F1 2025 in 5 questions

While the Formula 1 World Championship will mark its 75th anniversary this year, the calendar will still have 24 rounds.

Starting with the Australian Grand Prix on March 14 and ending with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend on December 5, the program will not include a new Grand Prix, but it does present some significant challenges.

Will Hamilton compete with Leclerc at Ferrari?

In Maranello, Lewis Hamilton will face Charles Leclerc, pillar of the Scuderia for six seasons.

The Monegasque dominated all his teammates in red, from Sebastian Vettel to Carlos Sainz, thanks to his magic in qualifying, his ability to adapt at the wheel and his unwavering mental strength.

Faced with him, the Briton will have to adapt to new procedures (including a very different steering wheel), new engineers (his will be Riccardo Adami, who supervised Vettel and Sainz) and a car with different behavior. All things that his neighbor in the garage knows, who also speaks Italian to perfection.

After three difficult seasons at Mercedes, Hamilton sought new motivation at Ferrari. He will benefit from all the necessary support from Vasseur and Elkan, but he will be faced with a perfectly integrated and devilishly fast driver. Certainly, Leclerc has weak points (when the front axle lacks grip or on low downforce tracks, like Monza or Monaco), but he has been able to adapt to ground effect F1 cars, which until now have always posed a problem for the seven-time world champion. Will the SF-25 suit him better than the Silver Arrows?

Will Antonelli live up to Mercedes' hopes?

By choosing to replace Lewis Hamilton with the man it sees as its future world champion, Mercedes has made a bold decision. Is the 18-year-old prodigy really ready for the big leap into Formula 1 with a top team?

Andrea “Kimi” Antonelli arrived in Formula 2 at 17, skipping F3. A forced learning process reminiscent of that of Max Verstappen, who went directly from F3 to F1. Except that the Dutchman completed his apprenticeship with the modest Toro Rosso team. Which allowed him to compete in 23 Grands Prix away from the cameras (who remembers that Sainz was faster than him in qualifying?) before moving to Red Bull.

Before starting at McLaren in 2007, Lewis Hamilton had benefited from longer preparation thanks to countless private test sessions. Antonelli arrived in Grand Prix at the age of 18, with barely three seasons of motor racing under his belt. Much less than Hamilton, who at the time of his tenure was four years older and had spent five seasons in the junior categories after karting.

Very good. But speed cannot be learned. Antonelli dominated Bearman in F2, proof that he is fast. But he will most likely make mistakes, which will be scrutinized and amplified since Mercedes is a top team. Antonelli won't be a perfect driver in 2025, but Mercedes doesn't expect him to be. She expects him to progress regularly.

Will McLaren continue its rise?

For McLaren, the 2023 and 2024 seasons have been quite similar. They got off to a bad start, due to an unfinished car, not quite ready. In 2023, Austria is where the MCL60 has gone from a mid-grid car to a regular podium contender. Last season, the MCL38 was transformed in Miami to become the benchmark car, ahead of the Red Bull.

Without these missed starts, the team of Zak Brown and Andrea Stella could have played the leading roles earlier and, in 2024, offered Lando Norris a chance to play for the constructors' world title (Verstappen's five victories in the seven first races gave him a lead that was difficult to regain).

Will she be able to take another step forward, for the third season in a row? The engineers from Woking have proven their worth, but their rivals from Red Bull will undoubtedly in turn develop a flexible wing, which last year allowed McLaren and Mercedes to make a big leap forward…

Where will Alpine be located?

Alpine's engineers, under the direction of David Sanchez, spent most of last season correcting the A524's flaws (overweight, concept, etc.). These developments, which worked perfectly (which was not always the case on the machines of the top teams), will serve as the basis for the future A525, which will be the first creation of the French engineer at Enstone.

Thanks to his experience at Ferrari and his brief stint at McLaren (three months), Sanchez improved the team's working methods. This relied too much on the wind tunnel, and underutilized the capabilities of CFD:

“Today, CFD is very efficient and provides a lot of information, it is with it that we design the car,
explains the Frenchman. Instead of saying that the wind tunnel is the only aerodynamic tool, we must say that it is one of them. This involves combining the three data streams (telemetry, CFD and wind tunnel). If what you are doing is healthy, if the wind tunnel is satisfied, but the CFD indicates that it is not working, you should not go there.”

This new culture drove the design of the A525, which Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan will pilot. Judging by the progress made at the end of the championship, we can be reasonably optimistic. There is finally a captain in charge.

Will Ocon dominate Bearman at Haas?

The question is a bit provocative. With 156 Grands Prix to his name, one victory and four podiums, the Frenchman is more experienced than his garage neighbor, who will begin his career after three replacements at Ferrari and Haas.

And he remains an excellent driver, who did not disparage himself against his teammates, from Sergio Pérez to Pierre Gasly, including Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso. But he never managed to become the leader of his team. In the five years spent alongside Ricciardo, Alonso and Gasly, the score has been 50/50 when it comes to which driver finishes ahead in the race. In the race, Ocon was generally in front, and was behind in around 60% of cases in qualifying. Solid stats, but not those of a number one driver.

His arrival at Haas offers him the opportunity to take this step and become the driving force of a compact team led in a clear and transparent manner by Ayao Komatsu. At 28 years old, Ocon can learn a lot from this new start.

Of course, the list is not exhaustive. We will thus observe the results of Liam Lawson against the ogre Max Verstappen, the first steps of Isack Hadjar in Formula 1 at Racing Bulls and the transfer of Carlos Sainz to Williams. Can't wait for the season to begin!