob Marshall, another important figure in Red Bull's engineering department, moved to McLaren, as did long-serving strategy chief Will Courtenay.
The biggest changes came in 2025, when Horner was dismissed after two decades in charge and replaced by Laurent Mekies. Marko also departed at the end of the year, bringing another lengthy chapter in Red Bull's history to a close.
Chief designer Craig Skinner subsequently left in 2026, while Gianpiero Lambiase, Max Verstappen's long-serving race engineer, has also agreed to join McLaren, although his departure is scheduled for a later date. Even Vettel, the driver who spearheaded Red Bull's dominance when GTA 5 arrived, has long since retired from Formula 1.
Red Bull has since enjoyed another era of success with Verstappen, but the people who built the team that dominated the sport in 2013 have almost entirely moved on before the release of GTA 6.
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