It was only last month Max Verstappen was celebrating his fourth drivers championship and McLaren their first constructors championship in 26 years but we are only six weeks away from embarking on Albert Park in Melbourne for the opening race of the season. Here we look at the biggest talking points ahead of what will be a fascinating season.
Can Hamilton return to his brilliant best at Ferrari? Hamilton will go down as one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time. With Michael Schumacher, Hamilton has the equal most championship titles with seven. Yet the 2024 season was mixed to say the least. Two brilliant wins at Spa in Belgium and at his home grand prix at Silverstone but he failed to get out of Q1 in qualifying on numerous occasions. Apart from his two wins he only finished on the podium on three other occasions. Hamilton finished the season in seventh, 22 points behind his teammate George Russell at Mercedes. Hamilton finished the 2023 season in 2023.
Hamilton has joined the most famous brand in motorsport Ferrari for at least the next two seasons. Will the new environment at Ferrari’s base in Maranello Italy be what Hamilton needs to fight for the championship in 2025?
Can McLaren do the double in 2025 and win both the drivers and constructors championship? After years of disappointment and struggle McLaren finally returned to be one of the powerhouses of Formula 1. McLaren’s driver Lando Norris won his first race of his career at Miami and would be on top of the podium another three times at Abu Dhabi, Singapore and the Netherlands. He would be on the podium another nine times. Norris finished the drivers championship in second. Had it not been for Verstappen’s dominant start to the season Norris would had been in the battle to win the drivers championship.
His teammate at McLaren Oscar Piastri would win two races this season at Hungary and Azerbaijan and would be on the podium another six times. He finished the drivers championship in fourth place.
McLaren won the constructors championship by 14 points points over second Ferrari for the first time since 1998. Will we see this continued dominance in 2025 and can Piastri or Norris be the first driver to win the championship since Lewis Hamilton in 2008.
Will the new era at Mercedes bring immediate success?
The new era at McLaren has officially begun in 2025. After 12 season Hamilton has left for Ferrari and George Russell has become the lead driver at the team. Russell continued to improve throughout the 2024 season. Russell won races at Austria and Las Vegas and finished first over the line at Belgium but was disqualified after his car was underweight after the race. He would finish above Hamilton in the drivers championship.
Russell’s new teammate at Mercedes will be 18 year old Italian sensation Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Antonelli has continued to impress since his racing debut at the age of 15. He won the Italian Formula 4 championship in 2022 and in 2023 he won the Formula Regional European Championship and the Formula Regional Middle East Championship. In 2024 he bypassed F3 to race in F2. In F2 Antonelli won the sprint race in Silverstone and the feature race in Hungary. He finished sixth in the F2 championship.
Now the big test comes for both these drivers. Can Antonelli brin this impressive form to F1 and can Russell continue his ascension up the ranks in 2025?
What will we see from Aston Martin in 2025? 2024 was a year to forget for the Aston Martin delivering well below expectations. In 2023 Aston Martin finished fifth in constructors championship with 280 points but 2024 they could only record a measly 94 points. Aston Martin would again finish in fifth but a whopping 374 points behind fourth place Mercedes.
Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso started the season with real promise with finishing in the points in the first six races of the season but for the rest of the season top 10 points were less frequent. Alonso only finished in the points eight times for the rest of the season. He finished with 70 points compared to 206 in 2023.
It was a nightmare season for Alonso’s teammate Lance stroll. He only scored points in five races this season and he was outscored by Alonso 19-5 and 17-7 in races. In the wet at Sao Paulo Stroll spun out on the formation lap and then got the car stuck in the gravel. He finished the season in 13th in the drivers championship.
There was one big positive that came out of the season was Adrian Newey joining Aston Martin as their Managing Technical Partner. He starts his role on the 1 March this year. Newey was at Red Bull for 18 years where he played a key roll in the success of their drivers Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen who have both won four championships.
F1 Obsessed Girlie 