The 2025 Formula 1 season could be one of the best in a generation. Almost half of the field of 20 drivers heading to the opening season of the season in Australia can dream of the glory of the title.
This is based on the results of the 2024 Championship – an unexpectedly closed season where Red Bull initially dominated, before McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes ended loudly.
These four teams and seven of their eight drivers shared all the wins from the 24 matches last year. These were the highest sets for teams and drivers who won races from 2012 and 2021.
But as the 2025 campaign is ongoing, the new season could be even better than the latter.
“This season should be epic and even closer,” said Zak Brown, Managing Director of the McLaren team, at the F1 75 Live Event in London last month.
“Every race last year, while the top four teams were always ahead, it always seemed to have someone who was able to disrupt,” Brown said. “So I expect it to happen again. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more than four teams that won this time.”
But it is not only in the front of the field where the 2025 season is expected to be tight. The six groups with slower cars were separated evenly last year. Eventually, everything scored points and the Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber made his car faster at the end of the year, where he finished last in the manufacturers’ ranking.
In the qualifying for the finale of the 2024 in Abu Dhabi in December, the time gap between the fastest of the 20 cars (Lando Norris of McLaren) and the slowest (Jack Dohan of Alpine) was only 0.803 seconds. At the opening of the season in Bahrain in March, the qualifying gap between faster and slower cars was 1,039 seconds.
Lack of rules of rules in car plans that teams have to work around this year is a factor that could lead to even closer races. This reduces the likelihood that any team will find a more important place to make their cars much faster.
“Every year the regulations do not change, it is approaching and closer – that’s exactly the way it always worked,” Norris said last month. “He’s already got very close to the end of last year, and you’ve already started seeing the middle package, which is most of the grid except for the first four teams, covering and approaching.
“I just expect that the case will be even more so this season.”
But not everyone, however, is dragged. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who defeated Norris for the 2024 drivers’ title, said: “It’s good for the sport if it is exciting,” but stressed how teams tend to cover their actual car performance in front of the first race each year.
“It would be nice, but it is impossible to answer right now,” he said. “You can think about it. But it’s just a waste of energy to think about it yet.”
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly agreed with Verstappen.
“Deep inside me, I hope the field is extremely tight,” Gasly said. “But I don’t want to be disappointed if we come to Australia and suddenly we have competitive groups flying.”
But he predicted, because of the combination of the way he ended in 2024 and the stability of the car design, that “on paper, it will be one of those times” where the margins would be very small among the teams.
If this proves to be true, it is possible that Formula 1 will get an annual title battle between many teams for the first time since 2021.
Although Ferrari fought Red Bull in early 2022 and McLaren and other teams pushed Red Bull at the end of last year, 2021 was the last time two teams were even from start to finish.
That year, it was Red Bull Versus Mercedes, led by Lewis Hamilton. But if four teams or more are involved in the title of 2025, it will be the most competitive battle of the league since 2010, when Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren were the candidates. Four drivers of these three teams were able to win the final race. Red Bull and his star, then Sebastian Vettel, finally hit.
Norris said: “Maybe you will have this season with winners who are not top teams, not McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes or Red Bull.”
“Which is good for Formula 1,” he added.
But Mercedes of George Russell insisted that “when you look at how dominant McLaren was the second half of last year, no doubt they were going to go this year.”
This is due to the fact that McLaren won five of the last 12 matches in 2024, most of any team, and defeated Ferrari and Red Bull for the manufacturers’ championship.
All teams must also face the additional challenge of designing their 2026 cars in new and very different design rules to come. At the same time, they must ensure that their 2025 cars are still becoming faster.
They all have a finite amount of resources to achieve this balance within the financial rules of Formula 1, known as a cost limit.
“I think because it will be so interesting to be the one who continues to grow will probably win the championship, but you will pay the price in 2026,” Russell said.
“So, teams coming out of the blocks and see it is a close battle, they may continue to grow. But we also saw it in 2021. Mercedes stopped growing and perfecting the car and found huge performance in the second half of the year.
“Of course, always in this last year of regulations,” he continued, “it is near, but I still expect McLaren to be just in the spotlight.”
