2025 F1 Season Preview – Sport Grill

With the 2025 F1 season set to commence, here is a preview guide to everything you need to know ahead of the 24-round campaign.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen enters this season looking to defend his title and become a five-time champion but faces a huge test, with no driver having previously won a title following iconic designer, Adrian Newey’s departure from each of his previous teams as the latter has now moved to Aston Martin.

McLaren meanwhile will seek to defend their constructors’ title whilst chasing a first drivers’ title since Lewis Hamilton’s triumph in 2008, whilst the Brit will have the world’s eyes on him following his switch from Mercedes to Ferrari, with all three constructors tipped to battle Red Bull for the title this season.

2025 will also see five full-time rookies hit the grid – although Oliver Bearman and Jack Doohan made their debuts during last season in thrice and one-off driver swaps, offering a fresh glimpse at the sport’s future stars heading into 2026 where technical regulations will be revamped.

Now here is a guide to teams plus drivers, schedule and rule changes for the 2025 F1 season.

Teams and Drivers

• Lewis Hamilton has moved from Mercedes to Ferrari who dropped Carlos Sainz, who in-turn switched to Williams as Franco Colapinto left to become Alpine Reserve Driver, whilst Andrea Kimi Antonelli replaced Hamilton at Mercedes.
• Haas dropped Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen and recruited Esteban Ocon from Alpine, whilst Oliver Bearman joins the team full-time after he replaced Magnussen in Azerbaijan and Brazil last season.
• Sauber dropped Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou for rookie and F2 champion, Gabriel Bortoleto alongside Nico Hulkenberg – who previously drove for the team in 2013.
• Red Bull promoted Liam Lawson to replace Sergio Perez who was sacked following a difficult 2024 season, with Lawson’s RB seat filled by rookie, Isack Hadjar who graduates from F2.
• Jack Doohan will race full time for Alpine after he replaced Ocon in the 2024 season finale at Abu Dhabi.

2025 Race Calendar

• Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix will return to Friday-Sunday schedule after they ran Thursday – Saturday in 2024 due to Ramadan, but moved from their opening races slot to mid-April in a calendar reshuffle.
• Australia will host the season-opener for the first time since 2019 season – having initially been set to do so in 2020 until the event was cancelled due to Coronavirus pandemic.
• The autumnal Americas triple-header has been discontinued with Brazil’s race now held a fortnight after the Mexico City GP.

Rule Changes

• Minimum driver and overall car weight limits have been increased to 82 and 800kg respectively in the interest of driver’s well-being.
• FIA have introduced a driver cooling kit which will be mandated in extreme heat conditions with the minimum car weight limit adjusted accordingly when the cooling kits are implemented.
• DRS slot parameters has been reduced to 9.4-13mm but the upper boundary will remain at 85mm, whilst there will only be two modes of which the initial mode must be returned to once the DRS is disapplied.
• Stricter deflection tests will be conducted on the rear wing this season, whilst the same procedure will apply to the front wing from Spanish GP onwards.
• Teams won’t have a limit on the number of gearboxes that they can use without a penalty due to improved reliability.
• FIA have abolished the fastest lap point due to abuse of its purpose by various teams.
• Teams will be required to field young drivers in FP1 on two occasions per car this season.
• Teams will only be allowed to conduct 20 days of testing with previous cars (TPC), with race drivers only permitted to run 1000km across four days in total, whilst testing can only happen on current circuits or those raced on in previous season if dropped from current calendar.
• If Qualifying is cancelled then stewards will set the grid based on championship standings.
• Final race grids will be determined exactly one hour before the race starts with the grid closed up in the event of withdrawals.
• Drivers will not be permitted to swear at public FIA events with first-time offences incurring €40,000 fine followed by €80,000 plus suspended suspension for second offence, with third offence incurring €120,000 fine plus one-month ban and points deduction.
• Monaco GP will see mandated two-stop strategies with three sets of tyres used, although teams can use a minimum of two tyre compounds in a dry race.
• Race Director can instruct teams to order a driver to retire on track if the car is severely damaged in a new rule introduced this season.
• Drivers who start from the pit-lane must take the formation lap alongside the grid then return to the pit-lane exit for the race start and await the usual light procedure once grid get away.

Related