Lando Norris beat championship leader Kimi Antonelli to claim his second win in a row with victoy at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Reigning world champion Norris moved up to fourth in the drivers’ standings, 83 points adrift of Mercedes’ Antonelli.

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen suffered heartbreak at his final home race when he crashed out heavily in the opening stages.

F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your questions after round 12 of the campaign in Zandvoort.

Is it fair to say the dominance of Mercedes is over? They haven’t won a race since Spa-Francorchamps, and even then that victory wasn’t consecutive. Are they focusing more now on scoring points than they are winning races?

There has been a very obvious shift in competitiveness at the front as the Formula 1 season has progressed.

Mercedes won the first six races of the season, but have won only two of the subsequent six.

Mercedes took 10 consecutive poles in the first 10 races, but have been beaten by McLaren’s Lando Norris at the past two grands prix. And the fastest Mercedes was lower than second for the first time in Hungary, where Red Bull’s Max Verstappen also lined up ahead of Kimi Antonelli.

Over the season as a whole so far, the Mercedes is the fastest car in qualifying by an average of 0.316 seconds over Ferrari, with McLaren a further 0.041secs adrift.

But what happens when you split that into the first six races and the next six?

Until the Canadian Grand Prix in late May, Mercedes were 0.453secs a lap faster than the next fastest team, which was McLaren at the time, and 0.489secs quicker than Ferrari.

Since Monaco, that gap has come down to 0.163secs over Ferrari and 0.270secs over McLaren. Red Bull’s gap over the past six races is 0.353secs, whereas it was 0.813secs up to Canada.

There is a very obvious reason for this – Mercedes have upgraded their car less than their rivals. To a quite stark degree.

Each race, governing body the FIA issues a sheet showing the declared upgrades each team has brought to that race.

It’s not a definitive list – teams don’t have to put all the changes on that sheet, only the ones that are visible. But it gives an idea.

Since the start of the season, Mercedes have fitted a total of 24 new parts to their cars, compared with 37 for Red Bull, 38 for McLaren and 40 by Ferrari.

This is not a direct representation of relative spend, as some parts are more expensive than others.

But it’s striking, for example, that Mercedes have also deployed fewer upgrades than Aston Martin, Alpine, Racing Bulls, Audi and Cadillac.

Even Haas, the team with the smallest budget on the grid, have had more upgrades than Mercedes, who have the equal lowest number with Williams.

This is all in the context of the budget cap, which is set at $215m (£170m) for all teams.

The question, obviously, is what is going on here?

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says: “We haven’t got the money to put developments on the car.

“We are trying to evenly split that through the season, based on our calculations of when we can bring the biggest updates and optimising the championship points. But we just can do what we can do.”

Asked why McLaren and Ferrari appeared to have the money and Mercedes did not, Wolff said: “Well, you will see how towards the end of the season (whether) they are going to be able to deploy as much stuff on to the car as they do now.

“Someone might have a different strategy in spending more at the beginning and in the middle of the year than towards the end.”

The obvious conclusion is that Mercedes either spent more money in the design and build process of this year’s car than their rivals – which would make sense, given how competitive it was at the start of the season – or they have saved money to spend on their next upgrade, and/or next year’s car.

That is due at the so-called Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia at the start of October, when there are either eight or nine grands prix remaining, depending on the situation in the Middle East.

On top of that, Antonelli will take a grid penalty at the next race in Italy for exceeding the permitted number of engine parts, and George Russell will also have one at a subsequent race, most likely Azerbaijan.

How did the alleged improvements go on the Aston Martin? Is there any sign of improved performance? – Chris

Honda gave a debut to its long-awaited ‘spec two’ engine at the Dutch Grand Prix, while Aston Martin added a new front wing and diffuser to the pretty much all-new car that was introduced at the previous race in Hungary.

Within the team, they were hoping that the Honda engine would reduce lap times by somewhere in the region of 0.3-0.5secs.

The weekend painted a confusing picture.

On the one hand, Fernando Alonso looked more competitive than ever before at various points.

But he qualified further away from pole in both positional and percentage terms than he had in Hungary.

There were, however, extenuating circumstances, in that he was 12th fastest before failing to improve on a messy final lap hindered by a sub-optimal ‘prep’ lap which left his tyres out of the ‘window’. Without that, he probably would have progressed beyond the first session.

Nevertheless, that suggests the new Honda was little better than the old one. On the other hand, the new engine’s drivability was definitely worse, which may have skewed the picture.

But then Alonso drove an outstanding race on a one-stop strategy to take ninth place, looking after tyres and measuring his pace with all the expertise and skill he has shown throughout his career to hold off two faster cars in Pierre Gasly’s Alpine and Yuki Tsunoda’s Racing Bull in the final stint.

Those are the first points Aston Martin have scored on merit all season.

As Alonso put it: “We scored one point in Monaco with nine DNFs (retirements). Today we scored two points with Max (Verstappen) DNF. It was well deserved.”

Alonso said after the race that the team were planning a two-stop but changed during the race because they were stuck behind other cars.

“We are in traffic,” he said. “We cannot use our potential. We are faster in the corners than the people in front of us and we are slower on the straights. We’re stuck behind.

“So as soon as we have free track in front of us, we try to use it. Even if it’s not the optimal performance and the optimal strategy, and it’s what we did today.”

On the car and engine upgrades, Alonso said: “Another step forward, especially on the chassis side.

“We brought four or five components here. Also the Budapest package was understood in the (summer) break. With all the data available after the race, we fine-tuned a little bit the set-up around that new spec. Plus the new parts. I think now we are optimising the chassis side and we are able to extract the maximum.

“The engine is more difficult. I don’t think we can be black and white if we have more power or not.

“On the driver side of things, you change circuits one month after the other race. The drivability has been a difficult weekend. We struggled with the downshift again. We struggled with the engine braking corner to corner. It was a challenging weekend in that regard.”

These engines are highly complex and it takes time for teams to dial into them so they are working at their optimum. So it may be a few more races before the new Honda can be judged fairly.

Did Charles Leclerc cost Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton a podium position by holding Hamilton up when he refused to pit when instructed to, and what will Ferrari do to ensure he follows team orders in the future? – Mike

Mid-race in Zandvoort, Lewis Hamilton came up behind Charles Leclerc on fresher tyres, their strategies offset, and asked to be let by to optimise his race.

The way the television broadcast was played out, it sounded as if Ferrari decided to pit Leclerc for fresh tyres to get him out of the way. He initially resisted that and did not come in, but then came in at the next call.

Team boss Frederic Vasseur addressed this after the race, in comments that were a little unclear.

First, he said, at that point, Ferrari were thinking of running Hamilton to the end, so they did not want him to push hard – but had not told him that was the case, because they wanted to keep the plan secret from their rivals.

As for Leclerc, Vasseur said they were “expecting him to pit” but then realised he was in danger of coming out in traffic.

Vasseur said: “Charles was supposed to pit, we extended one lap, and it was a kind of confusion, but I’m not worried about this. Everybody will be back in the briefing, they will have a clear picture about the race.”

Some will inevitably say this was another example of Ferrari messing up their strategy, an accusation that is levelled at them quite often.

Vasseur said: “It’s not so easy, but, if I look at the race now, my issue is that we didn’t tell Lewis that we were expecting him to go to the end, and it was not a matter of (him) pushing (at that point).”

Did the delay cost Hamilton third? Hamilton thought so, but it’s impossible to know whether he would have passed George Russell if he had had a lap or two more to try.

Did Leclerc cost Hamilton podium?

With Isack Hadjar hurting his wrist during the summer break, do teams not ask drivers to stay away from high impact or dangerous sports and activity during their time off to keep them ready for their return? – Dave

F1 drivers’ contracts usually have clauses in them forbidding them from doing ‘dangerous sports’, such as skiing or scuba diving, although not every driver’s contract is the same.

In Hadjar’s case, the Frenchman suffered what Red Bull describe as a “minor fracture” while doing a boxing exercise which is part of his normal gym routine.

There is no suggestion of him doing anything that could have been outside the terms of his contract.

Red Bull are targeting for him to return for the next race, the Italian Grand Prix, but it remains to be seen whether that will be possible.

For more updates from the GRACYNEWS, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

Last Updated on August 26, 2026 by Grace Simon

Bitcoin began with a whitepaper and a name that has never been tied to a confirmed identity. Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, introduced the network in 2008 and disappeared from public communication a few years later.Since then, researchers and journalists have tried to uncover who Satoshi might be, but no claim has been proven.

What remains clear is the system itself. The design outlined in the Bitcoin whitepaper introduced a decentralised method for transferring value without intermediaries.

Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto? The Mystery Behind Bitcoin’s Creator

In October 2008, during the financial crisis that plagued the global economy, a person or a group using the name Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper titled Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System.

The document described a system for sending digital money directly between people without relying on banks or other intermediaries.A few months later, in January 2009, the first version of the Bitcoin software went live.

The network began processing transactions and recording them on a public ledger now known as the blockchain.Despite introducing Bitcoin, the identity behind the name Satoshi Nakamoto has never been confirmed. The name is widely considered a pseudonym and may refer to a single developer or to a group working together on the project.

Satoshi communicated via email and the BitcoinTalk forums during Bitcoin’s early development.

These discussions focused on technical questions, bug fixes, and network design. By 2011, those communications stopped. Since then, no verified message from Satoshi Nakamoto has appeared.More than fifteen years later, the mystery remains unresolved.

What is known is that the system described in the 2008 whitepaper continues to operate through a distributed network of participants who maintain the Bitcoin protocol.

Understanding who Satoshi Nakamoto is, or why the creator chose to remain anonymous, helps explain how Bitcoin was designed and why decentralized systems continue to attract global attention.

The Origin Story: Solving the Double-Spend Problem

Before Bitcoin, digital cash struggled with a problem known as double spending. Unlike physical money, digital files can be copied. Without a reliable way to verify ownership, the same digital funds could potentially be sent to multiple people.

Earlier online payment systems avoided this issue by relying on a central authority. Banks or payment processors tracked balances and confirmed whether a transaction was valid before allowing it to go through.Satoshi Nakamoto proposed another way in the 2008 Bitcoin white paper.

Instead of trusting a central institution, Bitcoin relies on a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. In this model, participants collectively verify transactions. Payments are broadcast across the network and grouped into blocks, which are then recorded on the shared block chain ledger.

To secure this ledger, Bitcoin employs Proof of Work (PoW).

In this process, specialized computers called miners compete to solve complex cryptographic puzzles. The first miner to solve the puzzle earns the right to add a new block to the blockchain.

Each block links to the previous one, creating a chronological chain of records. Altering past transactions would require repeating the same computational work across the network, which makes tampering extremely difficult.

Genesis Block

The Bitcoin network began operating on January 3, 2009, when Satoshi Nakamoto mined the first block. This block is known as the Genesis Block.

Satoshi included a short message inside that block: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.

”The line references a headline from the British newspaper The Times published that day.

It serves as a timestamp that confirms when the first block was created. The reference also reflects the financial climate at the time, when governments were responding to the global banking crisis.

From that point onward, the Bitcoin network began processing transactions through a distributed system maintained by its participants. The principles outlined in the original whitepaper still underpin how the network operates today.

The Top Candidates: Who Could It Be?

Over the years, many people have tried to link real identities to the name Satoshi Nakamoto. Journalists, researchers, and early Bitcoin developers have examined emails, forum posts, writing style, and technical history for clues. None of these investigations has produced verifiable proof.

The simplest way to prove Bitcoin’s authorship would be to sign a message using the private keys associated with the earliest Bitcoin addresses.Those keys have never been used publicly for that purpose.

As a result, the identity behind Satoshi Nakamoto remains unconfirmed.

Several names recur in discussions of Bitcoin’s origins.

Hal Finney

Hal Finney was a well-known cryptographer and an early participant in the Bitcoin project.

Before Bitcoin, he worked on privacy tools such as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP).

Finney downloaded the Bitcoin software shortly after its release and helped test the system in its early days.

On January 12, 2009, Finney received the first recorded Bitcoin transaction from Satoshi Nakamoto.

Because of his technical expertise and close involvement with the project, some observers have speculated about a deeper connection.

Finney repeatedly stated that he was not Satoshi Nakamoto.

Nick Szabo

Nick Szabo is a computer scientist and legal scholar who proposed a digital currency concept called Bit Gold in the late 1990s. The design included ideas such as cryptographic proof and decentralized verification, which later appeared in Bitcoin’s architecture.

Because Bit Gold shares several conceptual similarities with Bitcoin, Szabo’s name is often mentioned in discussions about Satoshi Nakamoto. Szabo has publicly denied being the creator of Bitcoin.

Len Sassaman

Len Sassaman was a cryptographer and an active participant in the cypherpunk movement. Cypherpunks focused on privacy, encryption, and digital freedom during the early years of the internet. Sassaman worked on several privacy-related technologies and collaborated with other researchers in the same field.

Interest in Sassaman resurfaced after a 2024 HBO documentary explored different theories about Bitcoin’s origins. The program discussed several individuals connected to the cypherpunk community, including Sassaman. However, no evidence has confirmed that he created Bitcoin.

Craig Wright

Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist, publicly claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto in 2016. His claims have been widely challenged by members of the Bitcoin community and by researchers examining the available evidence.

In March 2024, BBC reported that the High Court of England and Wales ruled that Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto.

The court determined that the evidence presented did not support his claim to have written the Bitcoin whitepaper or created the Bitcoin protocol.

Because Bitcoin relies on public key cryptography, authorship could be proven by signing a message with the private keys linked to Satoshi’s early Bitcoin addresses. No individual has produced such proof.

For that reason, the identity behind Satoshi Nakamoto remains unknown.

The “Patoshi” Pattern: How Much Bitcoin Does Satoshi Have?

A long-standing question in Bitcoin’s history is how much Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto mined in the network’s earliest days. The exact figure is unknown, but researchers have examined the first blocks on the blockchain to form estimates.

One of the most referenced studies comes from blockchain researcher Sergio Demian Lerner. While analyzing early mining activity, Lerner noticed a repeating pattern in the way certain blocks were produced.The data suggested that a single miner generated a large share of those early blocks. He later referred to this activity as the Patoshi pattern.

Based on this analysis, some researchers estimate that Satoshi may have mined around 1.1 million Bitcoin in the first year of the network. At that time, very few people were mining, and the system had only just begun operating.

Mining is the process that adds new blocks of transactions to the blockchain.

Computers compete to solve cryptographic puzzles, and the first machine to solve one earns the right to add the next block and collect the block reward.

For a closer look at the process, this guide on how Bitcoin mining works explains how mining secures the network and introduces new Bitcoin into circulation.

The coins linked to the Patoshi pattern are notable for another reason.

They have never moved. The addresses believed to belong to early miner remain inactive more than a decade later. Because Bitcoin’s blockchain is public, any transfer from those addresses would be visible to anyone monitoring the network.

Why those coins remain untouched is still unclear.

The private keys may have been deliberately left unused, lost over time, or simply held without the intention of spending them.

Since the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has never been confirmed, the reason those coins remain dormant remains unknown.

The Patoshi pattern remains one of the most discussed clues when researchers study Bitcoin’s earliest blocks.

Why Did Satoshi Nakamoto Disappear

Satoshi Nakamoto played an active role in Bitcoin’s development during its first years. Much of that work took place through emails and posts on forums and the cryptography mailing list.

The discussions focused on practical issues. Developers asked questions about the software, reported bugs, and suggested improvements to the protocol.

By late 2010, Satoshi began reducing involvement in the project. Responsibility for maintaining the Bitcoin codebase gradually shifted to other contributors. One of them was Gavin Andresen, who later became a lead developer working on the protocol.

Around that period, a debate emerged about whether Bitcoin should accept donations from WikiLeaks. The organization had started facing financial restrictions from traditional payment networks. Some supporters suggested Bitcoin as an alternative. Satoshi expressed concern about the idea in a forum post from December 2010.

The message suggested that the network was still small and could attract unwanted attention if it became tied to a high-profile political issue.

After that point, Satoshi’s public messages became less frequent. In April 2011, Satoshi sent what appears to be one of the final known emails to Gavin Andresen, stating that they had “moved on to other things.” No confirmed communication from Satoshi Nakamoto has appeared since.

Some observers point to Bitcoin’s structure when discussing this disappearance.

Bitcoin was designed as a decentralized system. No single individual controls the network. If a widely recognized founder had remained closely involved, that person might have been seen as a central authority.

Satoshi’s departure removed that possibility. Development continued through a broader group of contributors working on the open-source code. Over time, miners, node operators, developers, and users all became part of maintaining the network.

More than a decade later, Bitcoin continues to operate without its original creator. The system runs through the same decentralized model described in the 2008 whitepaper.

For more updates from the GRACYNEWS, follow us on Facebook and Instagram

Last Updated on August 26, 2026 by Grace Simon

Minimalistic door handles became a signature feature of electric vehicles (EVs), but the controversial designs are now at the centre of China’s biggest car recall, affecting more than 4 million vehicles.

The recall, which includes 2.98 million Chinese-made Teslas, follows safety concerns that the hidden door handles are difficult to locate and open in emergency situations.

Other brands affected by the recall include Chinese carmakers XPeng, Xiaomi and Geely.

The recalled vehicles will have a warning label stuck on the interior door and receive a software update to automatically lower the windows in a crash.

The designs have come under scrutiny after two fatal crashes in China involving Xiaomi EVs, in which power failures were suspected to have prevented doors from being opened.

Tesla said in a statement on Friday that it was recalling some of its Model 3, Y, S and X vehicles due to door handles that are “difficult to identify and operate because their colour is similar to the interior trim”.

“In extreme situations such as a severe collision causing the vehicle’s low-voltage system to fail, this could hinder occupants from quickly opening the doors to escape and impede rescue efforts by those outside the vehicle, posing a safety hazard,” it said.

Tesla said it would place warning labels on the recalled vehicles and issue a software update to automatically lower a vehicle’s windows after a collision.

The BBC understands that carmakers have not yet notified authorities of any plans for a similar recall in the US.The BBC has contacted Tesla, XPeng, Xiaomi and Geely for comment.

The use of hidden handle designs has “snowballed” after Chinese brands were quick to copy the “sleek” look of Tesla’s Model S sedan since 2014, said Tu Le, the managing director of consultancy Sino Auto Insights.

The use of warning labels and a software update is more of a “band-aid” than a lasting solution for the issue, he added.

In February, Chinese authorities announced a ban on hidden door handles.

Under new rules due to take effect on 1 January 2027, cars will only be allowed to be sold in China if they have a mechanical release on both the inside and outside of their doors.

Tesla’s door handles were also involved in a probe by US safety regulators after reports that they suddenly stopped working, leaving children trapped in the cars.

In July, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggested creating a new formal safety standard for all carmakers.

The agency told the BBC that it is reviewing whether it will require emergency door-exit systems in vehicles.

Last Updated on August 25, 2026 by Grace Simon