BEHIND THE HEADLINES – F1 in 2025
The 2025 season marks seventy-five years of F1, after a dramatic and close end to last year and stability in the regulations could it be one of the all-time classics? While 2024 saw Max Verstappen wrap up his fourth championship in a row, it wasn’t an easy sail during the second half of the season given the challenge mainly from McLaren, but also Mercedes and Ferrari.
Following his win in Abu Dhabi, we heard Lando Norris throw down the challenge to McLaren to fight for the driver’s championship as well as defending the constructors. I think as Norris admitted he and the team made too many mistakes last year, including realising they were fighting for both drivers and constructors, they need to cut out mistakes as you need to expect Red Bull to be strong. Obliviously at the time of writing, we have not seen any team turn a wheel yet.
While Red Bull has dominated from 2022 until mid-2024, we know that the fight for both best of the rest has been incredibly tight and I expect that to be the theme throughout the season. When you think of great seasons it’s been one where multiple teams and drivers fighting for the championship, we know these regulations were designed to create closer racing. But the challenge, as with any season before a regulation change, its about priorities between this year and next year.
I think Red Bull’s fall is down to well documented turbulent year off track that could continue to have ramifications this season but have gained time in the wind tunnel for the first time in six ATR cycles which were introduced at the start of 2022. They looked to have problems with the car becoming unsettled and difficult to set up for Max Verstappen, but I believe the signs were always there given how Sergio Perez struggled.
Norris and McLaren, I think they failed to realise quickly enough they were fighting for the championship, and then the whole saga around team orders made it more difficult to challenge for the championship. I don’t see given the current regulations and this being the final year of the regulations, in recent weeks they hinted they would not do the same thing with regards to ‘Papya Rules’, which I think they need to do if they are to in another close fight for the championship.
2024s driver market will shape F1 for the next few years, as we know the move almost a year ago with Lewis Hamilton joining Ferrari. Hamilton, I think will and needs to be back fired up, following a tough end to last year and three seasons with Mercedes, I think turning forty and changing teams could breathe new life into him, it will be interesting to see how the dynamic works with Charles Leclerc.
I think Ferrari bringing in Hamilton could if they get things right in 2026 turn around their fortunes and they could end their wait for their first championships in eighteen years. Hamilton, I think is still hungry for that eighth championship, which some feel he was robbed of in Abu Dhabi or Masigate scandal in 2021. He is the most successful driver in F1’s 75-year history and imagine what an eighth title would do.
Leclerc and Hamilton in my view are two of the fastest drivers though I feel you need to accept that Hamilton is ageing and his fears of ‘not being fast anymore,’ I think was down to him lacking motivation because of the way the last few years have gone at Mercedes. Leclerc is the long-term future, and this move is about seeing how he can take that next step towards becoming a championship contender.
Red Bull dropped Perez and replaced him with Liam Lawson after he impressed during the final six races. I think he needs to deliver in what I believe the toughest job in the sport at the moment, being Verstappen’s teammate is the toughest job in the sport given the strength and ability of the Dutchman.
Lawson’s promotion to Red Bull was sooner than Verstappen’s after a season and four races, into the top team and Leclerc one from Sauber to Ferrari in 2019. I think it is a huge risk for the New Zealander who could be badly burned if he doesn’t match Verstappen, but he did impress in the final few races.
Red Bull last year had a lot of turbulence both on and off track, which was bound to have an impact as well as the departure of Adrain Newey, I think this has to be seen as a transitional year if they want to be fighting for championships after 2026.
Mercedes, in my view, is the weakest lineup of the top four but I’m not saying they have a bad lineup when compared to the other top teams. George Russell, we know is an effective trade unionist and has at Williams been a brilliant team leader, but I think it’s a bigger challenge and different to lead a works team given the pressure.
But over the course of last year Russell as I wrote in the review started to be the stronger driver he needs to continue to deliver and I still think he has some growing and mistakes to iron out.
I think there still will be a big gap between the top four and midfield, but they didn’t appear to me to be consistent back markers given the fluctuations we saw through last season but they need to be able to extract the most out of the car. I think it’s going to be very interesting how to see how teams manage expectations throughout the year, and how this manages competing demands this year and next year.
Aston Martin and Alpine I think were the two teams which had the most difficult seasons, while Williams was held back by accident damage which cost time and money. Williams are still in the rebuilding phase and in the budget cap era those crashes I think robbed them of development during last season.
This year we Gabriel Bortoleto, Issak Hadjar, and Kimi Antonelli going into this season as rookies as Lawson, Jack Doohan and Ollie Bearman go into their first full season, which effectively mean a quarter of the field are rookies. This could be a very fight and some like Doohan, Bearman and Lawson are going into their full season having made at least one start in 2024.
There haven’t been this many rookies debuting in a single season that we can remember, the likes of Franco Colapinto, Bearman and Lawson in their stand-in during 2024 and they will need to keep it up. They will be under pressure and there are rumours that Doohan’s seat isn’t secure for the whole year with Colapinto the ‘stand-by’ favourite to replace him if he doesn’t deliver.
The big strategic question for all the teams is how much to focus on in 2025 with the big regulation change next year, that will be even harder as we are in what you could call a transitional year. If the teams in the championship fight or the tight midfield they could switch to 2026.
I think Mercedes given the tight battle they had with Red Bull in 2021 and given how Mercedes got it so wrong, shows the huge risks and balancing acts between the two and if we expect it’s going to be closer this season.
In the last week, we have heard that Spa has become the first race to sign a deal where it will not hold races every year, we are halfway through the decade and we are finally starting to see Liberty’s vision come through, it will be interesting when we get to 2030 and 2027 how this has changed a decade on since they took over.
One thing to watch as we move to race deals in Europe is how many become rotational, we know that Silverstone and Madrid won’t be as they have about ten-year deals and given the importance and pressure of Monaco and Monza I doubt they will alternate. Could this open doors for Portugal, Turkey, Germany, Argentina or South Africa to name a few to return to the calendar either as rotational races or annual races depending on location?
But after ten years of covering this sport, there is always a surprise one of the things about sport with twenty-four races we never know the stories which will develop through out the season and it’s a sport so the way the championship unfolds often sets the agenda.0.326