2025 F1 Season Preview – James Punt

Now, it is time for part one of James Punt’s 2025 F1 Season betting preview. Last year James managed to find some tasty ante-post winners and he is hoping to repeat the dose this season. So, stick the kettle on, make yourself a brew and enjoy the preview.

2025 F1 Season

The 2025 F1 season is like the calm before the storm. The big regulation changes kick in for next season. That effectively becomes the new Year Zero and all the teams will have almost everything pointed in that direction.

This 2025 season is just killing time. Yes, there is a World Drivers’ Championship up for grabs, and the important Constructors’ Championship, which decides on the amount of CFD and wind tunnel time the teams are allowed to run next season (the team that comes last gets the most, the winner the least, with a sliding scale between the two). But, getting it right for the new era for regulations is so much more important.

That said, the driver that wins the World Championship will join the very elite club of Formula 1 champions. They will be in the history books and it won’t matter that it was in a season that saw minimal development. In some respects, winning this title will be a lot harder than say, Lewis Hamilton cleaning up in a dominant Mercedes when the turbo Hybrid era started.

Convergence Of Performance

Convergence of performance happens at the end of a regulation cycle. With the top teams having maxed out on their potential in the current Ground Effect era, the midfield teams have a chance to join the party, maybe win races, or at least compete for podiums.

We saw it already in 2024. We witnessed McLaren’s first Constructors’ Championship since 1998, we had seven different drivers winning races and four different constructors. It was still very much a season dominated by the top four teams of McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. Only the much maligned Alpine team managed to join the big boys on the podium, with both drivers, in a mad race in Brazil.

Tarted Up

It will be very tempting, and logical, for the teams to basically run tarted up 2024 cars for the 2025 season. Their resources will be better spent on the 2026 car. Getting it right next year is so much more important than spending money on a car that has a shelf life of one year.

The teams will aim to tweak last year’s cars, to fix any glaring weaknesses, but to do so without spending a lot of time or money, which would be better spent on the new regulations.

The big four teams have effectively reached the end of the development curve of these ground effect cars. There is no silver bullet waiting to be found. Any improvements will be marginal gains. Maybe the teams further down the pecking order have the greatest scope for improvement, but they don’t have the same kind of resources.

What they do have will largely be spent on the 2026. Teams like Alpine and Haas can make progress by changing the management structure, making things more efficient and effective. Williams have had a couple of years to just get modern infrastructure in place. Money being spent on things that won’t pay dividends in the short run.

2025 F1 Season Regulation Changes

For once, I was expecting this part of the preview to be brief, but then the FIA suddenly made a pronouncement regarding flexible wings.

Flexi-wings

The first regulation change of interest is not a regulation change, or just not yet anyway. There was quite a bit of chat last year about flexi-wings, and how some teams were running more flexible front wings than others, McLaren for example, but also Mercedes, Alpine and Aston Martin. Others complained that the flexing was in breach of the existing regulations, but the FIA disagreed.

Everyone was operating legally. Just some were closer to the edge. Ferrari and Red Bull stalled on developing their own flexi-wings as they waited for the FIA to pass judgement. By the time they did, those that had stalled working on the flexi wings had missed out on a couple of months of potentially better performance.

It is reasonable to expect that everyone will have been working on their flexi-wings over the winter, budgets permitting. That should mean further convergence in terms of performance.

Flexing Limits

However, with little more than a month before the first race of the season, the FIA announced they will be taking steps to limit the amount of flexing after all. The test will measure the flexibility of the front and rear wings.

The rear wing tests will be introduced from the first race onwards. As for the front wings, the new tests will not take effect until after the Spanish GP, which is the eighth race of the season. It is the front wings where the greatest performance gains were being made.

The plan is to reduce the permitted amount of flex at the outer edge of the front wing to 10mm, a reduction of 5mm. The flex at the inboard part of the wing would be 2mm and not the current 3mm. If you have the most effective flexi wing, you have eight races to make the most of it. But you also have to prepare for the post Spanish GP regulations and hope to get that right.

Season Of Two Halves

We could have a 2025 F1 Season split in two. A team such as McLaren will have designed this year’s car around the fact that the wings would remain the same, the rest of the car is built around that fact.

Having to change the front wing cannot be done in isolation. Sticking a compliant wing on will not work with the rest of the car. Suddenly the team has to spend a lot more time and money redesigning other parts of the design or face the other sixteen races running a sub optimal car. It is a bit of a dog’s dinner.

We saw Verstappen win last year’s Drivers’ Championship thanks to a flying start, winning seven of the first ten races. Jenson Button won his title in the Brawn car that dominated the early part of the season, before other teams developed their own double diffusers and became more competitive in the second half of the season.

Fast Start For McLaren?

Could Norris or Piastri build up such a lead, that they could hang on to it, with the remaining sixteen races ahead of them? Could McLaren effectively build two different packages for 2025, and what impact would that then have on their resources for 2026? Two packages would be expensive and that would negatively impact the all-important 2026 car.

At least the teams get the time to plan for the change, and we may not see any great midseason change in the pecking order. Ferrari did introduce a flexi wing late in 2024, but Red Bull, and the smaller teams, never did. That should mean they start 2025 still on the back foot, before the playing field is levelled after Spain. As I say, it is all very messy and has been poorly handled by the FIA.

Team Reactions

We can often get a better idea of the truth by the reactions of the various teams to the news of the regulation changes. Red Bull are said to be very unhappy. They have already spent a lot of money developing 2025 cars under the budget cap that would then be declared illegal.

Ferrari are also said to have made good progress with their flexi wings and they too are unhappy that all that work will soon have to be binned. For a season that was all about regulation stability, having the flex-wing test change mid-season, and leaving so late to tell the teams, is a bit of clanger from the FIA, but they are seemingly quite happy to rock the boat.

Fastest Lap

There will be no point awarded for setting the fastest lap of the race from 2025 onwards.

Driver Fines

The FIA are clamping down on what they deem to be bad behaviour by the drivers, including swearing. The head of the FIA, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, is on a bit of a power trip. He wants the drivers to be squeaky clean and live up to his pious standards of behaviour. Big fines and ultimately points deductions and driver bans are now in the rule book.

Mohammed Ben Sulayem (MBS) wants to be Mr. Big, and have the drivers dance to his tune. The drivers are not happy. Sulayem is painting himself into a corner. If a driver like Verstappen doesn’t toe the line, are the FIA really going to suspend one of their biggest stars for calling his car a piece of s**t?

People, especially in the ‘Drive to Survive’ era, tune in to watch the drivers as much as the races. Get rid of the stars, and nobody watches. At which point the sport’s owners, the teams, and the drivers are going to be at loggerheads with the governing body. There will only be one winner in that case, and it won’t be Big Nose.

FIA v Drivers

The FIA vs. the drivers will be a very interesting ‘off track’ story in 2025. Clearly MBS is on a power trip (he sacked a number of race directors last year on a whim) and a confrontation seems inevitable. Now the fines are issued, how much and to whom will be controversial. Will it be done even handedly?

There has already been a fine issued for swearing in rallying, but while one driver was fined for swearing in a press interview, another was not. The one who was not did his swearing whilst driving, but it is not clear in the rules that swearing in the car is OK. Ambiguity in the rules? That will end in tears.

Perception is truth and the fanboys are easily upset. But on a more serious note, MBS’ desire to be obeyed may lead him to persecute any drivers he doesn’t like, or those who do not bend the proverbial knee to him. Fines are one thing, points deductions or race bans another thing entirely. Hopefully the drivers can just shut the fuck up and we won’t have any problems.

The Monaco Two Stop

Not a dance but just confirming that Monaco is not suitable for modern F1 racing. Overtaking is impossible and the races tend to be simple processions. Any excitement, or the ability to change the running order, is via crashes, or at pit stops.

The FIA cannot mandate that drivers have to crash, but they have decided that every driver must make at least two pit stops in the Monaco GP. It may have some effect in the running order and we have seen some pretty disastrous pit stops here in the past, such as Bottas’ stuck wheel nut and Mark Webber’s ‘no tyres ready’ stop which cost him a win….and me lots of cash!

No More Gearbox Penalties

Not a song by The Stranglers, but the end of the regulation which limited a driver to a fixed number of new gearboxes allowed per season. Exceed that number and a grid penalty was applied. Due to the fact that gearboxes are now so reliable, the FIA have deemed that a penalty system is no longer required.

Minimum Weight

The minimum driver weight allowance has been increased from 80 kilograms to 82 kilograms. As a result, the overall minimum weight limit of the car without fuel also increased from 798 kilograms (1,759 lb) to 800 kilograms (1,764 lb). The change was made in the interest of the well-being of the drivers, especially those either taller or heavier.

Driver Cooling

A driver cooling kit will be introduced for 2025. The system will only be mandated by the FIA in extreme heat conditions, with the minimum weight of the cars increased correspondingly. This is to avoid a repeat of driver overheating witnessed at the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix.

When the FIA predicts a temperature over 30.5°C, a “heat hazard” will be declared. This will require teams to equip the drivers with their cooling systems, and the minimum weight will be raised by 5 kilograms.

2025 F1 Season: Team by Team outlook

McLaren

Finally got back to the top in 2025 and they will be looking to back that success up with another Constructors’ Championship, and to have a proper crack at the Drivers’ Championship.

They have the car, they have the people, the tools and the finances to win the Constructors’ title, but can one of their drivers take the Drivers’ Championship?

Lando Norris was the marginal 3.40 favourite to win the title in 2025, with Piastri the 11.00 fifth favourite. After the Bahrain test, Norris was cut to 3.25, Piastri to 10.00. With a week to go before the first race, his odds continue to shrink and Norris is into 2.88, Piastri 11.00.

Should Be Ready

McLaren have started the last two seasons without their car being fully developed. They got away with it in 2024, but even with these very long, 24 race seasons, it is far from ideal to be giving your opponents a head start. If Norris is to have a real chance of winning the title, he needs a competitive car from the very start.

McLaren were the first team to hit the track with their 2025 machine. It will not have been the finished article but it is a positive sign that they are going to be ready for the start of the season.

Last season, McLaren didn’t have their car fully ready until the Miami GP and by that stage Max Verstappen was on 110 points, Norris back in 5th place on 58 points and it was that slow start that cost Norris any real chance of winning the Championship. With the regulations remaining stable, there is no excuse for McLaren not being competitive from the very first race.

Sharper Strategy

The team also need to be a bit sharper strategically. They, and their drivers, made too many mistakes, didn’t take all their chances and perhaps they will need to be a bit more ruthless when it comes to team orders. It is all very well letting the drivers race each other, but it is easier to win a Drivers’ Championship if the team has a clear number one driver.

Schumacher and Barrichello, Hamilton and Bottas, Verstappen and Perez. If you have two drivers going for the same prize, they can start to get in each other’s way on the track and taking points off each other in the Championship.

McLaren have taken steps to address this issue by adding Red Bull strategy chief Will Courtenay to their ranks, appointing him to the role of sporting director. However, Red Bull are not keen to release him for 2025, and McLaren may well have to wait for another year.

Aerodynamics

McLaren have extended the contract of their technical director of aerodynamics Peter Prodromou. He was given the role in 2023 and is credited as an important part in the team’s improved performance.

Prodromou started his career at McLaren, but left to work under Adrian Newey at Red Bull, producing four consecutive Championship winning cars for Sebastian Vettel, before he returned to McLaren. He will continue to work alongside Rob Marshall, who joined McLaren at the start of 2023. Marshall had been chief designer at Red Bull and is credited for designing McLaren’s ‘flexi-wing’. This is all good in terms of continuity.

Speculation

There is much speculation that the clampdown on the Flexi-wings is going to impact badly on McLaren. They certainly had a very effective front wing in 2024. They also had a flexi-rear wing which was deemed too flexi by the FIA mid-season last year, and they had to design another, which they did successfully.

As for this season, McLaren are downplaying the whole thing. “No headache at all,” said McLaren boss Andrea Stella when asked about the changes. “We don’t have to make many adjustments at all for the start of the season. There will be a small adjustment required from race nine.”

“I know it’s become a big talking point, but in terms of what makes us busy and what gives us headaches, actually there are completely different topics that are much more important.”

Drivers

As for the drivers, the team should favour Norris. He is the more experienced driver and the more consistent driver, but Piastri is maturing, now into his third season. He should still be improving and if he starts to become more consistent, McLaren could have a problem. It is a difficult situation.

The team need both drivers to score well if they are to win the constructors’ title and the prize money that goes with it. But they would rather have one driver doing all the winning and the other banking useful points.

Many believe that Norris does not have what it takes to be a World Champion. Yes, he is quick, but is he ruthless enough? Is he selfish enough, is he just too nice? If you are quick enough, and have the best car, nice guys can win. Jenson Button comes to mind.

But Norris could do with being a bit more ruthless. He let himself get dominated by Verstappen at times last year. F1 is the domain of the Alpha Male, and shrinking violets will get pushed around.

Not The Finished Article

We should remember that Norris only won his first GP last year. It would have been unusual for a driver to finally win his first race ever, about a third of the way into the season, and go on to win the Championship. Norris was not the finished article in 2024, but his experience of being at the sharp end of the battle for the Constructors title, will have accelerated his development.

He believes that in 2024, he learned what he needs to do to become World Champion. If so, and the team have also learned from their mistakes in 2024, then he may well do it.

2025 F1 Season Constructors’ Championship Odds – 2.00

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds: Lando Norris – 2.75; Piastri 9.00

Ferrari

The big story at Ferrari is the arrival of Lewis Hamilton. A good move? Maybe, maybe not. It was certainly a very good move in terms of the company’s stock market valuation. The joining of the two biggest brands in F1, Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton, is a marketers dream.

Can you imagine the revenue that will be generated by the merchandise sales alone? All those Hamilton fans with a wardrobe full off Merecedes branded merch, will be sending that off to OXFAM, and buying up the red stuff. £40 for a cap, £60 for a t-shirt, £100 for a hoodie and the rest. The team’s coffers will be overflowing, but will it help them on the track?

All Time Great

On the face of it, yes, it should. Hamilton is one of the all-time greats, a seven time World Champion and legend. He replaced Carlos Sainz, who is a good F1 driver, but not quite officer material. He always played a supporting role, and he did it well.

Sainz made a big contribution to Ferrari’s second place in the constructors’ table. He scored 290 points, finishing in fifth place, despite missing a race for emergency surgery and racing while recovering from that surgery. He won two races and had seven more podium finishes. Not too shabby.

Needs To Better Sainz

Hamilton will need to do better than Sainz to justify his move. He is moving to a team who have a very quick driver with his feet under the table. I am sure that Charles Leclerc would rather have had Carlos Sainz in the other car for this season.

Charles was faster, if not hugely better, than the Spaniard, but now he has to establish himself against a seven time World Champion. It will be a fascinating battle. Hamilton wants that eighth title and while he knows it is unlikely to come in 2025, he will want to make his mark so he can state his case for number 1 status for the new era that starts in 2026.

However, there have to be some question marks over Hamilton’s head. The fact is that he has struggled with these ground effect era cars. Yes, Mercedes never gave him a good car since the ground effect regulations kicked in, but he was second best to George Russell in 2022 and in 2024.

Ground Effect Issues

Since the ground effect regulations came into effect in 2022, Hamilton has won just two races from sixty eight entered, and one of those only because Russell was disqualified from first place in Spa last year. Again, the car was never good enough, but losing out to Russell in two of the last three years tells us that it wasn’t all about the Mercedes’ poor design.

Hamilton is forty years old, is moving to a new team, was bettered by George Russell for two of the last three seasons in the same car, and there are question marks about his driving style just not being suited by this generation of cars. Will a change of team make the difference? Some say that the Ferrari’s softer suspension settings will be better for him, but we will just have to wait and see.

New Culture

The signing of Hamilton will change the culture at Ferrari. Traditionally this is a team who have operated a number 1 and number 2 driver system. They may say that that was not the case with Leclerc and Sainz, but with Leclerc just being that bit faster than Sainz, it was a defacto 1 & 2 system, a bit like Norris and Piastri. But now they have two drivers who will be fighting it out to be Cock ‘o’ the North.

Both know that they have a car that could be good enough to win the World Drivers’ Championship, and both are capable of winning it, but only one can. As the incumbent and established number 1, Charles Leclerc is used to this being ‘his’ team. He is Ferrari’s big hope for the future, or should that be, he was Ferrari’s big hope for the future?

The problem with signing a big star driver, is that your existing big star driver has his nose put out of joint. Frederick Vasseur now has to manage two drivers who are trying to exert control, trying to establish a hierarchy. It is much easier to manage a team where there is a clear number 1 and 2 driver, established either by contract or ability.

All Smiles

It will all be smiles to start with, but they will be taking lumps out of each other before long. We saw Leclerc and Sainz crossing swords at times, but Leclerc was always comfortable that he was the main man. That is no longer the case. If he wants to be top dog, he will have to earn that position.

Hamilton has the job of settling into the team, learning the language, getting to know how Ferrari operate, and also get used to a different car and power unit. He has only ever raced Mercedes’ power units in F1. He has a lot on his plate.

When it comes to the actual race weekends, Hamilton’s acid test will come in qualifying. He was 5-19 vs. Russell last year, and now he faces another qualifying specialist in Leclerc. Hamilton has great race craft and tyre management, but giving your teammate a head start is far from ideal.

I have read a lot of stuff claiming that Norris’ chances of winning the Drivers’ Championship will be hindered as Piastri will be taking points off him, but not so much about the same situation at Ferrari. I would suggest that a pecking order has been established at McLaren. That is not the case at Ferrari.

Evolution

As far as the car is concerned, the SF-25 is an evolution of last year’s car but with one big difference. It is now the only car in the entire field with pull rod suspension at both the rear and the front.

I am not an engineer and there are better places to read about the pros and cons of push rod and pull rod suspension setups, but there are pros and cons for both. A pull rod set up in itself is not faster, but Ferrari felt that a pull rod system will give them ‘more development options’.

It is believed the pull rod change is intended to solve Ferrari’s problems with tyre wear. I thought they had already achieved that last year, certainly compared to the 2023 car, but they must have thought there were more gains to be made.

Nose And Wing

The front nose and wing seem to be the same as last year, and Vasseur said that “If the rules are changing, it makes sense to combine this with a development of the wing,” referring to the mid-season clampdown on front wing flexibility.

That suggests that Ferrari didn’t develop a flexi wing in the winter, but other reports say that they had. It is far from ideal that that the regulations will change midseason, but surely having a flexi wing for the first eight races would be advantageous.

2025 F1 Season Constructor Championship Odds – 2.63

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds: Charles Leclerc– 6.00; Lewis Hamilton 7.50

Red Bull

After winning four drivers’ titles with Max Verstappen, and back-to-back Constructors’ Championships in 2022 and 2023, Red Bull were pipped by McLaren for the 2024 constructors’ title, but Verstappen remained the Drivers’ Champion. Formula 1 tends to be cyclical, and it looks like Red Bull have reached the end of their period of dominance.

They should have been able to defend their constructors’ title last year, but Sergio Perez just didn’t contribute anywhere near enough points. It eventually cost him his seat, but it was a poor decision not to get rid of him earlier, rather than extend his contract, in the hope that would rekindle his confidence. He is replaced for 2025 by Liam Lawson, who was impressive at times for Visa RB, but whether he is Red Bull material remains to be seen.

Blame Game

Perhaps the blame for Perez’ poor performance cannot be laid solely at his door. The car was said to be hard to drive, even for Verstappen, but his exceptional talent masked that fact. Perez just floundered and it got worse as the season went on.

The team decided to promote Liam Lawson from their B team, Racing Bulls, as the replacement for Perez. Being Verstappen’s teammate is a bit of a poisoned chalice and if the car remains hard to drive, Lawson could be hit by the double whammy of getting beaten by his teammate race in, race out, and struggling with a difficult car.

Mixed Results For Lawson

Lawson has had two partial seasons in F1, with mixed results. In 2024 he raced in six Grand Prix after Racing Bulls sacked Daniel Riccardo. He had two point scoring performances. His qualifying performance against his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, was 0-6 and in the races, it was 2-4.

Lawson is not a true ‘rookie’, but there are plenty of track that he has not raced on, especially in the early part of the season. New tracks, new team, and being Max Verstappen’s teammate. That is a tough gig.

Life After Newey

Red Bull are having to adjust to life without Adrian Newey. The ace designer didn’t work in a vacuum and the design team should still be able to knock up a decent package, but losing Newey can only be seen as a negative.

It is not just Newey that has left the team. Sporting Director Johnathon Wheatley left his position to become Team Principal of the Audi F1 Team, departing Red Bull at the end of 2024 before entering his period of gardening leave in 2025. There has been a lot of personnel leaving Red Bull in recent times, and they are replacing those losses from within. For example, Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, while keeping that role, is now Head of Racing across the whole team.

It is reported that Johnathon Wheatley will not be replaced directly, but that strategy engineer Steve Knowles will take over many of those responsibilities, along with some others. It is not unusual to have personnel coming and going, but it does take time for people to settle into new roles, and Red Bull do have a lot of people to settle. They are said to have managed to poach 60 new team members from rival teams in the last year or so.

Wind Tunnel Not Ready

Red Bull have still not finished their new state of the art wind tunnel (it will not be finished until sometime in 2026). The one they have been using is very old and not very reliable. They have done well to get such good cars designed despite the wind tunnel. At the same time, McLaren have got theirs up and running and Aston Martin’s is due to come on stream soon. You are going to struggle to build state of the art cars with outdated infrastructure.

The team are also facing building their own power units from 2026 onwards. They have never built a power unit before and partnering with Ford means that they are working with a company who have never manufactured a modern F1 power unit. That is a lot of change and it will be interesting to see when Max Verstappen decides to jump ship, as he surely will. That is a talent the team cannot afford to lose.

Tough Season Ahead?

I expect a bumpy ride at Red Bull for 2025. Their saving grace is that the regulations are stable for this season and they can carry last year’s car through into this season. Verstappen wants to see an improvement on performance in terms of handling bumpy surfaces, and slow corner performance. A period of managed decline? That would seem logical.

Red Bull only finished third in last year’s Constructors’ Championship and while anyone should be an improvement on Perez’ horrible 2024 season, they jury is still out on Lawson. Verstappen will have more than one eye on 2026 and beyond. I would be surprised if he doesn’t end up at Aston Martin, and he could be distracted by negotiating his future away from Red Bull.

Lack Of Continuity

Red Bull must be marked down for a lack of continuity. Losing key members of staff, recruiting or promoting replacements and having a driver line-up change. They have Verstappen under contract until 2027, but Verstappen is bound to have performance clauses in the contract.

If Red Bull do not give him a competitive car, he may be able to walk away, and even if the performance is good enough, the big bucks at Aston Martin could decide his future. His head will be getting turned, and that is never good for a driver’s performance.

2025 F1 Season Constructors’ Championship Odds – 9.00

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds: Max Verstappen– 4.50; Liam Lawson – 81.00

Mercedes

With Hamilton off to pastures new, Mercedes have signed up teenager Kimi Antonelli. Many paddock watchers say he is the next Verstappen, and Toto Wolff was very keen to get the young Italian signed up before some else did.

Antonelli may turn out to the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he is a rookie. He lacks experience at this level and has a lot to learn. He blotted his copy book when given a run out for FP1 at the Italian GP. Antonelli came out flying and stuffed it into the wall. A rookie error, and there will be more.

Russell No.1

George Russell is now the number 1 driver. He was faster than Hamilton for two of their three years together at Mercedes and he deserves his place. Russell has won three GPs and five pole positions in his F1 career. His best finish was 4th in the 2022 Championship.

It is hard to say just how good he is as he was not at Mercedes when they had the best car. He got the better of Lewis Hamilton for two season, and that suggests he is very good, but Hamilton has just not got on well with these ground effect cars.

The problem for Mercedes, apart from bedding in a rookie driver, is building a competitive car. Yes, they have won races and got pole positions in the ground effect era, but only when everything was just right. Give them a high speed, smooth circuit in cool weather conditions and the car was very fast, but in hot conditions, or on slower tracks, with bumpy track surfaces, they struggled.

False Dawns

For a big team like Mercedes to have failed to build a properly competitive car under the ground era regulations is disappointing. They even changed designer to try and unlock its potential, but all we got was many false dawns and no real progress. It was normal for Mercedes to be quick on a Friday, say they had cracked it, and then they would just go backwards in qualifying and the race.

They have never really understood what makes the car tick, or not. It would seem unwise to pursue a program of trying to make it work now, when the new regs kick in next year. Yes, they will make changes and try to improve, but they have been chasing their tail for the last three years. They will be happy to just move on to 2026.

It may actually be better if they finish in fourth or fifth place, as that means they would get more wind tunnel time, and more CFD work for the all-important 2026 season.

2025 F1 Season Constructors’ Championship Odds – 18.00

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds: George Russell– 17.00; Kimi Antonelli – 81.00

Aston Martin

Something of a black hole, sucking up talent from other teams as Lawrence Stroll attempts to do what Red Bull did when it took over Stewart F1. Build it and they shall come. And Aston Martin are just about done building their new factory…sorry…Campus, including a state of the art wind tunnel.

They have all the toys and are backing that up by signing up the likes of Adrian Newey. He is the big headline singing but there are dozens and dozens of signings from Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes etc.

In January, Aston Martin promoted Andy Cowell, the onetime Mercedes power unit designer, to become the new CEO and team principle. Former boss Mike Krack has been demoted and will now be chief trackside officer. The previous Director of trackside engineering, Tom McCullough, remains ‘in a leadership position’, whatever that means.

Aerodynamics & Engineering

The aerodynamics, engineering and performance departments have each been split in two, trackside and engineering, and they will report directly to Cowell. Adrian Newey was tempted to go to Aston Martin as he has been given shares in the company, something he never got at McLaren, or Red Bull.

He will work closely with Cowell, managing the technical side of things. Newey did not start work until the 2nd of March and his remit will be to work on his vision for the 2026 car, under the new regulations.

Newey will also do some work on the 2025 car. The 2025 car is not a Newey design and that can make things tricky. I expect he will have some input, but his number one priority will be the 2026 design. In an interview he admitted that he did not know if he will be able to make much difference to the 2025 car until he actually starts working on it. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for him to work on car that he didn’t design and that will only have a one season life span.

New Chief Technical Officer

Ex Ferrari man Enrico Cardile comes in as chief technical officer after Dan Fallows got the boot after his 2024 car bombed. Newey is the ‘Managing Technical Partner’ (and shareholder) so whether Cardie reports to Newey, or vice versa, isn’t clear. It is all a bit of managerial word soup, but they will need to establish who does what and who is responsible to whom.

Constantly reshuffling the managerial pack is the road to hell, as we have seen at Alpine, and in years gone by, at Ferrari. Until that is established, and everyone settles in, all the musical chairs is a distraction.

Another distraction is Ferrari taking Cardile to court to enforce his contractual period of ‘gardening leave’. Cardile was supposed to join at the same time as Newey, so that they could start work on the 2026 car. The Italian will not be unable to start work at Aston until mid-July. Lawrence Stroll is said to be ‘furious’. Contracts, eh? Bummer.

Loopholes

Newey loves new regulations. There will inevitably be opportunities to jump through some loopholes and steal a march on their competitors. That is his greatest strength. He does not always get it right, but he is the hottest ticket in town when it comes to design, and especially when we have big regulation changes.

Cowell is a very experienced engineer, specialising in engines, but he is a corporate beast and knows how to get things organised, how to put a strong management structure in place. He is regarded as a good communicator and a very shrewd cookie. He will need to be good. The management structure looks complicated and of course, above everyone, is Lawrence Stroll. He is a businessman, not an engineer, but Aston Martin is his toy and if he says jump, you jump.

One Glaring Weakness

This is a project that is nearing completion. The glaring weakness remains that Lawrence Stroll actually believes that his son, Lance Stroll, is capable of becoming a Formula 1 World Champion.

I suppose if Aston Martin build the most dominant car in the sports history, and sign Logan Sargeant to partner Stroll, then it might happen, but why spend billions of dollars, and risk the project failing due to simple nepotism? Fernando Alonso is now 44 years old and with the best will in the world, he is not the future. He will need to be replaced. Verstappen would look good in green.

Hard To Predict

The team fell backwards in 2024 and it is hard to say what to expect in 2025. They will be concentrated on 2026, but they need to get the team functioning properly and running like a well-oiled machine in time for Newey to work his magic in 2026.

They will want better results in 2025, but with all the managerial changes to sort out, this season is very much about getting the process working smoothly, ready for the all-important 2026 car.

Aston Martin finished 2024 in poor shape. They have a deserved reputation as the poorest car developers on the grid, and they were losing ground all the way through 2024, ending up with a car that was definitely quicker than the Sauber, but not much else. They may start 2025 in the same place, but will Newy be able to reverse that trend for poor car development?

2025 F1 Season Constructors’ Championship Odds – 101.00

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds: Ferando Alonso– 101.00; Lance Stroll – 2001.00

Alpine

Has the basket case of F1 turned a corner? I think it has. The team finally seem to have settled on a proper management structure. Gone is the constant hiring and firing and appointing the wrong people in the wrong places.

In came Flavio Briatore, who knows how to run an F1 team. He was acting on a consultancy basis but is now Executive Director. He has got things pointing in the right direction and the appointment of Oliver Oakes as team principle, while low profile, is working.

Oakes is a former Karting World champion and he ran the Hitec teams in the junior Formula. He has only been in charge for ten races, but in that time Alpine rose from ninth to sixth by the end of the season. There was a hefty slice of luck with a double podium finish in the chaotic Brazilian GP, but the team was clearly in a much better place at the end of the season than it was at the start.

Stable Management

The team will further improve with a period of stable management. Oakes was the third team principle in just 18 months and that lack of continuity was hurting the team. We should remember that this is the former Renault F1 team. They have a pedigree, but they just lost their way, from the top downwards.

This will be the last year that the team will build their own power units, which did not go down well with the workforce. It is, however, a good course of action. Renault never built competitive Turbo Hybrid power units and it is an expensive business to do badly.

Their money will be more effectively spent buying in tried and tested Mercedes power units, the same as powered McLaren to last year’s Constructors’ Championship. Alpine can then concentrate on designing a better car.

New Driver

Alpine are another team to have had a driver change. Esteban Ocon has gone to Haas, but Pierre Gasly remains, giving some much needed continuity in the driving department. However, the other seat could be a cause for concern.

Jack Doohan is in the second seat for 2025, but Alpine have also signed up Franco Colapinto from Williams on a multi-year contract. It is expected that Colapinto will take the second seat for 2026. He has lots of sponsors bringing in money and that will ensure that the young Aussie’s F1 career will be short.

Colapinto’s Millions

There is already talk that Doohan will not see out the season. A demotivated second driver is not a good thing to have. Alpine have got themselves in a bit of a muddle with the drivers, again. Clearly, they see Doohan as expendable, but what if he does a great job? Do they just ditch him, and go for Colapinto and his millions?

The Argentinian started well at Williams, but fizzled out, having his fair share of crashes and he looked a bit ordinary at the end of the season. He might look like Senna, but that doesn’t mean he drives like him.

Alpine seem to have solved one problem, management, but created another one, the drivers. Ocon was not a team player, and it is now left to Gasly to lead the team on track. He is an underrated driver, but not a great one.

However, such was the mess that the team was in just six months ago, they had no chance to tempt a driver like Carlos Sainz into the team. That Sainz saw Williams as a better bet is not a great sign for Alpine, but at least things are looking better than in 2024.

2025 F1 Season Constructors’ Championship Odds – 501.00

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds: Pierre Gasly– 176.00; Jack Doohan – 2001.00

Haas

A revelation last season. The change of team principle worked wonders. The designers addressed the 2023 car’s big weakness of excessive tyre wear over race distances and they got a better car and scored more points. They were helped by the fact that Ferrari had the same problem and the changes they made to the suspension helped both teams be much more competitive

For the 2025 season, Haas will have two new drivers to bed in. Gone are the very experienced Hulkenberg and Magnussen (although Magnussen will carry out some testing duties). In come Esteban Ocon and Haas reserve driver, Oliver Bearman.

The teams Technical Director, Andrea De Zordo, has predicted that the big four/five teams will have the most updated cars for 2025, but the smaller outfits with limited budgets, will be forced to target next season.

Linked To Ferrari

Haas are closely linked with Ferrari, but while they will use the Ferrari power unit, gearbox and rear suspension, they will not be using Ferrari’s new pull rod front suspension. Haas say that they do not have the time or resources to adopt their car for the change. Another example of the ‘B’ teams not being copies of their parent teams.

Around half the teams run pull rod systems, including last year’s Constructors’ Champions, McLaren. There are said to be some aerodynamic advantages with the pull rod, and it is said to help with front end ride height adjustments and slow speed corning performance.

That Haas are not using the latest Ferrari set up is a break with tradition. It is said to be the first time in nine years that the two teams have diverged on shareable parts. Haas believe that they will be better off running the old set up in terms of continuity. It is a sign of growing engineering confidence at Haas, that they do not just take what is available, but choose what they see as the best option for the car and team.

New Monocoque

The 2025 Haas will feature an all new monocoque and expect that to see improved aerodynamic performance. The rest of the car has been described as an evolution of the 2024 car, which will be the norm up and down the grid.

Haas are undergoing major managerial restructuring. Team boss Ayao Komatsu believes that the team were underperforming in certain areas, such as race strategy. They have a new chief race engineer, there is a new recruit from Red Bull, Carine Cridelich, as head of strategy, and there will also be a new sporting director. There have been some more internal promotions all aimed at improving trackside performance.

Poor Decision Making

Komatsu believed that the team’s underperformance in this area cost them 6th place in last year’s Constructors’ Championship. Decision making under pressure was poor and getting more experience into the right positions is their attempt to improve.

The team will be doing more pre-season testing with older cars to try and get everyone bedded in and operating smoothly. This is something that they have not really done in years gone by.

All in all, Haas looks to be heading in the right direction. Komatsu seems to know what he is doing and is not afraid to change things, but all in good time, rather than doing too much too soon.

One noteworthy thing about Haas is that for the first time since the cost cap regulations came in, Haas’s spending will actually reach the cost cap level. This a sign that the team is bigger, and their budget is bigger. Money talks and Haas will have a louder voice in 2025.

2025 F1 Season Constructors’ Championship Odds – 501.00

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds Esteban Ocon– 501.00; Oliver Bearman 1001.00

Racing Bulls

They have changed their name again? Racing Bulls? The Red Bull B team continues to integrate more closely with its parent team, Red Bull Racing. There were some moans from other teams last year about shared parts between the two, but as the Visa RB car turned out to be not very competitive, all that died down.

However, the complaints resurface at the start of every season. For 2025, Racing Bulls is sharing Red Bull’s Honda engines, as well as taking the Milton Keynes outfit’s gearbox and both front and rear suspension, increasing its synergy with its parent team compared to previous seasons.

This is all perfectly legal, and completely logical. It saves money for both teams, increases the data gathering potential and means Visa RB get a tried and tested set of parts. Haas do the same thing with Ferrari. It worked a lot better for Haas than for Visa RB last year.

Purists

The purists will say that Formula 1 teams should design and build every part of their car, but it has been long recognised that doing that is very expensive, unnecessary and not great for the racing. The closer the cars are in terms of performance, the better the racing.

Of course, the ‘B’ teams will always be one step behind. If they don’t design all of the car, fitting parts from another team are not going to fit seamlessly in terms of the design philosophy. The B teams still have to build the chassis and while you can run someone else’s power unit, brakes, gear box and suspension, it may not work as well with your chassis and aero package.

In times of stable regulations, as we have in 2024 and 2025, teams tend to converge in terms of performance in any case. When they are sharing more parts, they tend to work more effectively as everyone’s designs have undergone a degree of design homogenization. That means we could well see teams like Haas and Visa RB become relatively more competitive in 2025.

New Driver

The driver line up has changed. Yuki Tsunoda remains, but the second seat sees the departure of Lawson, who is joining Max Verstappen at Red Bull. He is replaced by Isack Hadjar, a French Algerian, who came through the Red Bull young driver program.

Hadjar has admitted to being ‘scared’ at the prospect of racing in F1. He was second in last year’s F2 Championship and it is his relative lack of F1 experience which worries him. Everyone has to start somewhere, and he has driven F1 machinery in free practice sessions and tests, so he is not going in completely cold.

He is regarded as an impulsive driver who can be a bit gobby on the radio, much like his teammate. It doesn’t look to be a great driver line up, but that was the case last year.

The team finished eighth last year, comfortably ahead of Williams and Sauber, and only 19 points off Alpine in 6th. Their biggest problem, outside of a mediocre driver line up, was upgrades that either didn’t work or took longer to understand to get the improved performance. They failed to score in seven of the last ten races of the season.

A good season would see them finish 6th, but another 8th place would be no surprise.

2025 F1 Season Constructors’ Championship Odds – 501.00

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds: Yuki Tsunoda– 501.00; Issack Hadjar – 1001.00

Williams

Williams has a new title partner – the software company Atlassian and the team’s official name will now be Atlassian Williams Racing. The deal is said to be long term, and ‘the biggest partnership deal in the team’s history’.

The other big news at Williams is that they have signed Carlos Sainz on a multi-year contract. This will be the first time in a long while since they have had two ‘proper’ drivers. Previously they have relied on at least one driver to bring money to get a drive. Now they have two very experienced and well regarded drivers.

Big Year For Albon

That said, 2025 is going to be an important year for Alex Albon. Racing against low grade teammates can only flatter a decent racer, but now Albon will be measured against a driver who has won races and had a very good season at Ferrari last year. Sainz may not be World Champion material, but he deserves his place in F1, and arguably in a better car than the Williams.

Both Sainz and Williams insist that this is a long term project, much in the same vein as McLaren. Rebuilding a once great team. It will take time and money and everything is now pointing in the right direction, but it will take years.

Their first aim is just to move closer to the midfield. Carlos Sainz will maximise the team’s potential as he is very experienced and has raced in big teams. He knows what is needed, and I like what Williams are doing. Being patient and not making any overly ambitious claims.

Transition

Willams have been in transition for a while now. They have had to sacrifice performance in order to modernise their infrastructure. Everything was outdated and Ex-Mercedes man James Vowles was brought in to get the team up to the required standards in terms of equipment and processes. Money was spent on modernisation, which meant there was not enough left to build a competitive car.

For 2025 Williams now have their first car designed by chief technical officer Pat Fry and design director Matt Harman, both of whom joined the team from Alpine. They were the second team to get their car out on track and they are in a much better state of preparedness than was the case twelve months ago.

The work force at Williams is now over 1000 and growing. The physical infrastructure upgrades are ongoing. The team’s real target is to be competitive from 2026 onwards.

2025 F1 Season Constructors’ Championship Odds – 276.00

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds: Carlos Sainz– 101.00; Alex Albon – 326.00

Sauber

It was a dreadful 2024 for whatever this team called themselves. One eighth place finish across twenty-four races was pathetic. Yes, the team are transitioning into Audi F1, but it must be very demoralising for the workforce to be putting a shift in, for four measly points over the longest season ever.

Managing director and team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi has been shown the door. He has been replaced by ex-Red Bull man, Jonathon Wheatley, who will now become the Team Principle. Good luck to him, he will need it.

Sauber have never been a great team, underachieving even when running under the BMW banner and the cash that brought. Wheatley has a gardening leave period to serve and he is not due to start work until July, but Sauber are trying to get Red Bull to allow him to start sooner than that.

Switzerland Issues

Sauber are based in Switzerland, and that makes recruiting top quality staff hard. It is expensive to live in Switzerland, for a start, and it is regarded as being deadly dull. Most people would rather live in the UK, or Italy.

No doubt Wheatley had a big carrot dangled in front of him, but it is financially crippling to have to pay all the staff a premium to come and work in Europe’s most expensive country. It doesn’t really fit well with the budget capped regulations we have these days.

A couple of weeks after writing this, Sauber announced that they are opening a UK base. The team had already successfully lobbied the FIA to be able to spend more than their cost cap, to reflect the higher costs of operating in Switzerland. Now they are realising that to be more attractive to potential employees, they need to have a base in Formula 1’s ‘Golden Triangle’.

UK Move

Only Ferrari and to a lesser degree, Racing Bulls and Haas, operate outside the UK. Alpine build their power units in France, but that will cease to be the case at the end of this season. The team hope to be able to attract more staff if they can work and live in England. It is also where many suppliers are based. “If the Mountain won’t go to Mohammed, then Mohammed must come to the Mountain”.

The team’s on track performance has gone into reverse in recent years. In 2022 they scored 55 points, in 2023 16 and last year it was just 4. Audi have completed their purchase of Sauber but will now sell a 30% share to the Qatari Sovereign wealth fund.

Two New Drivers

The team will be sporting two new drivers. Bottas has returned to Mercedes as a reserve driver, Zhou has gone, and we have the very experienced Nico Hulkenberg arriving, no doubt hoping that things will be better in 2026. F2 driver Gabriel Bortoleto takes his chances, so there is no driver continuity.

This year’s Sauber will be their first car conceived entirely under the technical directorship of James Key. He is a very experienced F1 operator, having worked at Jordan and through to its Force India days. He then had a two-year stint at Sauber before heading to Toro Rosso.

Four years later he was signed up by McLaren but was sacked in 2023 following the performance of their 2023 car. That McLaren then won the constructors title in 2024, without Key’s input, does make you wonder. This must be a much better car than the last two, which will not be difficult.

No Urgency

I have been reading bad things about the whole Sauber-Audi business. They just have not been working hard enough, and there was no real sense of urgency. The Audi F1 car is not going to be quick just because of a name change. It seems like Audi expected Sauber to build them a good car, but they have never built a truly good car.

The new James Key design must be a much better effort, but, like everyone else, it is next year’s car that really matters, more so for Audi. The new owners had said that they were aiming to be competing for wins by 2028, but that has now been watered down, with the timescale for success being undefined. It is hard to think why Sauber should not be favourite to finish last again.

2025 F1 Season Constructors’ Championship Odds – 1001.00

2025 F1 Season WDC Odds: Nico Hulkenberg– 2001.00; Gabriel Bortoleto – 2001.00

Part Two will look at the pre-season test, the Constructors’ Championship, Drivers’ Championship and the Punt Picks for 2025!

-JamesPunt