Will the 2025 Formula 1 Season Live up to the Hype? (Undercutters Ep9 transcript)
Why the F1 2024 Season was Great, and how it Ended 00m:22s
Formula 1 can have processional seasons, famously during the Schumacher era, then when Hamilton reigned supreme and, most recently, the 2023 season which was totally dominated by Verstappen and Red Bull. However, the F1 2024 season was one of the most competitive in history, with seven drivers winning multiple races and four teams achieving 1-2 finishes. After an initial period of Red Bull dominance, each weekend saw a chance for different top teams to win, and this kept each race exciting right to the end. While Verstappen did retain his title, the constructors’ battle went to the very last race and Norris secured McLaren their first title this century.
For the midfield, things were very close between RB and Haas for much of the season, with RB starting better but Haas winning the development race. Late on, Alpine joined the party and ended up beating both the other teams.
For Aston Martin and Sauber things were more straightforward, as Aston Martin were best of the rest early on and held onto that position to the end. Sauber, meanwhile, were uniformly slow. Williams did have something of a close battle with Alpine but this ended when the latter team had great upgrades late on and left Williams in the dust.
In short, the wins, podium finishes, and midfield battles were closely contested each race weekend with the pecking order changing all the time. This has led the 2025 Formula 1 season to be one of the most eagerly anticipated of modern times. But can F1 live up to the hype?
The 2021 and 2012 F1 Seasons 02m:07s
Two other seasons immediately spring to mind for comparison, and these are 2021 and 2012. In the 2021 season, Hamilton and Verstappen were battling all year long and entered the final race equal on points. However, the next season saw a major regulation change, so comparing it to today, when we stick with the same regulations, is unwise.
A better comparison might be 2012, when Vettel and Alonso had a very tight battle for the victory which went down to the last race. Vettel had the better car most of the time but Alonso drove a near perfect season, losing significant points when it wasn’t his fault (such as Grosjean’s infamous crash at the start of Spa). By the end of the year, Vettel was the champion, just 3 points ahead of Alonso. The 2012 season also started off by having seven different race winners in the first seven races, with the first five being from five different teams.
So what happened in 2013? Vettel won and Alonso was 2nd again, but the points difference was 155 rather than 3. A highly competitive season had been followed by a processional victory for a dominant Vettel. Things had been closer early on but in the second half of the season the tyres were changed to be more durable and Vettel was utterly dominant thereafter. But this may not be the fate of the F1 2025 season.
More Drivers and Teams Competitive 03m:47s
If you have a two horse race and one horse becomes a bit lame then suddenly you don’t really have a race. But in 2024 we had four top teams, all close together, and seven drivers winning repeatedly. It is possible that volatility could alter things a lot, numerous teams are redesigning their cars more than might be expected (Ferrari are completely changing their suspension arrangement, for example), but the fact so many were so close does make me hopeful that even if one team messes up their car design the rest should still be closely bunched together.
This works for the midfield too, with Aston Martin being best of the rest for the last couple of seasons but on a downward trend, while RB, Haas, and Alpine all enjoyed a close contest last season. Even Williams, largely by themselves in 9th, have Sainz joining to create a very formidable lineup for a backmarker team.
The length of the season, once again it’s 24 races, also means the development race matters more than ever. This helped determine the midfield battle behind Aston Martin last year, while at the sharp end McLaren was able to take the lead in the constructors’ and just about fend off Ferrari’s late charge. There’s every reason to hope that in 2025 things will be good… but perhaps not quite as good.
This is because there’s a major regulation shift in 2026. History has taught us that starting off a new regulation period well can define that entire era. If teams at the top think they have little chance of winning a title in 2025 they’re likely to shift focus earlier than usual to try and get a head start for the new set of rules coming in next season. This could affect the midfield as well as front-running teams, depending on how close that battle is.
Rookies Galore 05m:50s
One thing that is different to last season is that this one starts with half a dozen drivers who have less than a season of experience driving the car. It varies from drivers with literally no prior F1 experience, such as Bortoleto for Sauber, Hadjar for Racing Bulls, and Antonelli for Mercedes, through to men with multiple races under their belt, including Bearman and Lawson, plus Colapinto should he join the grid.
For some pairings this could produce intense intra-team rivalry, with Sauber’s Hulkenberg and Bortoleto as well as Haas’ Bearman and Ocon being some potential examples of this. The increase in rookies may also lead to more lap 1 incidents early on, and with the cost cap if this gets excessive it could put some teams in a rough position. This happened to Williams last year, whose three drivers all had multiple DNFs. Ultimately, this led to both cash being diverted from development to replacement parts and a shortage of spare parts late on. It also, of course, led to Colapinto not immediately getting a race start in 2025, although he’s likely to replace Doohan about six races in.
Flexi-Wings 07m:10s
Flexi-wings made a big difference last year, and helped to bring Mercedes into the fight and make McLaren the fastest car for much of the season. They were meant to be permitted throughout 2025, but the FIA have outdone themselves and performed a pre-season U-turn, introducing more stringent tests from Spain (a third of the way into the season) which effectively bans flexi-wings from there onwards.
Mid-season changes can make a huge difference. As mentioned a little earlier, in 2013 things were actually competitive until the tyres were changed. While Vettel had most wins in the first half of that season, Rosberg and Alonso both had multiple wins, and Raikkonen and Hamilton also won races. But from Belgium onwards, Vettel won every single race. That was nine in a row.
I’m not expecting the flexi-wing ban to have quite that impact, but the tyre change in 2013 shows how much things can be affected by this sort of mid-season regulation change. All else being equal, McLaren and Mercedes, who adopted the approach first and seemed to have the best understanding of it, may lose out the most, with the prime beneficiary being Red Bull. If things are very finely balanced in the first third of the season, this change could lead to Red Bull dominance, or a Red Bull-Ferrari title battle, while McLaren and Mercedes get left behind. That being said, McLaren have developed incredibly well in recent seasons, and Mercedes seem to have finally cracked it too, so there is still hope even if those teams see a drop in performance from Spain.
We’ll have to wait and see whether there are other mid-season regulation changes that shuffle the pecking order and hurt some teams a lot more than others.
My Prediction 09m:10s
My suspicion is that the Formula 1 season in 2025 will not be as good as 2024 but will still be rather tasty. For reasons mentioned previously, teams who aren’t quite in the running for the title will abandon 2025 early to focus on the new regulatory period, and for midfield teams who seem unable to gain places in the standings the same thing may well occur.
My guess is we’ll see a tussle between Norris, Verstappen, and perhaps Leclerc for the title. Ironically, we could see fewer race winners but a more engaging title battle if that is the case. I’m also expecting midfield to be highly entertaining once again. It’ll be interesting to see how well Aston Martin do and if they shift focus to 2026, when Adrian Newey will finally be able to fully sink his teeth into designing the new car. Just a quick note for Alonso fans: the engine will matter a lot more so this may mean that he’ll still have a hard time going for a title. But we shall see.
I think the season will be more predictable and less volatile than 2024, but there’s a decent chance we could see the drivers’ title be more closely contested.
I could, of course, be totally wrong. If we ended up with a Max Verstappen and George Russell title fight that would be excellent, as the pair clearly do not get along and there would be a lot of needle involved. A Leclerc-Hamilton fight, should Ferrari get a dominant car, could also be amazing, with one driver trying for a first title and the other trying for his 8th. We’ve only got a few weeks to go until we find out how this is going to turn out.
One major advantage compared to 2012 is that that season was very much Vettel versus Alonso but 2024 had numerous teams and drivers at the sharp end. This does make it likelier that at least some of them will remain in contention with whoever ends up winning the title than if there was just a pair of rivals vying to be champion.
F1 News 11m:25s
F1 news.
Until we start racing in anger in Australia, even testing has to be taken with a pinch of salt. However, we have seen a first glimpse of the new McLaren, complete with dazzle camouflage to try and obscure the details. All cars will change, of course, and I’m not going to cover every minor alteration. However, the new McLaren has slightly altered its front suspension layout which may improve aerodynamics along the car slightly in addition to providing a mechanical advantage.
The new Williams has also been seen in the wild. It sounds like Sainz and Albon are fired up and getting along well. The car’s creation also seems to be going a lot smoother than last year. Beyond the general evolution of the car, which all teams will undergo this year, the 2025 Williams also altered the rear suspension substantially. The team’s rear suspension is determined largely by Mercedes, whose engine and gearbox is used by Williams. They’ve updated this from the 2023 Mercedes rear suspension they ran last season, sticking with an approach a year out of date due to using the 2023 gearbox, to the 2025 style. This means changing from the pullrod of 2023 to the pushrod of 2025 for the rear suspension.
Future Undercutters Schedule 12m:57s
The podcast has been a bit ad hoc so far, partly because it began in the off-season and there were no regular events to base it around. Going forward, my plan is to have a single post-testing podcast looking at how testing went and what, if anything, we can learn from it. After that, my intention is to start following a regular schedule with race previews on the Tuesday before an event, and race reviews on the Tuesday after. Race start times vary a bit so having the review on a Tuesday means that even when races start late I should be able to get them done consistently on that day, and it’s convenient to have the previews on the same day so that listeners have only a single day to remember.
My plan is to have the preview concisely cover the nature of the circuit, how the last couple of races have gone, predicting how the next race might go, and any F1 news that’s happened recently. The review episodes will look at how well the predictions went, and re-tell the story of the race. This might make the length pretty variable. From the 2024 season, a review of Monaco would’ve been very short. Somewhere like Canada, the UK, or Brazil had a lot more to talk about. If there’s anything you particularly like, dislike, or wish were added then feel free to get in touch with me at MorrisF1 on Twitter, or by leaving a comment at morrisf1.blogspot.com which is where I post the transcripts of the podcast.
Next up, we finally get the 2025 cars on track for testing.
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