At Full Throttle Media, we’re fans of practically every motorsport. Strap goats onto minibikes, and we’d probably watch them.

But that doesn’t mean we rate all motorsports equally. Like parents with multiple children, we love some more than others. For example, take the two most popular series: NASCAR and F1. 

At least this season, one of these series is far more entertaining than the other. So if you’re attention span and your budget for streaming services are limited, there’s really only one choice. Here are five reasons why fans should turn off F1 and focus on NASCAR for the rest of 2026.

One F1 driver is literally lapping the field: Watching a dominating athlete in their prime can be amazing. But it can also be boring if they have no real challengers. It’s the latter in F1, sadly. 

Kimi Antonelli is too young to buy a beer in the U.S., but he’s apparently not too young to dominate his sport. The combination of his precocious talent and the superlative race car his Mercedes team has built have been nearly unstoppable so far. He’s now won five consecutive races and five out of the six 2026 Grand Prix. And he’s not just winning, he’s crushing his competition, with a whopping average margin of victory of nearly 8 seconds.

Antonelli now leads the Drivers Championship standings by 66 points over Lewis Hamilton and 68 points over his teammate George Russell. Obviously, F1 has no playoff format. So unless something goes horribly wrong for Kimi and Mercedes, he’ll cruise to his first title. 

The NASCAR title is now up for grabs: At the start of 2026, Tyler Reddick was channeling Kimi Antonelli and looking like he could waltz into the playoffs as the top driver. He became the first driver in NASCAR Cup Series history to win the first three races of a season. He added victories at Darlington and Kansas, giving him five wins in the first nine races, something not accomplished since Dale Senior in 1987.

Now Reddick hasn’t won since April, opening the door for Denny Hamlin. His season has been the mirror image of Reddick’s. He has scored gutsy back-to-back victories the past two weekends in Nashville and Michigan, and now he sits just 51 points behind the leader Reddick.

Overall, eight different drivers have won NASCAR races in 2026 Granted, NASCAR has always been and will always be more competitive than F1. After all, that’s the point of “stock car” racing. But that advantage is even more glaring in this year.

Check out the points standings: Fourth place (Chase Elliott) and 10^th place (Christoper Bell) are separated by just 72 points. With NASCAR rewarding 55 points for a win, 35 points for second, 34 points for third and so on, that means just one or two races can totally change the table. 

F1 doesn’t know what it wants to be: Frankly, it’s not easy to be an F1 fan today. It’s like dating someone who keeps changing their mind between wanting a situationship and wanting an engagement ring. 

F1 infamously began this season with all new powertrain regulations. It would take us 1,000 words to begin to explain all the changes. But the bottom line is that internal combustion engine power was reduced, with the new power split requiring 53% from ICE and 47% from electric battery. Suffice it to say fans were bewildered and drivers were downright ornery.

Then just today, F1 announced they are backtracking. The split will change to 58/42 next year and 60/40 in 2028. Well…big whoop. 

Drivers and fans didn’t ask for less ICE power. They didn’t want it. Now the sport’s organizers are throwing them a very unappetizing bone to try to appease them. We’re not biting.

The Rowdy effect: The tragic death of Kyle Busch rocked the sports world, in general, and the motorsports world, in particular. Of course, many are comparing this horrible event to the loss of Dale Senior 2001. But it really goes beyond that.

Busch’s death also can be compared to the shocking passing of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, F1 great Ayrton Senna or baseball star Roberto Clemente. 

If you have any kind of heart, it’s imperative to watch the rest of the NASCAR season that will be filled with memorials, stories and commemorations of Rowdy’s life and all he meant to motorsports. 

Top Gun or beef tripe stew: Both NASCAR and F1 are racing on new courses this season. NASCAR will take over U.S. Naval Base Coronado in San Diego June 19-21, and F1 debuts in Madrid September 11-15.

As much as we looove Madrid’s Callos a la Madrileña, a stew made with beef tripe (gulp), we have to admit we will take San Diego over the Spanish capital any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The Madrid course has been given the unfortunate name of the Madring. Of course we get it. It’s a portmanteau of Madrid and ring. But it’s also a terrible title. It sounds like a new UFC venue: “Two men enter the Madring. One man leaves.”

And then there’s San Diego: The birthplace of naval aviation, the home of cool ocean breezes and the source of fantastic tacos.