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!
The Horner/employee situation from a year ago is now going toll the labour court In UK in early 2026 apparently. There is a reporting ban in the UK on it
Tá sé seachtaine na rás arís. (It's race week again) Happy St Patrick's Day.
China this weekend.
If it will be a wet race I expect Max to win this one.
But do they actually develop drivers? Or just fund loads and ruthlessly take the cream and discard the rest?
I genuinely don't know, but from the way they've treated drivers over the year, I'd question if they actually do anything to bring on drivers other than offering seats at the various junior formula. Which is still a valid thing to do, but I don't think that helmut is anything other than a helmet.
Well they signed Vettel onto the program when he was 11 years old and was racing karts in local championships without having ever driven a racing car. Clearly he had the talent but who knows if he'd have even got the funding to get into higher series without them? They signed Max later at 17 years old and he was clearly always going to be a champion, but it could easily have been with a different team if they hadn't been willing to put their faith into promoting him into F1 before he'd ever won any lower tier series or even made it to Formula 2, and then promoting him to the top team so quickly too, all of which was key to getting his signature. I think people only see drivers who get to F1 and don't succeed in getting to the top team or don't succeed while there (and lets face it, succeeding is all but impossible when the bar they're up against is Max Verstappen), but don't recognise that they often raised these guys from much lower categories and just getting to F1 and scoring points or podiums or race wins, as many of their young drivers have, is a pretty big achievement in itself. To put it in numbers, Red Bull's program has produced 2 world champions and 5 race winners. Ferrari's has produced no world champions and 2 race winners. Mercedes' has produced no world champions and 2 race winners. McLaren's has produced 1 world champion and 2 race winners. Renault / Alpine's has produced no world champions and 1 race winner. No other team's program has produced any race winner.
And yes, they have a bit of a leg up with a junior team. But Williams have served the same role for Mercedes and Haas / Sauber at different times have served that role for Ferrari. And nobody forced Red Bull to put this kind of investment into running a second team to give young drivers a chance, nor did anybody stop the other teams from doing so. But aside from all that, I definitely don't disagree at all that he's a disaster whenever he speaks to the media.
Did their programme do anything to actually foster/improve Max & Seb? Or were they always going to be winners? It's one thing to have 4 F1 seats and get lots into seats. It's another entirely to say that their programme has helped develop drivers.
And the point with him is that it seems that he goes out of his way to say controversial and, at times, racist comments. For no obvious benefit to the team. It's bizarre he's still tolerated.
Their program did deliver arguably the two best drivers to enter the sport in the last 20 years or so. They're cut-throat with their other drivers for sure but the goal seems to have been not to accept anything less than a Vettel or a Verstappen and it's delivered them multiple world championships with cars that wouldn't have won with other drivers behind the wheel. Being better at nurturing Buemi or Kvyat or whoever wouldn't have delivered that. And it's probably changed now with all the new rookies coming in but a couple of years ago about 30% of the grid were drivers who got into F1 thanks to Red Bull's driver program which is a far higher success rate than any other program. Aside from that he shouldn't be let anywhere near a microphone though, he seems to take delight in just trolling, saying the most controversial stuff he can think of and generally causing PR problems for the team. I am surprised he's still around after Dietrich's death as he was mainly in the role as his right hand man. Edit: I just looked up the comments and they're not as bad as they sound. He was specifically asked to grade the rookies in an interview and he probably should have avoided the question but he didn't and he said he'd give Antonelli, Hadjar and Bearman As, he'd give Bortoleto B and give Doohan C. Which you might disagree a little here and there but I wouldn't say is a wildly controversial view, especially given that he's obviously going to show support for Hadjar. But it generated all the out of context headlines that made it sound like he just went on an unprovoked attack against Doohan and Bortoleto.
Other than turning out nonsense or racist comments every so often he's head of driver development which he's been horrendous at, it must be the Austrian side of RedBull keeping him around
That's a bad start for Dunne.
I agree with the above. Really short pieces of drivers, and plenty of graphics in between which wasn't necessary.
At least George is being George. Hey George, do the thing 😂
f1tv sorted thanks to my polish cousin😉 reducing the amount of British biased commentary from sky.
I do not understand the point of Helmut Marko. Like what does he bring to red bull apart from bad press every few months? He's a cretin.
That intro is far too quick with the first drivers you barely see them and it has moved on ffs.
I agree.
Lol. This made me laugh lol.
We haven't even got to the first practice session of the season and Helmut Marko is already causing trouble. He said Doohan is C driver and won't complete the season, Bortoleto is a B driver and Yuki is rather undisciplined for a Japanese. Bortoletos response was good
Just me or that intro feels very rushed, like barely show each driver before cutting to next.
They did Russell dirty with that intro, whatever about last year when it looked like he was reaching out to walls, now he just looks like an idiot.
Hadjar looks like he's ready for a scrap and Sainz must have thought it was a shampoo ad he was filming.
With one exception. Liam is in the Red Bull position alone in order to finish with Max as Drivers champion.
I can't think of a time they ever tried that before.
Certainly not
New f1 intro has launched:
George Russell's t-pose is back. And they've changed the order of drivers to be in reverse team order from last year rather than reverse driver order.
Nearly there for new season...
Zak Brown loves the "we have two number one drivers" concept but that just doesn't work in F1. I fear Mclaren will be tripping over themselves
On the same wages as Norris!
I don't think that will last long. I would expect Norris to renegotiate his contract to closer Leclerc wages.
Obviously the odds are well over 1000/1 for this to happen, but if Ocon, Gasly and Hadjar were to finish on the podium, it would be an all French lock out. More likely is 3 out of Norris, Hamilton, Russell or Bearman for an English lock out.
Saturday night race for me being in Canada, nice to kick things off with a few drinks watching my sport. Yes, I said my sport.
On that, Piastri will be at McLaren for a good while it seems
lollipman season preview out.
oh just me ?
I'll leave this here
https://youtu.be/ySXRbmKZxb4?si=iWEkhLEOA2k2eO6S
I can't do it anymore just not in me
We've finally made it to the first race week of the year, not exactly looking forward to a 4am race tho
With all the talk about V10's returning, I will leave this here. Hopefully one day in some shape or form.
Watched most of the new season of Drive to Survive.
Is there a more unlikeable and creepy person in F1 than Flavio? Poor Doohan.
And Russell so desperately wants to be one of the cool kids, but its like he doesnt know how to just be one of the lads. Awkward jokes.
Edit, just noticed theres a dedicated thread, oops.
Woop woop
