2025 discussion thread

[Nessafox]

I was yelling Boo-urns.

[Row Man Gross-Gene]

I was yelling Boo-urns.

That made me giggle!

[dr-baker]

I was yelling Boo-urns.

That made me giggle!

Yeah, Boo-urns in hell!

[mario]

Good grief, Sulayem attempting to turn the FIA into his own little dictatorship is about the lamest thing I think I've ever heard. Dude, just cash the effing checks from FOM and spend it on safety stuff and your other series. It's not that hard. No NDAs needed, no mass firings needed, no stupidity needed.

From what some have said, it sounds like a case of Sulayem wanting to have the sense of authority and control over others that he gets from that role. The mass firings or the restrictive NDA's therefore seem to come from a position where the purpose of them is for Sulayem to demonstrate that he can impose his will on others, rather than necessarily being from a logical position.

[MyHamsterRacedAnOnyx]

Say hello to Cadillac in 2026!

[mario]

Meanwhile, McLaren have also announced that they've extended Piastri's contract "for the long term".

Piastri was already under contract with McLaren until the end of the 2026 season - the exact length of his new contract hasn't been confirmed, but the BBC reckons that his contract will now run until 2028. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/ar ... 92zyzy4e9o

[Wallio]

Meanwhile, McLaren have also announced that they've extended Piastri's contract "for the long term".

Piastri was already under contract with McLaren until the end of the 2026 season - the exact length of his new contract hasn't been confirmed, but the BBC reckons that his contract will now run until 2028. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/ar ... 92zyzy4e9o

Interesting timing as Russell, who is out of contract after this season, just had a very public lunch with Zak Brown.

[Jarvis]

BBC 5 Live and BBC Sounds secure exclusive UK radio rights for Formula 1 for the next three seasons.

[Paul Hayes]

The haircuts in the new opener do make it feel like Alpine is now some sort of prison facility.

[dr-baker]

BBC 5 Live and BBC Sounds secure exclusive UK radio rights for Formula 1 for the next three seasons.

That is quite a late announcement isn't it, the day before FP1 in Oz? And anyway, which other radio station would be in the running for the rights in the UK? No other broadcaster have ever had the rights except the BBC, right?

[IceG]

No real surprises from FP1 or FP2 - won't post spoilers for those watching recordings. But Lawson looks ragged.

The gravel trap detritus being pulled onto the circuit looks like it could make for a safety-car filled race, which it probbaly will be given the rain forecast, the rookies, and it is the first race for a while.

I take it that Predicament Predictions has now moved on to being a guest commentator for a few European races, and unlikely to return in a spare seat at Williams driving alongside Damon Hill?

[Wallio]

No real surprises from FP1 or FP2

Have to disagree there. Hamilton and VCARB are definitely surprises, as is Sainz (we all expected him to be quicker than Albon, but THAT much quicker?)

Now if the weather on Sunday is half as bad as they claim (which it won't be) then who knows? Also, F1 in 4k is bloody awesome.

[IceG]

No real surprises from FP1 or FP2

Have to disagree there. Hamilton and VCARB are definitely surprises, as is Sainz (we all expected him to be quicker than Albon, but THAT much quicker?)

Now if the weather on Sunday is half as bad as they claim (which it won't be) then who knows? Also, F1 in 4k is bloody awesome.

Yes agreed! Hence my cleverly designed bluff

Sainz was very quick and it looked genuine.

Hamilton was slow and steady in a very quick way.

Lawson looked very untidy and barely in control of the Red Bull. I know the car is designed for Max's skills but not a good start. Especially after what Hadjar did the the VCARB.

Doohan looked OK in a similar way but there are lower expectations, ignoring the Colapinto factor.

Shame about Bearman...

[mario]

BBC 5 Live and BBC Sounds secure exclusive UK radio rights for Formula 1 for the next three seasons.

That is quite a late announcement isn't it, the day before FP1 in Oz? And anyway, which other radio station would be in the running for the rights in the UK? No other broadcaster have ever had the rights except the BBC, right?

I think that you are right on that front - the BBC seems to have been the only broadcaster that has had the broadcast rights for Formula 1, and there don't seem to be many other radio stations that potentially could even bid for that contract. Maybe, at a push, Talksport might have been an option?

[IceG]

I think Red Bull have a fundamental problem.

They now seem locked in to designing a car which only the genius of Max can control. As a result, every other team mate has under-performed; not because they are over-whelmed or intimidated by Max but because they cannot drive Max's car. Once they leave, they perform well elsewhere (except Dani but he is just a nice guy).

So, with this strategy, Red Bull will always be struggling for the WCC against less extreme cars from teams with well-matched driver pairs (Ferrari, McLaren, etc.).

Max will eventually leave or retire, probably as soon as he stops winning championships in the Red Bull.

The prize money comes from the WCC, the sponsorship money comes with the star driver.

That leaves Red Bull with reduced finances, an undriveable car, and a reputation for destroying promising careers - and so the downwards spiral starts.

Perhaps Yuki, Yuki, Yuki dodged a bullet by staying in the VCARB?

Anyway, that is what I thought up as I watched Lawson join the list of people being removed from Marko's Christmas card list.

[mario]

I think Red Bull have a fundamental problem.

They now seem locked in to designing a car which only the genius of Max can control. As a result, every other team mate has under-performed; not because they are over-whelmed or intimidated by Max but because they cannot drive Max's car. Once they leave, they perform well elsewhere (except Dani but he is just a nice guy).

So, with this strategy, Red Bull will always be struggling for the WCC against less extreme cars from teams with well-matched driver pairs (Ferrari, McLaren, etc.).

Max will eventually leave or retire, probably as soon as he stops winning championships in the Red Bull.

The prize money comes from the WCC, the sponsorship money comes with the star driver.

That leaves Red Bull with reduced finances, an undriveable car, and a reputation for destroying promising careers - and so the downwards spiral starts.

Perhaps Yuki, Yuki, Yuki dodged a bullet by staying in the VCARB?

Anyway, that is what I thought up as I watched Lawson join the list of people being removed from Marko's Christmas card list.

I am not 100% sure about that, as there have been those noting that the RB21 doesn't seem to be be particularly imbalanced. Added to that, during the pre-season tests, one of the main comments that Jos was making about the car was that the main focus was on making the operating window of the RB21 wider than on the previous car and making it easier to drive, which would seem to suggest they were moving away from the design philosophy of their previous cars (particularly the RB20).

I suppose there is also the question of whether some of those problems are necessarily to do with Red Bull itself, and whether some of it is down to the regulations around the aerodynamics too. There have been several drivers who have noted that the current generation of ground effect cars don't tend to reward driving styles that revolve around trying to maximise the apex speed, and that they instead tend to reward "V shaped" driving lines through corners that focus on going deeper into the corner, turning the car sharply and then maximising time on the throttle out of the corner.

Even before the current cars came in, that was a style of driving that Verstappen tended to prefer, whereas a number of other drivers whom he was paired up with tended to focus more on blending the brakes into the corner and maximising apex speed. It's somewhat similar to the way that Vettel's driving style was particularly effective at maximising the performance of the blown diffusers in the early 2010s, but wasn't so effective when later regulation changes altered the way that the cars behaved.

[dr-baker]

I think Red Bull have a fundamental problem.

They now seem locked in to designing a car which only the genius of Max can control. As a result, every other team mate has under-performed; not because they are over-whelmed or intimidated by Max but because they cannot drive Max's car. Once they leave, they perform well elsewhere (except Dani but he is just a nice guy).
.

It's what they used to say about the Benettons in the mid-1990s in the days of Michael Schumacher.

[Wallio]

It's what they used to say about the Benettons in the mid-1990s in the days of Michael Schumacher.

It is, although a lot of that nowadays comes from the myth of the 1996 car. Michael and Ross both have said that Benetton would have won both titles with the car in '96 if Michael stayed, but there's no real evidence of that. Michael never drove it and was just merely being his confident self, and by the time Ross said it, he too was at Ferrari and hyping up his new old driver. (Michael also said that he would have "easily" won the '95 title in the Ferrari after he tested it. So...yeah.)

Most of the imbalance of the Benettons can be deduced to (alleged) unequal equipment (Jos), Flavio just sabotaging a driver (Herbert) or the driver just being a bit overrated and genuinely no match for Schumi (Brundle).



After quali, I'm curious about the Williams'. While I do think they were aided by Kimi, Lawson, and Hadjar all missing Q3, if their pace continues, what do they do? Carlos was very open during testing that Williams was planning on switching to '26 early. Vowles was yes definitive, but did admit the '26 car was in the windtunnel already. If this pace holds, do they stick with that plan? Or make a run for P4/P5 in the constructors? Add to this Carlos Sr.'s interview with the Australian press on Thursday where he said he was still "disappointed" in his son for "making the wrong choice." Oof.

[mario]

It's what they used to say about the Benettons in the mid-1990s in the days of Michael Schumacher.

It is, although a lot of that nowadays comes from the myth of the 1996 car. Michael and Ross both have said that Benetton would have won both titles with the car in '96 if Michael stayed, but there's no real evidence of that. Michael never drove it and was just merely being his confident self, and by the time Ross said it, he too was at Ferrari and hyping up his new old driver. (Michael also said that he would have "easily" won the '95 title in the Ferrari after he tested it. So...yeah.)

I wonder if perhaps Michael's comments about the 412T2 may have had a secondary objective of wanting to build his relationship with the design team at Ferrari by effectively telling them "yes, you can build a championship winning car".

It is probably one of those situations where the cars might not necessarily have been intentionally designed to suit a particular driver, but perhaps that Schumacher's driving style was such that it masked some of the deficiencies that the cars had. Berger has talked about his tests with the B195 and B196 and the aerodynamic instabilities of the B195 that resulted in snap high speed oversteer - according to him, the B195 had aerodynamic flaws that meant the floor and diffuser could stall in certain situations, causing sudden oversteer, and that was in part why Herbert also struggled to get to grips with that car.

Now, Schumacher seems to have been able to get around that issue, but most of the other drivers struggled with it. Berger does then talk about how the B196 had similar issues with oversteer that were as a result of the aerodynamics of that car, which was a source of frustration for him too (the modifications to the rear suspension probably didn't help with the B196 either). As an evolution of the B195, and with a design team that would have had reinforcement from Schumacher's feedback that the design direction they were going down was the right one, it's probable that, whilst not intentionally designed with Schumacher in mind, they developed the car in a direction that would have worked better for him.

To that end, whilst Brawn might have been positive about the B196, Nick Wirth went in the opposite direction and was rather negative about the B196, describing it as being "a dog of a car" and saying they made "massive errors" when designing it.

After quali, I'm curious about the Williams'. While I do think they were aided by Kimi, Lawson, and Hadjar all missing Q3, if their pace continues, what do they do? Carlos was very open during testing that Williams was planning on switching to '26 early. Vowles was yes definitive, but did admit the '26 car was in the windtunnel already. If this pace holds, do they stick with that plan? Or make a run for P4/P5 in the constructors? Add to this Carlos Sr.'s interview with the Australian press on Thursday where he said he was still "disappointed" in his son for "making the wrong choice." Oof.

Whilst his father might initially be disappointed, if Sainz is still making it into the top 10 when the two Sauber's are stuck outside the top 15, I expect that position will change soon. A run for P4 in the constructors championship sounds rather optimistic - I expect that the big four of Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren will lock that out, so P5 looks like the best they could hope for.

That said, you also have to ask whether their rivals in the midfield will throw that many resources at 2025 either - there's talk that Sauber, Haas and Racing Bulls are already shifting their priorities towards 2026, and whilst Newey has indicated he's going to help develop Aston Martin's 2025 car, you expect that he's likely to be prioritising their 2026 car soon too. Alpine are similarly unlikely to continue developing their 2025 car for too much longer, especially given their power unit division is being shut down at the end of this year.

Williams may well be wary of falling into the trap that Red Bull did in 2013, where they over-estimated how long their rivals would continue developing their cars and ended up in a situation where their next car was underdeveloped and they entered the next rule set on the back foot. They might therefore shift a little more resources to this year, but I suspect that Vowles will still focus most of Williams's resources onto 2026, simply because he can't afford to let his team fall too far behind his rivals when it comes to 2026.

[dr-baker]

After 1 round, it seems Williams are already up to 70% of their total 2024 points total. Seriously hoping this is not an early season blip...

[IceG]

After 1 round, it seems Williams are already up to 70% of their total 2024 points total. Seriously hoping this is not an early season blip...

And Sauber are at 150% of their total 2024 points!

[James1978]

Think that's Williams' best result (now P5 as Kimi has been reinstated in P4) in a full race (obviously not counting Russell in Spa's non-race in 2021) since Stroll at Baku 2017!!!

Also Sauber's best result since early 2022.

[Paul Hayes]

I was worried for a while it wasn't going to be as exciting a race as we'd hoped, and as we usually get in the rain, but it got there in the end!

Of course the conditions ended up making the fact that we seem to have swapped the old days of Red Bull domination for McLaren domination, but it's early days of course - Red Bull looked set to dominate again at this stage last year, and at least McLaren have a second driver who seems capable of taking the fight to the favourite, even if not ultimately today. I did feel sorry for poor Piastri, and the Australian crowd - their home drivers always seem to have very little luck there!

Ferrari seemed to carry on with last year's poor strategy calls. Possibly it was worth taking the gamble today, but maybe not with both cars?

[dr-baker]

After 1 round, it seems Williams are already up to 70% of their total 2024 points total. Seriously hoping this is not an early season blip...

And Sauber are at 150% of their total 2024 points!

OK, so now Williams are 'only' at 59% of last year's total, but still impressive after race 1. Just hoping it is not an false dawn, like when Magnussen debuted at McLaren and got his only podium...

[dr-baker]

Early contender for ROTR: Freight delays getting F1 from Melbourne to Shanghai. This means delays in getting the cars prepped for FP1 and therefore a relaxation of curfews for the mechanics. Source: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-te ... /10704836/

A few thoughts:
- This is an argument against such a crowded calendar, if it does not allow for delays and things going wrong that are beyond the sport's control. Imagine if the delays had been 24+ hours instead of just 8.
- The real victims of this are the engineers and mechanics who the curfews were introduced for. This will impact on their rest time and general quality of life whilst at the race track.
- More contingency planning is needed, or just not as many races so longer travel times between races can be introduced.

[Salamander]

- The real victims of this are the engineers and mechanics who the curfews were introduced for. This will impact on their rest time and general quality of life whilst at the race track.

This has to be the front and center concern - this is simply not a sustainable state of affairs. These incredibly talented individuals whose work the sport is very dependent on will burn out at this rate.

[dr-baker]

[James1978]

Haas' best result for 3 years there too!

[dr-baker]

And Williams now at 100% of their 2024 points total after just 1 sprint race, 2 Grands Prix, and 3 disqualifications in China.

[Jarvis]

And Williams now at 100% of their 2024 points total after just 1 sprint race, 2 Grands Prix, and 3 disqualifications in China.

Even with Carlos Sainz struggling, they have done really well so far in this season. At this rate, they will get past the 100 points which will be a massive achievement for them.

[dr-baker]

And Williams now at 100% of their 2024 points total after just 1 sprint race, 2 Grands Prix, and 3 disqualifications in China.

Even with Carlos Sainz struggling, they have done really well so far in this season. At this rate, they will get past the 100 points which will be a massive achievement for them.

It'll take a miracle for them to stay 4th, but even 7th would be an improvement.

[James1978]

At the moment, I'd say 5th in the constructors looks like a fight between Williams, Haas and Racing Bulls if they didn't keep screwing their strategies. Possibly Aston Martin too if they don't just stick to waiting for Newey to work his magic on the 2026 car. Alpine and especially Sauber look a bit detached from that. Early doors though. Think even the one-car senior Red Bull team looks out of reach for any of that group too

[You-Gee-Eee-Day]

At the moment, I'd say 5th in the constructors looks like a fight between Williams, Haas and Racing Bulls if they didn't keep screwing their strategies. Possibly Aston Martin too if they don't just stick to waiting for Newey to work his magic on the 2026 car. Alpine and especially Sauber look a bit detached from that. Early doors though. Think even the one-car senior Red Bull team looks out of reach for any of that group too

I don't know, if Lance Stroll can continue this streak of "not crashing the car and also occasionally scoring points once in a while" I think Aston have a chance of pushing up the board. Big 'if' there obviously.

[Wallio]

One fun fact: Since sprints don't count (for this stat) with his two DNFs, Alonso is not in fact P20 in the WDC. He is officially listed as "Not Classified". So we all are equal with the elder statesman after 2GPs.