The king is dead, long live the king.
With the 2024 season done and dusted and lots of chatter now about drivers and how they will perform for the 2025 season, thought it would be no harm to start a 2025 season thread.
Go!
FFerrari overalls have at a splash of white leading to speculation the car livery might be a bit different
Johnny Herbert sacked as a steward
Long overdue if true.
The man is as non-biased as I am japanese.
He was a horrendous pundit, he clearly couldn't hide being completely biased even as a steward by all accounts. Happy to see him gone
Whatever about his qualities as a steward, his association with an online gambling operation made his position untenable and I'm surprised it's taken this long to boot him.
Hamilton crashes a 2023 Ferrari at Barcelona this morning
Hamilton crashes on second day of private Ferrari Barcelona F1 test
I think he crashed with McLaren and Mercedes as well in pre-season and then he proceeded to win a WDC in the second year with the team.
Were those crashes in a 2 year old car as well?
FEw F1 social media accounts are hinted at Max and Alonso swapping seats in 2026
You never know in this sport but I'd be surprised if Max moved teams before seeing how Red Bull go in the first year of the new regs. Will Aston show any signs of improvement with Newey onboard by then, will Merc come back to the front if it becomes an engine dominated series. So many unknowns.
Also, that is fantastic news about Herbert getting the boot. Just need Crofty gone next. 😁
Don't forget Ted Kravitz!
I don't mind Ted too much actually, he's fine as a pit lane reporter during a race although his post race Notebook is a harder watch. I've zero interest when he starts talking to Joe Public, just give me the info we don't hear on the main feed etc.
One thing with AM, it is not just Newey that could help, they have recruited a raft of personnel to really take a run at these rule changes. And will more or less be a works team with Honda as well at that.
Red Bull have to be one of favourite teams to start 2026 on the back foot, surely? New engine regs, and it's their first engine. And they won't have Newey for any of the aero elements.
Whereas there can't really be any nerves around the engine that Mercedes, Ferrari or Honda build, you would imagine they'll all be much of a muchness. The risk for Max is that if he has a chance to go to Aston in 2026 then that would be to replace Lance Stroll (if that happens) - Alonso has a contract for 26. If the seat in 2026 is open (say if Lance decides to go to WEC) then a replacement driver comes in on a multi-year seat and then if the Aston is a rocketship in 2026 it could mean Alonso stays put for another year or two, meaning there might simply be no seat for Max (as mad as that is to say) at Aston Martin then…
Not sure about RBR - it depends on how much Honda knowledge has gone into that PowerTrains division or whatever they call it. I wouldn't say they are starting from scratch in that sense but you'd have to say without Honda and Newey, they have to be a bit weaker at least. From an article on the-race, Newey reckons the team lacked experience which allowed issues with the car to get worse last year. But, they finally figured it out which is the main.
You're assuming a contract is worth something these days though, Danny Ric had a contract at McLaren too remember. 😉 I think if AM wanted Max they'd have no problem paying Alonso off early, they should of course bin Lance instead but I'd be surprised if they did that. Alonso and Max in a competitive car would be mega and most likely get you a constructors title.
With RBPT, they recruited a huge amount of people from Merc and Honda for this project. While it is their first go, I wouldn’t write them off just yet.
If memory serves, when the last PU regs changes in 2014, Ferrari were really off the ball, it was a car that understeered into a corner and oversteered out of it, this was all due to the power delivery of the PU. Not saying they would repeat it, but I wouldn’t be putting any team ahead of anyone right now. It is a new sheet of paper for them all.
We are in February now. A little bit over two weeks to the launch event in London (18th of February).
Anyone here going to that event actually?
I'd be amazed if the whole thing wasn't live and free on their YouTube channel.
I think they put them on the team website.
These days it's really just a livery reveal amd team branding opportunity. It would make sense to make it as publicly available as possible
There's a big event this year in the o2 where all teams are launching together (sort of)
Oh I see. Good idea. The days of glitzy launches is gone. A joint event makes way more sense.
Why is that?
What bit are you asking about?
The launches used to be much bigger amd more expensive. Celebrities and gimmicks. Recently they've had to cut back amd it's more like a light show and a livery reveal amd am interview with the drivers. No need to watch, you can just see the pictures of the new livery afterwards.
Having lots of livery reveals together in one event cuts costs and at least makes it interesting again.
Hope so, much prefer the red & white over red &black
We got the on track start times. Australia is 4am,China sprint is 3am and race at 7am then Japan at 6am so early start to the season for us
Interesting that Sauber creating a new technical centre in the UK even tho Audi wanted a 20% increase in the cost cap for them as their working out of Switzerland
Zhou Guanyu announced as reserve driver for Ferrari alongside Antonio Giovinazzi. He won't end up in a Ferrari F1 car (you have to assume if something happens during the season they'll just move Bearman into car and let Haas fill their seat), but could be a way for him into the hypercar for Le Mans?
No, I reckon Zhou will get the nod if Hamilton or LeClerc become unavailable. He wasn't anything spectacular but he was solid enough and kept the Sauber between the ditches most of the time. Bearman is still young and inexperienced and if he drives like a typical Haas driver then he might not be as attractive as he was last year.
He drove for Ferrari last year in Saudi and did excellent.
