Dare we say that it is possible to get excited about the upcoming Formula 1 season? While history means that Red Bull and Max Verstappen should still be the favorites, McLaren and Ferrari are looking like contenders for both championships. Even in the event that there isn’t a multi-driver race for the title, back-of-the-napkin math offers at least a 50-50 chance at a new Drivers’ Championship winner. And yet it's arguably one of the least important changes in the 75th anniversary of F1's existence.
Rosters have been drastically overhauled. Carlos Sainz Jr. moved to Williams. Lewis Hamilton is at Ferrari. There’s a new second driver at Red Bull. There are five new drivers on the grid and not one pay driver among them, which makes this the biggest rookie class since the 2019 lineup of Lando Norris, Alexander Albon, and George Russell. With any luck, this year will produce a driver on their caliber. In an era of increasing engine reliability, rookie mistakes may infuse the kind of randomness and safety-car strategic shakeups that have been missing from recent seasons. It comes at the minor tradeoff of preexisting narratives, but who needs those? Lewis Hamilton is at Ferrari!
Because it’s F1, an unethical and unruly enterprise, there’s always a chance this doesn’t pan out. Maybe Red Bull will just run away with it again. Maybe the allegations of corruption dogging the FIA will subsume the on-track product. Maybe 2026 is the true season to be excited about, with a new rules overhaul and Cadillac officially approved to join the grid.
But for the first time in a while, these shakeups have made it easy to get excited about an F1 season before it starts. The final result is impossible to predict, though we’re going to do our best to at least put everything in context. It’s lights out, and away we go—time to get previewing, baby.
McLaren
What Happened Last Season?
McLaren had a huge year in 2024, winning its first Constructors' Championship since 1998. More than that, though, McLaren had been a bit lost in the wilderness for a few years. Daniel Ricciardo's arrival in 2021, replacing Carlos Sainz when he went to Ferrari, was a wet fart, and even with Oscar Piastri's wild signing saga, McLaren only finished a distant fourth in 2023. Even the start of 2024 went poorly for the papaya-clad, with only two podiums in the first five races.
That all changed in Miami, as Lando Norris finally shed the "Lando No-Wins" moniker to pick up his maiden victory in South Florida. I'm not saying he won because I was in attendance, but it surely didn't hurt. From that point on, Norris was a veritable Drivers' Championship contender, and McLaren followed suit on the constructors' side. For the season, Norris won four total races (Miami, Zandvoort, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi), while Piastri picked up his first Grand Prix win in Hungary and followed it up with a win in Azerbaijan.
While Norris fell short of beating Max Verstappen for the top individual title—due to a simultaneously disastrous (for Norris) and imperious (for Verstappen) São Paulo Grand Prix—McLaren held off a late Ferrari charge to win the Constructors' Championship. The 2024 season was validation for Norris, and a statement for Piastri who became one of the best drivers on the grid in only his second F1 season.
What's New?
McLaren is the only top team to not have a driver change this offseason, so the team will have all the same parts as last year. If there's anything new for the team, it's the weight of expectation. Entering 2024, no one expected them to jump up from fourth to first, but now everyone could reasonably expect another first-place finish. Will that pressure get to McLaren?
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
Let's revisit the Hungarian Grand Prix, perhaps McLaren's most awkward moment of last season. Kathryn covered it well at the time, but a quick summary: McLaren was pretty much guaranteed to finish 1-2, but a strategy kerfuffle made that 1-2 as painful as possible. Despite Piastri leading the race, McLaren pit Norris first and too early (during a race that was very favorable to the undercut), before pitting Piastri second and too late. If the team's interest was to boost Norris's chances of being the world champion, this was a janky but effective way to do so, but in the interest of, I don't know, fairness, Norris's race engineer told him to let Piastri through. Norris was understandably miffed at the decision, but after some awkward laps, he did eventually let Piastri through, and the Australian got his first race win, even though he sounded like someone had insulted him on the radio after the race.
This is going to be a problem going forward for McLaren, even if Norris is more clearly established at the top of the pecking order at the moment. Piastri is a very good driver with world champion potential, and it wouldn't be surprising if "Lando Norris is our No. 1 driver" turns into a bit of a 1 and 1A situation. For now, Norris will get the edge in strategy calls internally, but if Piastri keeps improving, he might make that a difficult call for McLaren. Norris is the top driver, but the most pressing question for McLaren in 2025 will be "For how long?"
How Good Is Their Livery?
How you feel about the McLaren car comes down to how much the papaya orange works for you. I personally love the color and its name, so this year's car stands out in a pack of blues and reds. I do wish the black in the middle of the car was less pronounced or even gone completely; I much preferred when McLaren's alternate color was blue. Still, papaya rules. The logo wheels could go; it's cute, but also a reminder that Zak Brown will do anything for more sponsorship money.
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
After winning the Constructors' Championship last season, McLaren enters the 2025 campaign as the favorites to repeat. Nothing in pre-season testing, where McLaren was consistently fastest, appears to throw doubt into that equation. Both Norris and Piastri have cleared the "first win" hump, and can consider themselves a title contender, awkwardness be damned. If McLaren can clean up the strategy mishaps that popped up at Silverstone and in Hungary, there's no reason that the papayas won't be in the hunt for both season-long titles. That's a big "if," but everything's in sync for the first time in a long time for McLaren. - Luis Paez-Pumar
Ferrari
What Happened Last Season?
Ferrari definitely had the most eventful preseason of 2024. Just a couple of weeks before the season kicked off in earnest, a bombshell dropped: Lewis Hamilton announced that he would leave Mercedes the following season and join Ferrari, replacing Carlos Sainz.
Once the season did kick off in earnest, Sainz took his shunting personally: After missing the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix due to appendicitis, the Spaniard came back just 16 days after surgery and gutted out his third race win in Australia. He followed that up with a masterful drive in Mexico later in the year, bringing his Ferrari win total to four, in four seasons with the team.
On the other side of the paddock, Charles Leclerc won perhaps the two most important races of the season, at least in terms of emotional attachment. He finally broke whatever curse he might have had in his home race, qualifying on pole in Monaco before avoiding the tragedies of previous years to claiming the top podium spot there for the first time. Leclerc followed that up with a win in Monza, Ferrari's more significant home race, with all due respect to Imola.
The only way that Ferrari's season could have been better was if it had won the Constructors' Championship, and while the Scuderia put up a hell of a fight in the back half of the season, Leclerc and Sainz came up short of surpassing McLaren. Still, after the disappointing results of 2022 and 2023, a second-place finish before Hamilton joins sets up the sport's most famous team for success. The expectations now shift to win at all costs—that's the Lewis Hamilton effect—but Leclerc and Sainz ended their era together with more highs than lows. - Luis Paez-Pumar
What's New?
Lewis Hamilton. Lewis Hamilton! Sorry, Sir Lewis Hamilton. Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton, even! Sir Lewis Carl David Hamilton, in Ferrari red and impeccable tailoring. If you can look directly at this image without feeling like a rabid squirrel scrabbling at the crack under the red door, well, more credit to you.
The Hamilton-Ferrari partnership is impossible not to get excited about. If you’re a Ferrari fan, you just gained a seven-time World Champion. If you’re a Charles Leclerc fan, you get to see how your driver fares against one of the greatest of all time. If you’re a Lewis Hamilton fan, you wait with bated breath to see if this gamble—as bold as his early-career Mercedes move—will pan out. And if you’re a neutral fan, you hope to see … perhaps not history, but at least a spark, and preferably a spark created as two bright red cars collide.
Ferrari has been nailing the press rollout with Hamilton: that photo of him standing in Maranello, the Time magazine cover with a knighted Hamilton standing before a massive black horse, less iconographic but morale-boosting shots of Hamilton and Leclerc playing chess at the F1 75 live show. (Defector resident chess guy Patrick Redford on CharlesLeclerc1997’s Chess.com profile, who is probably but not confirmed to be Charles Leclerc: “Unsurprisingly, he is ass.”) If Hamilton needed to take a gamble for his remaining years in F1, Ferrari desperately needs him to usher in a new era after nearly two decades of results not matching up to the team’s mythology. The imagery is already sorted—now there’s just the rest of it. - Kathryn Xu
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
Aside from McLaren, Ferrari is the only serious, non-rookie-staffed team without a clear-cut 1-2 in terms of driver performance. It is also the only serious team without any benefit of hindsight. Leclerc and Hamilton have always performed well at their respective teams, and never matched up against one another in equal machinery. The argument for Leclerc would be Hamilton’s age and on-paper record against George Russell. The argument for Hamilton would be that he’s Lewis Hamilton, and Leclerc’s on-paper record against Carlos Sainz Jr.
Still, the Ferrari hater or narratives enjoyer should not get their hopes up that putting together the best driver pair since 2013–16 Mercedes will produce 2013–16 Mercedes–caliber acrimony. The Hamilton/Nico Rosberg rivalry was a perfect confluence of preexisting history and Drivers’ Championship contention, of which Hamilton and Leclerc have neither. The only answer here is: Nobody knows! You’ll have to watch to find out! I’m so excited I’m going to throw up. - Kathryn Xu
How Good Is Their Livery?
This year's red is as gorgeous as ever, though not my favorite Ferrari rosso—the HP white and blue looks terrible in conjunction with the more classic look of the car. Just awful color clashing, in my eyes. While this isn't the best Ferrari livery in recent years, no car looks better shooting by at hundreds of miles per hour than the one coated in the most iconic of racing colors. As a bonus, Lewis Hamilton, fashionista that he is, looks fantastic with Ferrari aesthetics—yes, we both linked the same Instagram post, let us cook—and that has to be worth at least a few bonus points. - Luis Paez-Pumar
I count seven HP logos in this photo alone. Make it stop. - Kathryn Xu
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
After coming so close to its first Constructors' Championship since 2008, Ferrari should be better this season. Sainz was on a mission last year, winning two races and oftentimes outperforming Leclerc, but there's no doubt in my mind that Ferrari has upgraded its driver pairing, which is now undoubtedly the best on the grid. Anything less than a finish one spot higher in the standings this season will be considered a disappointment, and both drivers will be looking to win monumental Drivers' Championships as well. For Leclerc, it would be his first, a fulfillment of his near-limitless potential as a driver. For Hamilton, it would be a record-breaking eighth title, a fitting cap to the best career F1 has ever seen, and validation of his choice to leave the comforts of Mercedes for the thrill of winning a championship as a Ferrari driver. - Luis Paez-Pumar
Red Bull
What Happened Last Season?
Red Bull came out of the gates curb-stomping opponents into submission, to the point where 2024 started to feel as much of a wash as 2023 was. Then Sergio Pérez’s performance fell off a cliff, and McLaren’s car became the fastest on the grid. The end result meant that Red Bull fell to a shocking third in the Constructors’ Championship, and the Drivers’ Championship wasn't certain. Red Bull and Max Verstappen were saved by some late-season wins, McLaren institutional oopsies, and Ferrari chipping some wins away from McLaren.
In summary: Red Bull semi-convincingly won the Drivers’ Championship, re-signed Pérez, failed to win the Constructors’ Championship due to the aforementioned maintenance of the Pérez contract, cut Pérez, and through all of that, the biggest story of the season was Christian Horner. That’s Horner’s particular pathos for you, a team principal with enough presence to be hated.
Horner was accused of misconduct by a Red Bull employee prior to the start of the 2024 season, and the subsequent investigation was dogged by leaks and reframed within the context of a power struggle within the top tiers of the team. The end of the season provided nothing new in terms of team leadership: Both Horner and other Red Bull honcho Helmut Marko remained in their respective positions, and so Verstappen, Red Bull’s ticket to future championships, remained as well.
The allegations against Horner are still to be resolved, and Marko is answering questions about them in Austrian media. In a new report by Erik van Haren in De Telegraaf, who first broke the news, Horner’s case is going to an employment tribunal in the United Kingdom in January 2026, barring a settlement. Van Haren also stated that British media is not currently allowed to report on the tribunal, due to a Reporting Restriction Order (RRO) issued in April last year, at the request of Horner's camp.
What's New?
Liam Lawson’s short stint in the VCARB car was enough for him to win out against Yuki Tsunoda for the second Red Bull seat, and he poetically ticked off Pérez on his way there. Lawson has too many races under his belt (11) to qualify as a real rookie, but he still headlines the squad of new drivers taking over F1 this year. It remains to be seen if Lawson will dodge the Red Bull second driver curse. The good news is that his benchmark will not be Verstappen or even 2023 Pérez, but instead a remarkably atrocious 2024 Pérez.
After the Pierre Gasly and Alexander Albon partnerships, no one should expect Lawson to match up against Verstappen—he’s more than welcome to surprise everyone. But Lawson does not have to be brilliant; he just has to be good enough that nobody at Red Bull headquarters gets an itchy trigger finger.
Arguably the biggest change in Red Bull is the departure of rarefied engineer and F1 legend Adrian Newey from the team, where he had been since 2006. Newey-designed cars have won each of Red Bull’s championships, with an especially impressive nailing of the regulations since 2022. The good news for Red Bull is that Newey’s loss won’t be felt so much this year—that’s a 2026 problem.
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
Max Verstappen. Court adjourned!
How Good Is Their Livery?
Red Bull has been running back the same livery for the past few years, which is: fine. It’s fine! An argument could be made that the livery has reached “iconic” status, though that would require some belief in the cultural cachet of the Red Bull energy drink. It uses red and dark blue. It looks fine.
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
If you asked me this question at the start of 2024, the answer would be “both Championships or bust.” But after the rise of McLaren and Ferrari, it’s a bit more uncertain, even with Red Bull making improvements in their driver lineup. Let's be clear: Red Bull’s expectations should still be winning both Championships, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. - Kathryn Xu
Mercedes
What Happened Last Season?
Lewis Hamilton announced before the season that he was going to Ferrari, and was more or less proven to have made the correct choice. In 2024 Mercedes had its worst performance since the pre-Hamilton era, placing fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. In the previous two seasons, Mercedes scraped by with its consistency, challenging and even once winning P2 in the Constructors’ Championship over Ferrari. But with all cars becoming more reliable across the board, Mercedes lost the ticket that let them steal podiums. As Ferrari regained form and McLaren had the fastest car on the grid through a large portion of the season, Mercedes showed flashes of success that disappeared as quickly as they came.
It wasn’t an entirely lost season. Hamilton had his first win in nearly three years at home in Silverstone, and thanks to the lack of tampering rules in F1, was able to celebrate that meaningful win accordingly. Mercedes nearly finished with a 1-2 in the race following, until an unfortunate disqualification tagged George Russell, and they still left with a win.
But Mercedes wasn’t able to carry the momentum through the summer break, and so 2024 became a filler year, with the team missing from the big narratives, and Hamilton already halfway out the door. They eventually got a 1-2 finish in Las Vegas toward the end of the season, but that wasn’t enough to elevate a disappointing showing for the team.
What's New?
With Lewis Hamilton’s exit, Russell has officially completed his ascension to the top of Mercedes, and in classic F1 fashion, he’s joined by an upstart protégé in Kimi Antonelli. Antonelli will be the third-youngest driver to make their F1 debut, after Max Verstappen and, uh, Lance Stroll. That he is immediately joining Mercedes is unprecedented; even Verstappen and Leclerc spent some time in feeder teams (Toro Rosso and Sauber, respectively) before making it to the main squad.
It’s difficult to evaluate young drivers—there are precisely 15 bajillion Formula 4 championships that feed into the regional Formula 3 circuit, before feeding into the official FIA Formula 3 and Formula 2 championships, where tenure, age, and car quality greatly affect driver performance. Confused? Good. That’s how they like it.
Antonelli placed sixth in the F2 driver's championship and grabbed a couple of wins in his debut F2 season, behind a couple of his 2025 F1 rookie peers, but unlike all of his F1 rookie peers, he never participated in the Formula 3 Championship proper, only in some of the regional championships like FRECA. To put this in context, Verstappen went straight from third place in Formula 3 driver standings to F1, and all first-year winners in F2 since the championship was changed in 2017— including Leclerc, Russell, Piastri, and now Gabriel Bortoleto—were two years older than Antonelli is now. It’s impossible to overstate how much of an impact experience has on results at this stage. The most important thing is that Antonelli is exciting and, thankfully, going directly to a competitive team that will give him the opportunity to steal some podiums, without any real pressure to go along with it.
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
Indisputably George Russell, and he’s probably happy to hear it after not infrequently butting heads with Hamilton. Even if Antonelli is a Verstappen-esque talent, it’ll take some time for him to fully adjust; Verstappen himself didn’t outperform Daniel Ricciardo until his third year with the A team. It’s only unfortunate that this development came for Russell at a time where Mercedes isn’t anticipated to be at its best, but he’s shown the guts and talent to be able to hang at the top.
How Good Is Their Livery?
Mercedes is committing to its goth concept with silver highlights from last year, and if the black just happens to make a lighter car than full silver paint—well, that’s just a perk, isn’t it? I was a major proponent of the black Mercedes, partially because that was how it looked when I started watching F1, but after seeing a silver Mercedes glinting under the sun in person ... man, I got it. The mix is a stab at getting the best of both worlds, with popping teal highlights, to positive effect. It suffers from the same repetition disease as Red Bull's car, but silver + teal + black > red + blue + yellow. Algebra.
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
It feels odd to call Mercedes a midfield team, but unless a McLaren-esque turnaround is waiting in the wings, that’s all they can hope to be. However, considering that the next best team after Mercedes is … Aston Martin, which scored nearly 400 fewer points than Mercedes last year, a caveat must be made that Mercedes is still much better than those midfield teams. - Kathryn Xu
Aston Martin
What Happened Last Season?
It’s very easy to be disappointed by Aston Martin’s performance last year, especially after the impressive start to 2023—just as it was easy to be disappointed by their 2021 performance after an impressive 2020 season, when they were still called Racing Point. But to be charitable, they were the clear best of the rest, even if Alpine somehow managed to snag more podiums, and that was with Lance Stroll as a driver on the team.
Fernando Alonso has spent his past two years at Aston Martin proving that he isn’t yet washed in his 40s, but unlike 2023, when he amassed the bulk of his points via early-season podiums, 2024 was about consistently driving the car to wherever he could take it in a race. That level just wasn’t particularly high, and last year's Aston Martin just wasn't particularly memorable. The AMR24’s best finish in a season was P5. Coincidentally, that’s where Aston Martin ended . As they say, it’s about the destination, not the journey.
What's New?
Lawrence Stroll's tenure of owning Racing Point has been marked by making some good decisions, with the tradeoff of keeping his son Lance in the sport. Getting the Aston Martin name back into F1 for the first time since 1960? Great! Signing Fernando Alonso away from Alpine? Incredible! Trading away Sergio Pérez for Sebastian Vettel? Well, not so much, although one can argue that it didn’t matter, considering the state of the car.
Aston Martin is one of two teams that made zero driver changes from last year, retaining both Alonso and Stroll. But there were other, pivotal changes: After nearly two decades with Red Bull, F1 engineer Adrian Newey moved to Aston Martin as the team’s technical director and part-owner. He officially started work this month, which is not enough time to influence the direction of the AMR25, but makes Aston Martin a very exciting team to monitor in 2026.
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
The answer to this question is Fernando Alonso, but the real question is for how long Lance Stroll will remain at the team. There were hints of discontent in 2023 that have dissipated since then. While a second driver at a midfield team can cost millions of dollars in Constructors’ Champion standings, the problem will be much greater if Newey winds up doing for Aston Martin in 2026 what he did for Red Bull in 2022. There are the bones for a good team here, but for next year rather than this season. The weakest link will always come down to the fact that Lawrence Stroll has a race car driver for a son.
How Good Is Their Livery?
Every year the Aston Martin loses more green, and every year it’s a tragedy. It's a little nitpicky. You can’t really go wrong with that gorgeous shade of green and lime highlights, but the AMR22 set a high standard—at least, uh, off the track—that all future iterations have struggled to match. You have a great color! Use it!
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
Midfield, but nowhere near Mercedes. As much as the drop-off might incite more pessimism than warranted, the results from 2023 and 2024 should give some hope that Aston Martin will hang near the top of the midfield again, depending on how much stock you put in preseason testing, and one should never count out Fernando Alonso, whose name is best said with an overdramatic snap and "That wily old fox!" - Kathryn Xu
Alpine
What Happened Last Season?
In what turned out to be the end of the short-lived French Experience at Alpine, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly disappointed. The Alpine car was a mess throughout the year, racking up six non-finishes and at times feeling the slowest car in a grid that also included Sauber. The other cause is that these two guys seemingly hate each other's guts, or at the very least do not respect each other. That's how you get Ocon bombing in on Gasly in Monaco at Portier corner, resulting in Gasly propelling his teammate's vehicle into the air and eliciting a very French "What did he do?!" from Gasly.
The pair put aside their differences to finish second and third in the very rainy São Paulo Grand Prix, moving Alpine from ninth place to sixth. Despite multiple DNFs afterward, Alpine held off Haas to finish as the best midfield team of last season. That wasn't the end of the drama, though: Ocon was unceremoniously ejected from his seat for the final race of the season, with reserve driver Jack Doohan taking over for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It was an ignominious end for Ocon after four seasons with Alpine, but maybe it was best for everyone to get him out of there as quickly as possible.
What's New?
While Gasly is back with Alpine this season, Doohan is now Ocon's permanent replacement. Doohan was a bit of a star in Formula 2 before making the jump to Alpine's reserve driver ahead of last season. With a year under his belt working with the main team, he should be ready to succeed from the jump.
But because this is Alpine, and Alpine is a debacle, there are already rumors that Doohan, the first Alpine Academy driver to make the first team, could be replaced by former Williams substitute Franco Colapinto, who joined Alpine as a reserve driver ahead of 2025. This is all down to team supervisor Flavio Briatore, a controversial figure in F1 history that I don't have the word count to explain. To keep it short, Briatore often gets what he wants and cares little for niceties, so if Doohan isn't performing at the start of the season, Colapinto could slot in sooner than anyone might expect.
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
Gasly is back in a familiar spot, as the lead driver of a team employing an unproven youngster. This was his role at f.k.a. AlphaTauri, Red Bull's second team, where he helped usher in Yuki Tsunoda in 2021. I think Gasly is a good driver who has had the misfortune of driving tractors on the track; the AlphaTauri was never particularly good in his time there, and the Alpine car is mercurial, to put it nicely. But Gasly did have a chance to show his value when Red Bull promoted him to the first team in 2019, and he cratered. His poor performances in the second Red Bull seat led him to be demoted to what was then Toro Rosso, the second team, ahead of that year's Belgian Grand Prix. Even though Gasly won the Italian Grand Prix in 2020 in the AlphaTauri, he hasn't shown much race-winning skill since joining Alpine in 2023, and his career has stalled a bit. Alpine will need him to find his form and joy now that he's separated from Ocon, but of all the No. 1 drivers on the grid, he might be the weakest.
How Good Is Their Livery?
I normally like a bright and bold livery, but something about the Alpine color scheme does not do it for me. Perhaps I just miss the clean black-and-yellow Renault livery of years past. Alpine's blue is boring, and the pink grabs attention in the worst of ways. Also, though this isn't exactly the purpose of this section, Alpine's knack for some truly hideous alternate liveries knocks them down a point. The all-pink livery looks like heartburn medication.
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
If the above sounded pessimistic about Alpine, let me correct that. The car is usually fast in straight lines, and that can get you a long way in F1, even if it handles like an 18-wheeler at times. Alpine should be right in the mix of where they were last year, competing for sixth and maybe even fifth, depending on whether Aston Martin's shaky preseason carries over into the full campaign. A lot of that will come down to Doohan's success as a full-time F1 driver, or whether he fails so badly that Colapinto, an impressive driver in his stint last season, comes in. - Luis Paez-Pumar
Haas
What Happened Last Season?
The lovable losers at Haas had a great season. In what ended up being the last ride of teammates and sometimes-rivals Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, Haas was often fast and just as often surprising, battling Alpine for the coveted sixth-place spot on the constructors' standings up until the last day. Hulkenberg rode some strong qualifying sessions and skillful racecraft to finish a very respectable 11th place on the individual table, including back-to-back sixth-place finishes in Austria and Silverstone. Perhaps more encouraging than that, the pair combined for two DNFs all season, both in Monaco.
However, Haas did finish in seventh place. Thanks to food poisoning, Magnussen missed the São Paulo Grand Prix, throwing soon-to-be 2025 driver Oliver Bearman behind the wheel. While Bearman had a great debut performance subbing in at Ferrari for Carlos Sainz during his appendicitis saga, the rookie showed his age in the torrential downpour of Brazilian summer, spinning out and finishing 12th only due to retirements behind him. Hulkenberg retired from that same race, and a shocking 2-3 finish for Alpine threw the French side into sixth place, a spot they would not relinquish. All things considered, Haas laid a solid foundation for 2025 last season, and should be about as good this time around.
What's New?
Hulkenberg and Magnussen have now been replaced by Bearman and Esteban Ocon, who helped damn Haas to seventh last year while at Alpine. Ocon is a good driver who has often been hindered by Alpine's car design choices and his own hard-headedness (see: Monaco 2024). While I'm not certain he's better than Hulkenberg right now, Ocon is much younger and has room to grow into Haas, far away from his former teammate and nemesis Pierre Gasly.
In the other seat, Bearman is perhaps a bit too inexperienced to be in Formula 1, but he did acquit himself nicely when called upon to replace Sainz and Magnussen—not at São Paulo, but with a 10th-place finish in Azerbaijan. It'll be interesting to see if he can rein in whatever went wrong in Brazil, but the odds are good, given that torrential downpours of that caliber are rare.
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
Ocon, who will finally be the outright leader of a team. When he was at Alpine, he had to contend with Fernando Alonso and then Gasly, both drivers who, in my opinion, are better on the track than the big Frenchman. Ocon will have the full albeit meager resources of Haas in order to truly show what he can do behind the wheel. Will Haas get the Ocon who managed a near-perfect rain drive in Brazil last year, or it get the one who dive-bombs his teammate at Monaco?
How Good Is Their Livery?
It's fine. Just fine. I think Haas could do something more interesting with its color scheme—perhaps more red and less black?—but it's hard to mess up the striking contrasts here. That said, it is very clearly the worse of the white-forward cars on the grid, given the beauty that is VCARB's livery this season.
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
Haas has had surprising pace in the car in recent years, and only an act of God kept them from being the best of the rest behind the big four teams and whatever happened at Aston Martin. I'm not sure Ocon and Bearman are a straight upgrade to Hulkenberg and Magnussen, but with so many teams fielding rookies in the bottom half of the field this season, as well as new driver lineups, a steady seventh-place repeat could be in the cards. - Luis Paez-Pumar
Racing Bulls a.k.a. VCARB
What Happened Last Season?
To do my best Zak Brown impression, VCARB cannot be evaluated on real team criteria, on account of not being a real team. It ostensibly placed eighth in the Constructors’ Championship, earning 46 points, the most they earned since a wildly successful 2021 season with Pierre Gasly.
None of that matters. What matters is that VCARB changed its name to the eyewatering Visa CashApp Racing Bulls and an abbreviation that can be pronounced as either "vee-carb" or a sound that could be a curse in some fantasy/sci-fi language. What matters is that VCARB kicked out Daniel Ricciardo for Liam Lawson after the Singapore Grand Prix, and, as an extension of Red Bull, totally botched his farewell; Ricciardo’s exit was only announced long after the race had ended, an unfitting and anticlimactic goodbye for a key personality of the sport. What matters is that this botched farewell came immediately after Ricciardo, as an extension of Red Bull, played the team game and stole the fastest lap from Lando Norris to end the race, in case the Drivers' Championship race should get that close. What matters is that Lawson ticked off Sergio Pérez en route to his own stab at the second Red Bull seat. VCARB is only relevant as far as Red Bull is concerned. Those are the terms on which to evaluate the team.
What's New?
This year will be VCARB’s attempt at undoing the damage that the Daniel Ricciardo charm offensive wreaked upon Red Bull’s young driver program. If the second Red Bull seat is cursed, what does that make the second VCARB seat? After too much time spent with an older, non-academy driver occupying the second seat, VCARB is finally filling the slot with another young driver fresh out of the junior circuit.
French-Algerian driver Isack Hadjar, nicknamed “Le Petit Prost” by the French media, will join Yuki Tsunoda. Last year, he came in second in F2 driver's standings, behind fellow rookie Gabriel Bortoleto, his best on-paper performance in any junior racing league. There’s not too much else to say about Hadjar yet! OK, there’s one more thing to say about him: Supposedly he first got into racing after watching the 2006 movie Cars.
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
Yuki Tsunoda, though it’s a bit more complicated than that. Tsunoda is entering his fifth year with the team, which puts him dangerously close to Nyck de Vries–Daniel Ricciardo territory, but a better comparison would be his old buddy Pierre Gasly: a driver with flashes of promise who has routinely looked better than his competitors for the second Red Bull seat, and yet has been continually passed over. Astute observers will note that Gasly left after his fifth year with the sister team.
Tsunoda’s situation is different. He’s a bit younger than Gasly was, and he’s sponsored by Honda, who supplied Red Bull’s powertrains prior to the engine freeze. Most importantly, he’s yet to actually race in a Red Bull, making him a better candidate for a midseason second-seat swap, should Lawson underperform. None of this changes the overarching fact that Tsunoda’s time with the team is running out. Surely Red Bull running back the disastrous 2019 playbook can’t possibly go worse than whatever happened the past couple of years.
How Good Is Their Livery?
Gudetama car. This is just an egg, and it looks gorgeous, cute (egg), and, considering the state of egg prices in the United States, extremely expensive. 10/10.
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
It’s time to break free of such close-minded thinking. Backfield? Midfield? Contender? What are these concepts that you're raising? VCARB does not understand these concepts. VCARB is not a real team. It doesn’t matter where they place. Next question! - Kathryn Xu
Williams
What Happened Last Season?
There was never really a worry that Williams would finish last in the standings, but also there was never really hope that it would finish anywhere but ninth. The season started with Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant in the cockpits, but Sargeant quickly showed, again, that he was not F1 material. The team replaced him with Franco Colapinto in September.
Colapinto performed admirably and looked in line for a seat this coming season, but Williams had already pulled off the biggest coup of its season, scooping up Carlos Sainz after a fierce battle with Alpine and Sauber for the Spaniard's signature. As soon as that news broke this past July, my eyes, and probably those of the team's, shifted to 2025. Rightfully so: The back half of 2024 wasn't all that great for Williams, hitting its nadir with Albon's DNF in Singapore. This blog is long enough, so let's move on.
What's New?
Despite Colapinto's strong performances, especially right after stepping into the Williams, there was no chance that the team would pass up on signing Sainz for its second seat. With Sainz on a multi-year deal, and an encouraging preseason test, Williams now has two strong drivers—both of whom came up in the Red Bull youth system, though neither with what I would call much success—and a car that looks significantly improved from 2024.
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
Albon has the experience and tenure at Williams, but come on. Sainz is a four-time race winner, and the fact that Williams was able to sign him immediately pushed the team up the rankings. Sainz is sometimes an erratic driver, one whose confidence can outweigh his talent, but his 2024 season was stellar, and he was often Ferrari's top driver, particularly earlier in the season. It's possible that Albon steps up his game with a driver partner that isn't bad (Nicholas Latifi), a youngster (Colapinto), or both (Sargeant), and if he does, Williams will happily take the problems that come with two No. 1 drivers. For now, this is Sainz's show, and the Smooth Operator will push this Williams car as far as it can go, even if he sometimes will push it too far.
How Good Is Their Livery?
I can't start anywhere but the battery on the airbox of the car. The blue is also stunning, the exact right shade to straddle the line between boring and eye-catching. If I have any complaints about this lovely car, it's that it could use a pop of color to break up the solid blue, but that's minor. Sometimes, simple can be best.
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
I think I can safely say that Williams will not finish ninth again in 2025. The driver upgrade from Sargeant/Colapinto to Sainz alone will likely push them up, and if the preseason testing is to be believed, the car will do its part. I see them as a solid midfield team now. With Aston Martin's struggles, climbing as high as fifth place isn't out of the question for this new-look Williams. - Luis Paez-Pumar
Sauber
What Happened Last Season?
Nothing good, that's what. Sauber was the worst team by a wide margin, combining the slowest car on the grid with some mystifying pit-stop disasters. Valtteri Bottas was a good driver in his prime, but he seemed almost checked out of the whole thing, despite in theory racing for his life as his contract was coming to an end. He scored zero points all year, and his best finish was a paltry 11th in Qatar. Zhou Guanyu was a non-factor, except for finishing eighth in that same Grand Prix, and he's also out the door for this season.
I don't really know what else to say, because Sauber is in a holding pattern. Starting next year, the team will rebrand to Audi, and the new name should bring in a lot of money to help improve the team from its backmarker status. There wasn't much to get excited about last season, and 2025 might be more of the same.
What's New?
Bottas and Zhou are out, while Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto are in. Hulkenberg was a pleasant surprise last season at Haas, but he is who he is at this point. Bortoleto is a rookie, and a bit of a consolation prize after Sauber missed out on convincing Carlos Sainz to struggle for a few years while the Audi investment turns the team around. The Brazilian has a good resume, though, winning Formula 3 and Formula 2 in back-to-back years. He's also signed on a multi-year deal, which seems to hint that the team will want him around as it swaps to Audi.
Who Is Their No. 1 Driver?
By default, it has to be Hulkenberg, the most experienced driver on the grid to never finish on podium. I think it's safe to say that he won't get the podium in a Sauber, but stranger things have happened in F1. Hulkenberg will provide generally steady qualifying and decent racing, though he still makes costly mistakes. There's not much to get hyped about aside from his majestic hair, so let's move on.
How Good Is Their Livery?
I know that the swap to Audi next season should bring with it more investment and more success, but the proposed color scheme of black and red has nothing on the gorgeously garish Shego-inspired neon green that dominates the current Sauber car. It might not perform well, but it is one of the most striking on the grid, and that's got to count for something, right?
Backmarker, Midfield, Or Contender?
Backmarker. While Hulkenberg is an upgrade on last year's drivers, the team feels like it is writing off this season ahead of the Audi takeover. Anything better than 10th place will be a magnificent success. - Luis Paez-Pumar
Sweeties And Enemies
Finally, we have a return of Defector's Sweeties and Enemies ranking after a year away in 2024. (Maybe the vibes were too bad in the preseason, following Red Bull's dominance in 2023, or maybe we just forgot. Who can say?) A quick refresher on our very scientific process: Luis sent out a spreadsheet to all of the F1 sickos on staff, demanding that they rank all 20 drivers by how much they like (or hate) each one.
We then took the average for each driver and ranked them, and from those collective rankings, picked out the drivers that garnered a high enough ranking to qualify as Sweeties. On the flip side, those at the bottom of the rankings are our Enemies, with one caveat: Since there are five rookies on the grid, it would be unfair to call them Enemies when they have not done much of anything in F1 yet, so we have decided to exclude them this year (except for Liam Lawson, who has been around in the periphery long enough to qualify). Next year, they are fair game.
Sweeties
Lewis Hamilton
Charles Leclerc
Alex Albon
Yuki Tsunoda
Enemies
Lance Stroll
Liam Lawson
George Russell
Max Verstappen
Correction (10:20 am ET): Esteban Ocon's car was sent airborne at the Monaco Grand Prix after colliding with his teammate, not Pierre Gasly.
