F1 heads for a Record Year

The 2025 FIA Formula 1 World Championship promises to be a record breaking year with 24 Grands Prix and unprecedented interest in the series thanks to the joining together of F1’s most marketable driver and most famous team – Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari. The interest around Hamilton’s move from Mercedes to Ferrari was demonstrated by just one photograph of him in his new Ferrari uniform become Instagram’s most viewed F1 image ever.

Further changes included the arrival of New Zealand’s ‘Lightning’ Liam Lawson alongside reigning World Champion Max Verstappen. This follows the decision by Sergio Perez and Red Bull Racing to part company after a disappointing 2024 campaign which saw the Mexican driver scoring almost 1/3rd of the points tally of his Dutch team mate.

At Mercedes the young Kimi Antonelli joins George Russell, while Ferrari’s departing Carlos Sainz Jr, the man who lost out to new signing Lewis Hamilton, moves to Williams alongside Alex Albon.

Reigning Constructors’ World Champions McLaren are one of only two teams alongside Aston Martin to feature a stable driver line up. Oscar Piastri and team mate Lando Norris will go into 2025 as favourites to many observers. Jack Doohan at Alpine, Isack Hadjar at RB, Oliver Bearman at Haas and Gabriel Bortoletto at Sauber underline what a year of change this is for Formula 1’s driver line-ups. Only half the drivers who started the 2024 season remain in their same drives for the 2025 season.

Nico Hulkenberg’s move to Sauber is going to be watched with keen interest as this represents very much the preparatory year for Audi’s new F1 team, the German company having finally completed its takeover of Sauber at the beginning of the year.

The World Championship kicks off in Melbourne, Australia, on March 16th, this being the first time Australia has hosted the opening round of the series since before the Covid pandemic. It was on Friday 13th March 2020 that the Grand Prix in Melbourne was cancelled at the last minute, heralding a four month hiatus in Formula 1 racing as the world went into lockdown. Just five years later Formula 1 is booming as never before, a testimony to the work of Formula 1’s owner Liberty Media, the ten teams and 24 promoters around the world. Netflix’s Drive to Survive series has led to growing audiences worldwide, young fans falling in love with the sport and engaging with it across social media.

The World Championship calendar has been rejigged this year so that Formula 1’s foreign and logistics follows a more efficient pattern. For this reason Japan has moved from its October date back to early in the season, following China. Two races in the Gulf, in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, are followed by the first of the three races in the USA, after which F1 returns to Europe for five months – apart from the usual June-trip to Montreal. Azerbaijan now heralds the start of the autumn schedule, followed by Singapore and then a return to the Americas for Austin, Mexico City and Sao Paolo and Las Vegas before a return to the Gulf for the final rounds in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.