► Why F1 2025 could be a classic
► Four teams in contention
► What Formula 1 history tells us
Motorsport loves an anniversary and there’s one we can’t escape this year. The Formula 1 world championship hits 75 in 2025, and you’ll be hearing about it at every turn from now through the summer.
It would be fitting in such a landmark year if the F1 season turns out to be a cracker, and that’s precisely what optimists are anticipating after a far better 2024 campaign than expected. Red Bull’s dip in form, coinciding with revivals at McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes, made F1 unmissable after two years of Max Verstappen domination. And in the final year of this current set of chassis and powertrain rules, there’s every reason to be hopeful that all four of the top teams can again contend for race wins.
Who will be champion is impossible to call – which makes a change. Will Verstappen make it five on the bounce? Or can McLaren follow up on its first constructors’ championship in 26 years with a drivers’ crown for Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri? How about George Russell at Mercedes?
Then there’s the sensational line-up of Charles Leclerc and his new 40-year-old team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, at Ferrari. How will they match up – and might it even be possible for Hamilton to get a record eighth title? It’s a tantalising set-up.
As we prepare for what could – fingers crossed – prove to be a classic F1 season, CAR winds back through some of the world championship’s relatively recent history for the landmark campaigns that might inspire and perhaps carry the odd echo of what is to come from Australia to Abu Dhabi between March and December.
In 1986, the best driver was not in the best car. Alain Prost cites that year’s title as his favourite, largely because he knows by rights it wasn’t his to win. The Williams-Hondas of Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet were faster than the Frenchman’s McLaren-TAG in 1986. And yet at one of the most dramatic F1 finales, on the streets of Adelaide, it was Prost who crossed the line with both arms aloft as champion of the world.
Such a scenario is why Verstappen might well cherish his 2024 crown the most, because he was driving a Red Bull that was only third best across the year, behind McLaren and Ferrari. We can count on one hand the times a driver has won the championship without incontrovertibly the best car: Prost in 1986 is the prime example – or it was before Verstappen’s most recent achievement.
Might such a feat be possible in 2025? Yes – especially if race wins are spread across the top four teams. One driver’s brilliance could make all the difference.
In 1997, as now, Adrian Newey was on the move. It was one of those seasons made brilliant by a great rivalry, with melodrama a core ingredient too. Michael Schumacher’s aim in his second season at Ferrari was to end its near 20- year drought of drivers’ titles but came up against the faster Williams-Renault of Jacques Villeneuve. The grungy son of late Ferrari legend Gilles was an F1 sophomore and probably should have made easier work of the title in Adrian Newey’s last Williams. Instead, Schumacher pushed him all the way to the final round at Jerez – then attempted to shove him off when Villeneuve surprised him with a perfectly timed pounce at a right-hander.
Three years before then, Schumacher’s professional foul against Damon Hill in Adelaide went unpunished. This time, it backfired as Schuey was left picking gravel. He was disqualified from the season for his crime yet oddly kept his five race wins. As for Villeneuve, he’d never win another race. He moved to the new BAR team for 1998, benefitted from new rules.
During ’97, Newey left Williams, frustrated at his lack of control at a team run by Frank Williams and Patrick Head. Three decades later, Newey has once again left a team, disgruntled at its management. This time, he pitches up at Aston Martin a full year before a big rule change. Fernando Alonso will be hoping F1’s greatest de- signer will have the same impact he had on McLaren in 1998, when Mika Häkkinen defeated Schumacher.
But Newey’s magic can only be spun so far. Alonso might have to wait until next season to experience what such genius can bring – when he’ll be turning 44.
The 2008 season was also, like 2025, the final year before new rules kicked in and – much as we anticipate now – a great season of McLaren vs Ferrari. Then, the British team was shrugging off the ‘Spygate’ scandal of 2007 and a $100m fine for holding in its possession Ferrari technical drawings. Hamilton becoming champion was the perfect response. But boy, did he leave it late.
Felipe Massa thought he had it for Ferrari when he won on home soil at Interlagos. But in mixed conditions at one of the great F1 circuits, unbelievable drama played out in his wake. Hamilton passed Timo Glock’s Toyota at the final corner to claim the fifth place he needed to snatch the crown – and leave Massa and the whole of Brazil in tears. Now all these years later Hamilton is on the other side of the fence, with a mission to end the latest drought.
If unpredictability is key to a great season, 2010 provides a benchmark. Sebastian Vettel didn’t lead the world championship all year – but he did when it counted the most. Vettel’s victory from pole position at the Abu Dhabi finale punched the German and his Newey-inspired Red Bull team to its first world titles, as a poor Ferrari strategy call left a fuming Alonso staring at the back of Vitaly Petrov’s Renault for 40 laps. He was powerless to stop what would have been his third title slipping away.
The 2010 season is a prime example of what we hope for 15 years later. Any one of five drivers could have become champion that year: Jenson Button, fresh from his surprise title with Brawn GP, gave Hamilton a shake at McLaren; Alonso won first time out after joining Ferrari, then pieced together a spirited campaign; and Mark Webber ruffled Vettel at Red Bull, especially when they collided in Turkey. Form swung from race to race, fortunes fluctuated and it was all gloriously unpredictable.
More of the same, please.
Moving forward to 2021, that was a season which combined greatness with some unsavoury elements. The dark controversy of the ending still haunts Hamilton – how an FIA race director fumbled F1’s own rules to allow Verstappen an unplayable advantage in the season’s final moments. But the lingering bad taste doesn’t mean 2021 wasn’t a classic season.
After years of Mercedes’ hybrid-era domination, Red Bull clicked fully into gear and gave Verstappen the car he deserved. The Dutchman then took the fight to Hamilton in the no-compromise style that makes him so divisive. But the seven-time champion refused to be bullied. Neither would back down and inevitably sparks flew, most notably at Silverstone, where Verstappen was pitched into a high-speed impact at Copse corner.
We crave such rivalries, with just the right dose of tension and angst. Hamilton and Verstappen remain central to F1’s potent mix, but Leclerc, Norris, Piastri and Russell – not to forget wily old Alonso – are battled-hardened too. A recipe for the best of F1.