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F1 Live 2025 Review

To celebrate the 75 years of Formula 1 a two hour extravaganza was held at London’s O2 Arena. Each team was introduced to the crowd with the new liveries of the cars. There was also live performances from American rockstar mgk and British pop band Take That. Here are the biggest talking points.

What does Livery mean? Livery has been the most frequently said word in F1 in the last week. Lets discuss what it means before we go any further. The livery is the design and colour scheme of each of the cars. For example Ferrari’s livery has always been red.

No in-depth conversations from the drivers or teams. If you wanted detailed discussions from the drivers about the season ahead you had come to the wrong place. Most drivers and team principals were given just one questions and those answers weren’t too expansive or long.

Alpine Team Principal Oliver Oakes was asked what they need to do to improve on position six in the constructors championship. He simply replied “I guess we just need to rise higher”.

The night belonged to one man in red. There are four British men on the F1 grid in 2025 but it was clear in the London stadium that Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton was the favourite. A massive roar echoed out when the seven time world champions name was mentioned or face appeared on the big screen.

The same cannot be said for the Red Bull Racing team. When the Red Bull Racing team head to Silverstone later in the season they won’t be expecting a positive reaction. Each time driver Max Verstappen or Team Principal Christian Horner appeared on the big screen a loud boo was heard. Later in the evening when Horner tried to introduce his drivers Verstappen and Liam Lawson to the crowd he was booed throughout his speech. Red Bull drivers were the only drivers not interviewed after there introduction.

Best Introductions of the night. Before the drivers and car came out each team conducted their own introduction through videos on the big screen, props and musicians. The best of the night was Aston Martin whose theme was James Bond. It began with a James Bond style video which could have been out of the Bond movie “the world is not enough”.

Aston Martin drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll walked down the arena stairs in suits with their helmets on with Bond theme playing overhead. A video appeared on the screen about the history of the Aston Matin before Nigerian singer song writer Tems performed her single “higher” with violinists. Aston Martin’s Team Principal and CEO Andy Cowell and drivers came out onto the stage.

Honorary mention to the Kick Sauber team who had drummers lining both sides of the stage as the car and team came out.

Best Liveries for 2025 Alpine and Racing Bulls were the two teams that liveries that stood out the most. Racing Bulls who was formally known as RB last season replaced the majority of blue on their car last season to white and it looks fantastic with the white standing out. The pink and blue of the Alpine team works well together and will look great out on the race track.

The Attention now turns Bahrain. After the excitement of the live event in London the 20 drivers head to Bahrain for three days of testing starting on Wednesday. The first race of the season will be held in Melbourne Australian on 16 March.

The Belgium Grand Prix

The Disqualification of George Russell

As the 2024 Belgium Grand Prix concluded it appeared to be a magical day for the Mercedes team. Their drivers George Russell finished first and Lewis Hamilton in second. Their first 1,2 finish for the season. Russell started in the race in 6th but with assistance of a one pit stop strategy he was able to win the race. Most drivers had at least two pit stop race.

Only hours later the celebrations had become subdued when it was revealed that George Russell had been disqualified for his car being underweight.

Each Formula 1 car needs to weigh at least 798kg. Russell’s Mercedes weighed 798kg after the race but once the remaining fuel was emptied from the car, the car weighed 796.5kg.

The FIA F1 Technical delegate released a report regarding the matter.

“As this is 1.5kg below the minimum weight requested in TR Article 4.1 which also has to be respected at all times during the competition, I am referring this matter to the stewards for their consideration” it said.

The stewards then disqualified Russel from the race.

Russel spoke with the F1 media after the race.

“It is heartbreaking to be disqualified for today’s race. It had been an unbelievable Grand Prix for us to make the one-stop strategy work” he said.

Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin believed one of the reasons the car came in underweight was due to the one stop strategy.

“We don’t understand yet why the car was underweight following the race but will investigate thoroughly to find the explanation. We expect the loss of rubber from the one stop was a contributing factor and we’ll work to understand how it happened.”

It wasn’t all heartbreak for the Mercedes team with Hamilton winning his second race in three races.

“I feel for George and you don’t want to win through disqualification, but we have been in the fight for victories in the past few races. It is incredibly competitive now, so we will need to work hard to battle for wins consistently.

“Nevertheless, we can go into the summer break with momentum and positivity” he said to F1 media.

Hamilton has been in the top 10 for every race this season apart for Australia where he didn’t finish. He has finished in the top four for the last six races.

The British Grand Prix Review Part 1

It is a great time to be an English sports fan. George Russell wins the Austrian Grand Prix, the England men’s football team are in the Euro’s semi final and now seven time world champion Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton wins his first race win in 945 days. Hamilton’s ninth win at his home grand prix.

Mercedes had gone 56 races without a win but now have won two in a row. There has been six individual winners in the first twelve race of the 2024 season. In 2023 there was only three winners for the entire season.

The last pip stop defined the British Grand Prix

After 38 laps of the race McLaren’s Lando Norris was in the lead, Hamilton in second and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in third. All three were still in contention to win the race. All three drivers were on the intermediate due to the mid section of the race being contested in the rain. As the rain disappeared and the sun came out, the track dried the track the drivers came into the pits to put on slicks.

Both Hamilton and Verstappen came in on lap 39 with Hamilton going on the soft and Verstappen going on the hard tyre. Norris came into the pit the next lap. As Norris came into the pitlane his team said over the radio the medium would be able to defend Verstappen and the soft would cover Hamilton. Norris chose the soft.

Norris’s pit stop was slower than expected with Norris locking up contributing to it. He came out behind Hamilton and Hamilton would go on to win and historic ninth British Grand Prix.

Speaking after the race to the media, Hamilton spoke about the excitement of winning his first grand prix of the season.

“Today means so much. It is the most incredible honour to be standing on the top step of the podium at Silverstone. I think my heart is still racing” he said to F1.com

For Norris he was still over six seconds clear of Verstappen but with Verstappen on the hard tyre and Norris on the soft he was able to catch Norris and pass him with ease, finishing the race in second position. Norris finished the race in third. After the race Norris spoke with the F1 media about the race.

“At the same time I blame myself for not making the right decisions. I hate it, I hate ending up in this position and having excuses for not doing a good enough job” he said.

But Norris also spoke during his press conferences about the positives of his home grand prix.

“This is the place I would love everything to go perfectly and it just didn’t happen today. But it is still lovely to be on the podium at Silverstone. We will come stronger, next race and next year.”

Norris is in second place in the championship, 84 points behinds behind Verstappen.

It is clear that Verstappen is no longer a super power in F1.

For Verstappen he struggled for pace throughout the British Grand Prix. After 14 laps of the race he was in third behind the two Mercedes but within three laps he was passed by both McLaren’s.

The next 10 laps the two Mercedes and McLaren’s would fight in a exhilarating battle for the top 4 positions but Verstappen was unable to keep up and sat almost 10 seconds behind George Russell in fourth when he came in for his first pit stop on lap 27.

With George Russell having to retire, and McLaren’s strategic error on a pit stop with Oscar Piastri’s car, Verstappen moved up to third. As we spoke about earlier Norris picked the wrong type of tyre on his last pit stop and the Red Bull team making the right decisions on their pit stops Verstappen was able to finish the race in second.

In a press conference after the race Verstappen spoke about the difficulties he had throughout the race.

“It was difficult today to manage especially with the rain, but looking at pure performance we were too slow in the first stint and overall struggled with tyre degradation” he said to F1.com.

“Out of a tough situation we still finished second and extended our championship leads, and that of course is a very strong result for us. We’re halfway through the season now and we still have a bit of work to do still to finish the season where we want to be.”