Landos to lose? - 2025 season preview

Spring time brings so much to look forward to, longer days, flowers sprouting, warmer days, but most importantly, it brings the return of Formula One.

This years championship is set to be hotly contested, with a variety of teams believing they will have a shot at the World Championship. McLaren, the current Constructors World Champions, have set their sights on the Drivers World Championship, and are positioning Lando Norris as their front runner.

Max Verstappen and Red Bull will not be willing to give up their position as Drivers World Champions easily. The Red Bull did not perform well in practise, with aerodynamic, balance, and overall pace causing problems.

The Red Bull has looked unbalanced, and overall too slow, to compete at the beginning of the year. A lot of media attention has been given to Red Bulls woes, with Verstappen saying: “I think it will be a bit hard to fix.”

Counterintuitive to Verstappen’s claims the car isn’t good enough yet, he finished third in qualifying. The hopes that Red Bulls testing performances would signify a new era without single driver dominance seems to be short sighted.

There is still the chance in the race on Sunday the Red Bull does not perform, but as the season draws closer, it seems more apparent Red Bull may have been ‘sandbagging’, the practise of underperforming so opposition underestimate you.

Although, Red Bull teammate Liam Lawson’s 18th place finish may suggest the car itself is not the high performer, but rather Verstappen. Red Bull seem to have thrown all their eggs into one basket with their driver selection.

Liam Lawson’s highest career finish is a respectable 9th place, on three occasions. He has spent most of his career so far racing for Red Bulls sister team, AlphaTauri, but has never shown potential of winning a World Championship. Rather than dealing with two competing drivers, which has hindered teams in the past, Red Bull is giving all their attention to one.

McLaren has started how they will want continue, a one - two finish to clinch the top spots of qualifying will fill Zak Brown and Andrea Stella with much confidence.

Lando Norris finished qualifying and immediately complimented the car, saying it was an ‘amazing car’ and thanked his team for empowering him with such a machine.

Piastri will be more than satisfied with his second place finish, although Norris may spend most the season looking over his shoulder to make sure his Australian teammate doesn’t start to threaten his position.

McLaren looks to have built another thunderbolt, last years car won the Constructors Championship, but this years car looks capable of providing a Drivers Championship. Lando Norris really started to show his promise last year, and now is in a prime position to win the big prize.

Norris took his first ever win at last years inaugural Miami Grand Prix, going on to win a further three across the season. Norris has ten pole positions, 12 fastest laps and 26 podiums across his career. The 25 year old is coming into his prime and ready to put Verstappen to the test.

Ferrari has not started how they might have hoped. Leclerc and Hamilton finished 7th and 8th respectively. This is not the beginning to a title challenge they would have hoped for, especially after recent years success for the Ferrari. Hamilton was meant to be the man to bring home a Drivers World Championship for Ferrari, but qualifying will not fill any fans with confidence. It is a long championship, so underperforming at the opening weekend is not necessarily the disaster everyone will take it for.

However, if Ferrari is to compete, improvements will have to be soon. Verstappen has set a precedent of running away with championships pretty early into the season, a pressure Lando Norris will be aware of.

Charles Leclerc will not be happy with his 7th place finish, as in previous seasons he has threatened to win the Drivers Championship, being let down by mechanical failures preventing him from staying ahead of Verstappen.

The introduction of a seven time world champion to the Ferrari ranks could see Leclerc’s opportunities for winning dry up, with the growing potential for tension between the drivers, something Hamilton will be familiar with in his Mercedes days.

George Russell enters the last year of his contract with Mercedes, but seems focused on providing victory for Mercedes. Wether this Mercedes car is capable of winning this year is yet to be seen.

A fourth place finish in qualifying will fill Mercedes operatives with confidence or relief, depending how you see the last few years.

Kimi Antonelli, the only Italian on the grid, takes over Lewis Hamilton’s spot in the Mercedes car. The 18 year old rookie finished 16th in qualifying, but looks a bright spot for the future, with Mercedes investing in his future by promoting him at such a young age.

Antonelli’s car had bib damaged to the W16, preventing the Italian from performing in the last two laps of qualifying. It will be a disappointing start for the teenager, but adversity is there to be overcome.

Fernando Alonso starts the season aged 43, has already racked up the most entries to a F1 race, 404, and has the most starts, 401, of any driver in history. Alonso is currently the eighth youngest driver to start a race, although it looks like he will slip to ninth this weekend when Antonelli debuts.

Alonso is still over 10 years off breaking into the top 10 oldest F1 drivers, but an important caveat must be made that all these drivers competed in the 1950s. However, Alonso does now enter the top 40 oldest drivers in F1 history.

According to racingnews365, the average age for an F1 driver is between 23 and 27. Alonso’s achievement can not be swept under the carpet, this type of longevity in any sport is beyond impressive, let alone one as dangerous as F1.

So, what can we expect from this season? If we knew the answer to this, there would be no point watching the races. However, this does look like the most competitive year we will have in years. The grid is packed with established talent and up and comers.

Only one thing with sport is guaranteed, drama. The joy is not predicting what will happen and testing your hypothesis but rather the anticipation of finding out. But no matter what happens, we will be here to talk about it.