Summer Break, Standings, and Season Predictions So Far (Undercutters Ep32 transcript)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to this extra summer break podcast, which only exists because I was vaguely pestilent for the Hungarian review. But that also means I can spend a bit more time on it. Today, I’ll be looking at the standings in a lot of detail, covering the title contenders, top teams, and a fantastically competitive midfield.
After that I’ll be running through my surprisingly long list of predictions, including team mate battles, ranking the rookies, and season predictions.
As ever, you can find me on Twitter or Blue Sky as MorrisF1, or read the transcript and look at lovely graphs at morrisf1.blogspot.com.
Ferrari has a very good driver lineup indeed, but their decision to utterly change their suspension for the final year of a regulatory period proved to be not very clever. The car isn’t awful, but it’s also not in the title fight which makes it a step back from last year when they finished just 14 points off McLaren.
Except for the rubbish first outing in Australia, Ferrari have scored between 12 and 28 points at every race weekend, and are the only top team to not win a race. Yes, Hamilton won a sprint, but those mini-race cashgrabs don’t count. Despite that, they’re 2nd in the running, 24 points ahead of Mercedes and 66 points ahead of Red Bull. But 299 points behind McLaren.
The Ferrari’s been pretty consistent, and their points tally comes despite a double disqualification in China, and while Hamilton has no podium finishes, Leclerc has five. As might be expected, Leclerc has a 42 point lead over his team mate right now. Hamilton’s had a couple of weak performances in a row but if he gets his head together I think the pair of them should have no difficulty securing 2nd for the Prancing Horse.
But if he can’t then Mercedes stand a chance of overtaking them, as the Silver Arrows are just 24 points behind the Ferrari. And their points tallies are way bouncier, ranging from 0 in Monaco and 1 in Great Britain to 40 in Canada and 30 in China and Miami. Unlike Ferrari, Mercedes also has a win, with their double podium in Canada. But they also have worse reliability, something that’s affected other Mercedes-powered cars (but not McLaren, so far).
Another difference to Ferrari is the huge gap in points between the drivers, with Russell on 172 and Antonelli on 64. Antonelli is a rookie, and he does have a podium, but he also has four DNFs. Russell has a race win, five podium finishes, and no DNFs. To be fair to Antonelli, I’m pretty sure at least one of those was down to reliability. Nevertheless, the Italian driver had a very good start to the year with numerous points finishes, but since Imola he’s had four DNFs, three non-points finishes, a solitary point in Hungary, and the Canadian podium. He scored more points in the first two races than the last eight and, even allowing for misfortune and tracks not suiting the car, it’s clear he, like Hamilton, really needs the summer break to get his head together. If he can, then Mercedes could yet challenge Ferrari.
And then we come to the half-team of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. The team has 194 points and Verstappen has scored 187 of them. If the second driver were a team they’d be last in the title standings, and Verstappen would still be in fourth with more than twice Williams’ points. The car looks incredibly difficult to drive and fundamentally slower than the McLaren and, often, the Ferrari and Mercedes as well. It’s a testament to Verstappen that, currently, he’s still 3rd in the standings, 15 points clear of Russell and 36 ahead of Leclerc.
Verstappen’s got two wins and five podium finishes, and one DNF from when Antonelli said hello in Austria. His earlier results were better than his more recent ones, in the first eight races he was 4th or better everywhere except Bahrain, when he was 6th. From Spain onwards, he’s had a 10th, a 9th, an unlucky DNF, and just one podium appearance. He’s driving the wheels off his car and has been performing very well indeed but the Red Bull just isn’t good enough. It’ll be interesting if Verstappen does go to another team to see how he compares to another driver who’s settled there.
For Verstappen, the title race is over. It’s just a matter of time. But more podium results and perhaps a win could still happen, especially in the rain. Red Bull are 42 points behind Mercedes and 124 points ahead of Williams.
As for the second driver, Lawson had a DNF and a 12th and then got tossed overboard in favour of Yuki Tsunoda. In his first five races with Red Bull, Tsunoda scored three times and had a DNF and a 12th, but since then he hasn’t finished higher than 12th. The car looks too much of a handful, and it’s making Tsunoda, who had a good start with Racing Bulls, look like a second rater, which isn’t a fair reflection of his skill (see also Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson. And Pierre Gasly, and Alexander Albon).
With the risk of Verstappen going walkies in 2027 Red Bull need to not only be quicker in 2026 they also need a car that other drivers can actually handle. Or they might end up in the midfield, or even a backmarker.
Initially, Williams looked like an outright top dog, and while they’re still leading the midfield their advantage has been substantially reduced. Behind them, from 6th to 8th is covered by 7 points, and while Haas and Alpine are slightly further back, the lowest scoring team still has 20 points.
Williams has a very solid driver lineup, with Albon and Sainz. They also, at first, had a clearly superior car to their rivals, and were occasionally fast enough to annoy the top teams. In Miami, Albon finished 5th, ahead of Antonelli, Leclerc, and Hamilton. At the moment the team is 18 points ahead of Aston Martin and 19 points ahead of Sauber, but both of those have been scoring more in recent races.
After the first few Grands Prix I imagined Williams would walk to an easy 5th, but Aston Martin and Sauber have brought upgrades that mean Williams have a fight on their hands.
Albon is a long way ahead of Sainz right now, with 54 points against 16, more than three times as many for the Thai driver as the Spanish. I did think it’d take a few races for Sainz to get up to speed and then he’d be a match for Albon, but the latter has just been faster pretty much all the time. It’s hard to say but I think 2026 might be closer as Sainz both gets more used to the team and starts fresh but he had more difficulty adapting than I’d imagined he would. Still, the team’s looking good, with Albon 8th in the standings and just 10 points behind Antonelli.
Aston Martin have had a slightly odd season. Early on, Alonso had bad luck at pretty much every opportunity. He met gravel on a wet track. Lawson crashed into him. His car decided to stop working. He could’ve scored multiple times and on every occasion fate slapped away the points. Lately, the curse has ended and he’s been driving well, aided by an upgrade that seemed worthless in Belgium and amazing in Hungary. Stroll’s also been putting in a solid performance and that means the two drivers are on equal points - 26 apiece. I still think Alonso will end up winning easily but that early bad luck has made this rather closer than it should be.
An initial good start was followed by a single points result in the next half dozen races for Aston Martin, but the reverse has happened in the last six, with just one failure to score among them. In Hungary they grabbed 16 points, enough to get them just past Sauber and within 18 of Williams. This is very different to 2024, when Aston Martin started strongly and then amassed enough points to hold on when multiple other teams outdeveloped them over the course of the season. This seemingly solid development points to the new wind tunnel working well and test data correlating with the real world. In turn, this means there’s some cause for optimism regarding their design of the 2026 car. For 2025, I’m anticipating a great midfield fight between Aston Martin, Williams, and Sauber.
Speaking of Sauber, they’ve had quite the time of it. They were clearly worst of the lot in 2024, and 2025 seemed to start the same way. Yes, Hulkenberg outscored Ferrari by himself in Australia, but that was a wet track when Sauber got the strategy right. The seven races in a row with no points at all reflects the car being something of a dog to start with. But an upgrade package worked very well to turn things around.
Hulkenberg’s on 37 points, and bagged 10 of them in Spain when a mix of skill and luck allowed him to finish 5th. After nibbling into the points a bit more at the next few races he had one of the greatest drives of modern times to go from 19th to the podium in a soaking wet Silverstone, and made excellent judgement calls on the tyres to help him there. However, Hulkenberg’s qualifying has been rather iffy, and every single one of his points finishes came from outside the top 10 on the grid. At some circuits, most recently Hungary, this gives him too big of a mountain to climb.
Bortoleto, on 14 points, has been the opposite. The Brazilian rookie’s done well all season and is outqualifying Hulkenberg on a regular basis. In the last four races, Bortoleto’s scored at three, and the other was a DNF. In the last two, he scored when Hulkenberg failed to do so, due in large part to superior qualifying. The driver lineup for Sauber is very good, and if Hulkenberg tightens up his qualifying they could be a bigger threat to Williams than Aston Martin. Incidentally, Bortoleto might just be the best performing rookie on the grid. It’s between him and Hadjar, I think.
Speaking of Hadjar, after his worst possible start in Australia, going out on the formation lap, he’s been one of the best rookies this year. He’s scored on a regular basis, although in the last five weekends he’s only managed a single point. Hadjar’s contributed 22 of Racing Bulls 45 points, but he does need to rediscover his form. Despite the recent drop-off, I’ve been impressed with him.
Lawson, his team mate, is on 20 points and all of those were scored after he moved to Racing Bulls. It took him until Monaco to adjust and recover himself but he’s gradually been improving over the season and in the last five races has either scored or DNFed. Unfortunately for Hadjar, the fact Lawson’s been scoring lately and the Frenchman hasn’t does make it look like a driver rather than car problem.
Racing Bulls are on 45 points, and although this means they’re down in 8th they’re only 7 points off 6th so they’re still very much in the fight. But Aston Martin and Sauber have been scoring more lately so they might struggle to catch up unless that changes.
Haas are one of the teams I find hardest to call. Unlike some others, they don’t really have dry spells or, excepting China, a fantastic result. They just score pretty consistently, usually at the lower end of the points, and sometimes have races where they appear nowhere. Haas aren’t unique in this, Aston Martin went from slowest in Spa to best of the rest in Budapest, but I do find calling Haas’ performance difficult.
Bearman is on 8 points to Ocon’s 27. While the Frenchman is clearly driving better I feel some sympathy for Bearman, who has racked up four 11th places. Bearman had a decent start but then a points drought for eight weekends in a row, which isn’t great. That does include the quartet of near misses. Ocon’s scored more consistently through the season and has the best result of 5th in China. Hard to see Bearman getting ahead of Ocon. Haas might cause trouble for Racing Bulls, but I suspect they’ll end up staying 9th, and I’d be very surprised if they made any problems for Sauber or Aston Martin.
And so we come to the foot of the table and Alpine. The team had an abysmal start to 2024 and ended that year with one of the most impressive developmental turn arounds of recent times. So maybe there’s hope. But, generally, they’re the worst car on the grid right now. They have 20 points, all courtesy of Pierre Gasly, who’s doing his best with a rather rubbish car. Neither Doohan nor Colapinto have troubled the scorers, at this stage. Since returning to the sport mid-season, Colapinto’s best results are a pair of 13th places. Not ideal. By coincidence, Doohan’s best finish was also a 13th. Gasly, meanwhile, got a bit overlooked for obvious reasons but had a fantastic British Grand Prix to somehow finish 6th. He was also 7th in Bahrain. I think that speaks more of Gasly’s skill than the weakness of Doohan or Colapinto, but I’d be surprised if Gasly can drag the Alpine higher than 10th.
To sum up the standings generally, I think there’s a decent battle for 2nd but that Red Bull’s destined for 4th. McLaren, of course, have the titles sewn up, it’s just a question of which driver gets it, and that looks like a coin toss.
Williams remain favourite to be best of the rest but they face competition from Aston Martin and Sauber. And if those teams drop the ball they could slip behind Racing Bulls. Hard to be sure but I think Haas are going to stay 9th, and I’d be very surprised if Alpine improved. But then, I was very surprised when they did so in 2024, so it’s not impossible.
Starting at the top, I did say Norris would beat Piastri but the contest would be close. Right now, that could still come off, it’s very tight between them with Piastri 9 points ahead. But if we stopped the season now then it would be in the red. I did think Piastri would improve year-on-year but never thought it’d be quite this much.
The Ferrari prediction is a lot more straightforward: I backed Leclerc to win this year and he’s 42 points ahead of Hamilton and has multiple podium finishes with none for his team mate. I’d be surprised if Hamilton finishes the season ahead.
My Mercedes prediction of Russell to beat Antonelli looks nailed on, but it was a rather obvious one. Russell’s currently 108 points ahead, and Antonelli’s had a string of DNFs and pointless finishes lately. I hope he can find his form, but even if he does, Russell’s been quicker, as might be expected when up against a rookie.
Red Bull is even more the case. I backed Verstappen to crush Lawson, and that’s come true. Even if we shift the prediction to Tsunoda it’s coming off. Verstappen’s 177 points ahead of his team mate. It’s the most one-sided team mate battle in the sport, again.
Williams is the first team where I’m clearly in the wrong, as I backed Sainz to beat Albon. Not a crazy prediction but Albon’s winning by a long way, and has 38 more points than Sainz.
I’m also, currently, wrong about Aston Martin. Shockingly, Alonso and Stroll are tied on 26 points each. I still expect Alonso to win comfortably, but his points tally was hit hard by the initial bad luck he suffered for most of the early season.
Sauber was a team I had to think about harder than others, and I did think it’d be close with Hulkenberg winning but Bortoleto doing well. So far, this is on course, with Hulkenberg 23 points ahead of Bortoleto. But the Brazilian’s been outscoring the German at the last couple of races so this could still change.
Racing Bulls is kind of hard to assess, because I said Tsunoda would beat Hadjar. For the two races they were together, Tsunoda did finish ahead by 3 points to zero. But I feel this is a void prediction, neither right nor wrong due to Tsunoda’s early departure.
Then we come to Haas. I shifted from my usual approach of backing a veteran over a rookie as Bearman had impressed me in his 2024 appearances and I thought he could beat Ocon. So far, it’s not happening and he’s 19 points behind. I’d be surprised if this got overturned in the remaining races.
Last and least, we have Alpine. I reckoned Gasly would beat Doohan, and he did, 7 points to zero when Doohan left. Since then, Gasly’s beating Colapinto 13 points to zero. I’m counting this as a correct prediction because, unlike Tsunoda, Doohan leaving early on was known about before the season began.
I have mostly got things wrong.
Antonelli I had top, and with 64 points that is accurate and I can’t see it changing by the season’s end. However, Hadjar is 2nd with 22 points and I had him down in 5th, so that’s a steaming pile of wrong. Lawson is 3rd with 20 points, and I had him in 2nd, so it’s possible this could change as he’s been outscoring Hadjar recently.
Bortoleto is 4th with 14 points, and I had him in 6th, ahead of only Doohan. I think this could change but in either direction, and I’d be surprised if he ends up down in 6th now. Bearman is 5th on 8 points, and I had him in 3rd. I thought the Haas would be better and he’d be getting a little more luck. Colapinto is 6th with zero points. He might yet score but I don’t think he’ll rise above 6th. I had him in 4th, based on Alpine’s strong performance at the end of 2024.
Doohan, alas, did get tossed overboard, so my placing him 7th and last is correct.
The top three in the standings are Piastri, Norris, and Verstappen. My prediction was for Verstappen to win, Norris be runner up, and Leclerc finish 3rd. So far, Norris is in the right place but that’s it. Never expected Piastri to do so well or Ferrari and Red Bull to fall off a cliff.
As the driver prediction implies, I thought we’d have a nice close season but that Verstappen would be far ahead of his team mate, with McLaren and Ferrari roughly even. That’s why I backed the top 3 teams to be McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull. That’s almost right, as McLaren lead Ferrari and Mercedes at the moment, and I think it’ll stay that way all season. Mercedes might get back ahead of Ferrari but I still think the Prancing Horse has the advantage.
When it comes to best of the rest I went for Haas, who are currently 9th. Williams are in this slot and have been all season. Aston Martin and Sauber are provding some competition, but there’s no way Haas will manage to get into 5th now. They’re on 35 points to 70 for Williams.
One prediction that’s looking spot on is the biggest team mate gap being Red Bull. This stands at 177 points. There is a case for making this void, but even if we just take the first two races, when Lawson was there, the gap was 36 points to zero.
The smallest gap I had as being Ferrari for the percentage and Haas for points but either way you cut it, Aston Martin’s actually the answer at the summer break. Alonso and Stroll are tied on points, which remains bizarre. It’s possible this prediction could come good but I think McLaren and Racing Bulls have a good chance of being very close at the end of the year.
A very poor prediction was Leclerc for most poles. Right now, this is actually a three way tie with Norris, Verstappen, and Piastri on four each. For most wins, I had Norris. He does have five but is currently behind Piastri who has six.
When it comes to most DNFs, my pick of Hadjar was looking good in Australia. But since then he’s been rather good and the joint leaders here are Lawson and Antonelli, with four each.
I also got my prediction of nobody outside the top 4 teams finishing on the podium wrong, but I’m very glad Hulkenberg had such a great race in the UK. He fully deserves a podium after all these years and it was a fantastic drive.
Biggest improvement from 2024 is difficult to call because I predicted Williams. And I think you can make a case for Williams or Sauber. They finished 9th and 10th respectively in 2024, and are currently 5th and 7th. The points difference between the two in 2024 was 13 and right now it’s 19, so on that basis Williams is more improved as they’re more places higher in the standings and have a greater points advantage. But that could well change.
For the biggest decline from 2024 I had Aston Martin, but at the moment they’ve only dropped a single place going from 5th to 6th. Right now, this is clearly Alpine, dropping from 6th to 10th.
I also predicted we would see 22 drivers this season. So far, we’re on 21 but there have been rumours of Colapinto getting replaced, and Alonso had some back problems in Hungary, so this could come off.
Also, in addition to the official F1 website, fans of stats and numbers might want to check out https://www.bigdataf1.com/. I’m not affiliated in any way, it’s just a handy resource I know about and it’s where I found the poles data more quickly than checking every qualifying session.
Hungary saw a return to the podium for Russell and better performance for Mercedes than had recently been the case. It turns out the car was faster due to removing a suspension update that actually made the car worse.
Because this is the last season of the current regulations teams will abandon development sooner rather than later and this probably means no more Mercedes updates this season, or minor ones if they do appear. However, shifting to the older suspension could also give them a better chance of fighting back against Ferrari in the battle for 2nd.
Thanks for listening to this longer than usual podcast. If you liked hearing how rubbish my predictions are looking then please remember to leave a positive rating wherever you listen to the podcast.
Next up we return to our regular schedule with a preview of the Dutch Grand Prix.
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After that I’ll be running through my surprisingly long list of predictions, including team mate battles, ranking the rookies, and season predictions.
As ever, you can find me on Twitter or Blue Sky as MorrisF1, or read the transcript and look at lovely graphs at morrisf1.blogspot.com.
Piastri versus Norris 00m51s
I’ll start at the top, with the intra-McLaren battle between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. After the very first race in Australia it looked like Norris might have the whip hand, but assured performances from Piastri saw him close up and then take the lead. Norris seemed to have something of a psychological battle to hold things together, and made mistakes which allowed Piastri to serenely cruise ahead of him. However, in the last four races or so Norris seems far more together.
These last four, Austria, Great Britain, Belgium, and Hungary, have all been McLaren 1-2s, and Norris has been ahead at three of the four. Austria was a very strong performance, outqualifying his nearest rival (Leclerc) by half a second, then holding off an aggressive Piastri before bringing home the victory. Austria’s always been good for Norris, though, so that could’ve been a one-off.
Great Britain was lucky for Norris. Piastri got hit with a harsh 10s penalty for excessive braking when backing up the pack for a restart. Piastri looked to have the win in the bag but that rough decision handed it to Norris. Had the penalty been 5s then we might have seen them very close together. Belgium was almost the reverse of Hungary, with Piastri being caught by a rapidly charging Norris, but the Briton made too many mistakes to get close. However, Belgium also saw Piastri take the lead by passing Norris on-track. And, in Hungary, Norris dropped places early on and had to try a one stop to salvage something better than fourth. Because track position’s king, and he drove well, he was able to fend off Piastri for the last five laps.
The points advantage Piastri has is down to 9, but in both qualifying and racing recently the two drivers have been incredibly close. If Norris keeps his head together it’ll stay that way until the end of the year. I think it’s too close to call, but it’s great, if we have to have a dominant team, we’ve got one with two very good drivers who are free to race.
Top Teams: Ferrari and Mercedes (Verstappen) 3m01s
McLaren are in a league of one this year. But behind them we have two and a half teams that are also at the top and have featured on the podium at multiple races in 2025: Ferrari, Mercedes, and Verstappen.Ferrari has a very good driver lineup indeed, but their decision to utterly change their suspension for the final year of a regulatory period proved to be not very clever. The car isn’t awful, but it’s also not in the title fight which makes it a step back from last year when they finished just 14 points off McLaren.
Except for the rubbish first outing in Australia, Ferrari have scored between 12 and 28 points at every race weekend, and are the only top team to not win a race. Yes, Hamilton won a sprint, but those mini-race cashgrabs don’t count. Despite that, they’re 2nd in the running, 24 points ahead of Mercedes and 66 points ahead of Red Bull. But 299 points behind McLaren.
The Ferrari’s been pretty consistent, and their points tally comes despite a double disqualification in China, and while Hamilton has no podium finishes, Leclerc has five. As might be expected, Leclerc has a 42 point lead over his team mate right now. Hamilton’s had a couple of weak performances in a row but if he gets his head together I think the pair of them should have no difficulty securing 2nd for the Prancing Horse.
But if he can’t then Mercedes stand a chance of overtaking them, as the Silver Arrows are just 24 points behind the Ferrari. And their points tallies are way bouncier, ranging from 0 in Monaco and 1 in Great Britain to 40 in Canada and 30 in China and Miami. Unlike Ferrari, Mercedes also has a win, with their double podium in Canada. But they also have worse reliability, something that’s affected other Mercedes-powered cars (but not McLaren, so far).
Another difference to Ferrari is the huge gap in points between the drivers, with Russell on 172 and Antonelli on 64. Antonelli is a rookie, and he does have a podium, but he also has four DNFs. Russell has a race win, five podium finishes, and no DNFs. To be fair to Antonelli, I’m pretty sure at least one of those was down to reliability. Nevertheless, the Italian driver had a very good start to the year with numerous points finishes, but since Imola he’s had four DNFs, three non-points finishes, a solitary point in Hungary, and the Canadian podium. He scored more points in the first two races than the last eight and, even allowing for misfortune and tracks not suiting the car, it’s clear he, like Hamilton, really needs the summer break to get his head together. If he can, then Mercedes could yet challenge Ferrari.
And then we come to the half-team of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. The team has 194 points and Verstappen has scored 187 of them. If the second driver were a team they’d be last in the title standings, and Verstappen would still be in fourth with more than twice Williams’ points. The car looks incredibly difficult to drive and fundamentally slower than the McLaren and, often, the Ferrari and Mercedes as well. It’s a testament to Verstappen that, currently, he’s still 3rd in the standings, 15 points clear of Russell and 36 ahead of Leclerc.
Verstappen’s got two wins and five podium finishes, and one DNF from when Antonelli said hello in Austria. His earlier results were better than his more recent ones, in the first eight races he was 4th or better everywhere except Bahrain, when he was 6th. From Spain onwards, he’s had a 10th, a 9th, an unlucky DNF, and just one podium appearance. He’s driving the wheels off his car and has been performing very well indeed but the Red Bull just isn’t good enough. It’ll be interesting if Verstappen does go to another team to see how he compares to another driver who’s settled there.
For Verstappen, the title race is over. It’s just a matter of time. But more podium results and perhaps a win could still happen, especially in the rain. Red Bull are 42 points behind Mercedes and 124 points ahead of Williams.
As for the second driver, Lawson had a DNF and a 12th and then got tossed overboard in favour of Yuki Tsunoda. In his first five races with Red Bull, Tsunoda scored three times and had a DNF and a 12th, but since then he hasn’t finished higher than 12th. The car looks too much of a handful, and it’s making Tsunoda, who had a good start with Racing Bulls, look like a second rater, which isn’t a fair reflection of his skill (see also Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson. And Pierre Gasly, and Alexander Albon).
With the risk of Verstappen going walkies in 2027 Red Bull need to not only be quicker in 2026 they also need a car that other drivers can actually handle. Or they might end up in the midfield, or even a backmarker.
The Competitive Midfield 8m26s
One of my favourite things about being a neutral is appreciating just how good the midfield is and it’s been fantastic this year.Initially, Williams looked like an outright top dog, and while they’re still leading the midfield their advantage has been substantially reduced. Behind them, from 6th to 8th is covered by 7 points, and while Haas and Alpine are slightly further back, the lowest scoring team still has 20 points.
Williams has a very solid driver lineup, with Albon and Sainz. They also, at first, had a clearly superior car to their rivals, and were occasionally fast enough to annoy the top teams. In Miami, Albon finished 5th, ahead of Antonelli, Leclerc, and Hamilton. At the moment the team is 18 points ahead of Aston Martin and 19 points ahead of Sauber, but both of those have been scoring more in recent races.
After the first few Grands Prix I imagined Williams would walk to an easy 5th, but Aston Martin and Sauber have brought upgrades that mean Williams have a fight on their hands.
Albon is a long way ahead of Sainz right now, with 54 points against 16, more than three times as many for the Thai driver as the Spanish. I did think it’d take a few races for Sainz to get up to speed and then he’d be a match for Albon, but the latter has just been faster pretty much all the time. It’s hard to say but I think 2026 might be closer as Sainz both gets more used to the team and starts fresh but he had more difficulty adapting than I’d imagined he would. Still, the team’s looking good, with Albon 8th in the standings and just 10 points behind Antonelli.
Aston Martin have had a slightly odd season. Early on, Alonso had bad luck at pretty much every opportunity. He met gravel on a wet track. Lawson crashed into him. His car decided to stop working. He could’ve scored multiple times and on every occasion fate slapped away the points. Lately, the curse has ended and he’s been driving well, aided by an upgrade that seemed worthless in Belgium and amazing in Hungary. Stroll’s also been putting in a solid performance and that means the two drivers are on equal points - 26 apiece. I still think Alonso will end up winning easily but that early bad luck has made this rather closer than it should be.
An initial good start was followed by a single points result in the next half dozen races for Aston Martin, but the reverse has happened in the last six, with just one failure to score among them. In Hungary they grabbed 16 points, enough to get them just past Sauber and within 18 of Williams. This is very different to 2024, when Aston Martin started strongly and then amassed enough points to hold on when multiple other teams outdeveloped them over the course of the season. This seemingly solid development points to the new wind tunnel working well and test data correlating with the real world. In turn, this means there’s some cause for optimism regarding their design of the 2026 car. For 2025, I’m anticipating a great midfield fight between Aston Martin, Williams, and Sauber.
Speaking of Sauber, they’ve had quite the time of it. They were clearly worst of the lot in 2024, and 2025 seemed to start the same way. Yes, Hulkenberg outscored Ferrari by himself in Australia, but that was a wet track when Sauber got the strategy right. The seven races in a row with no points at all reflects the car being something of a dog to start with. But an upgrade package worked very well to turn things around.
Hulkenberg’s on 37 points, and bagged 10 of them in Spain when a mix of skill and luck allowed him to finish 5th. After nibbling into the points a bit more at the next few races he had one of the greatest drives of modern times to go from 19th to the podium in a soaking wet Silverstone, and made excellent judgement calls on the tyres to help him there. However, Hulkenberg’s qualifying has been rather iffy, and every single one of his points finishes came from outside the top 10 on the grid. At some circuits, most recently Hungary, this gives him too big of a mountain to climb.
Bortoleto, on 14 points, has been the opposite. The Brazilian rookie’s done well all season and is outqualifying Hulkenberg on a regular basis. In the last four races, Bortoleto’s scored at three, and the other was a DNF. In the last two, he scored when Hulkenberg failed to do so, due in large part to superior qualifying. The driver lineup for Sauber is very good, and if Hulkenberg tightens up his qualifying they could be a bigger threat to Williams than Aston Martin. Incidentally, Bortoleto might just be the best performing rookie on the grid. It’s between him and Hadjar, I think.
Speaking of Hadjar, after his worst possible start in Australia, going out on the formation lap, he’s been one of the best rookies this year. He’s scored on a regular basis, although in the last five weekends he’s only managed a single point. Hadjar’s contributed 22 of Racing Bulls 45 points, but he does need to rediscover his form. Despite the recent drop-off, I’ve been impressed with him.
Lawson, his team mate, is on 20 points and all of those were scored after he moved to Racing Bulls. It took him until Monaco to adjust and recover himself but he’s gradually been improving over the season and in the last five races has either scored or DNFed. Unfortunately for Hadjar, the fact Lawson’s been scoring lately and the Frenchman hasn’t does make it look like a driver rather than car problem.
Racing Bulls are on 45 points, and although this means they’re down in 8th they’re only 7 points off 6th so they’re still very much in the fight. But Aston Martin and Sauber have been scoring more lately so they might struggle to catch up unless that changes.
Haas are one of the teams I find hardest to call. Unlike some others, they don’t really have dry spells or, excepting China, a fantastic result. They just score pretty consistently, usually at the lower end of the points, and sometimes have races where they appear nowhere. Haas aren’t unique in this, Aston Martin went from slowest in Spa to best of the rest in Budapest, but I do find calling Haas’ performance difficult.
Bearman is on 8 points to Ocon’s 27. While the Frenchman is clearly driving better I feel some sympathy for Bearman, who has racked up four 11th places. Bearman had a decent start but then a points drought for eight weekends in a row, which isn’t great. That does include the quartet of near misses. Ocon’s scored more consistently through the season and has the best result of 5th in China. Hard to see Bearman getting ahead of Ocon. Haas might cause trouble for Racing Bulls, but I suspect they’ll end up staying 9th, and I’d be very surprised if they made any problems for Sauber or Aston Martin.
And so we come to the foot of the table and Alpine. The team had an abysmal start to 2024 and ended that year with one of the most impressive developmental turn arounds of recent times. So maybe there’s hope. But, generally, they’re the worst car on the grid right now. They have 20 points, all courtesy of Pierre Gasly, who’s doing his best with a rather rubbish car. Neither Doohan nor Colapinto have troubled the scorers, at this stage. Since returning to the sport mid-season, Colapinto’s best results are a pair of 13th places. Not ideal. By coincidence, Doohan’s best finish was also a 13th. Gasly, meanwhile, got a bit overlooked for obvious reasons but had a fantastic British Grand Prix to somehow finish 6th. He was also 7th in Bahrain. I think that speaks more of Gasly’s skill than the weakness of Doohan or Colapinto, but I’d be surprised if Gasly can drag the Alpine higher than 10th.
To sum up the standings generally, I think there’s a decent battle for 2nd but that Red Bull’s destined for 4th. McLaren, of course, have the titles sewn up, it’s just a question of which driver gets it, and that looks like a coin toss.
Williams remain favourite to be best of the rest but they face competition from Aston Martin and Sauber. And if those teams drop the ball they could slip behind Racing Bulls. Hard to be sure but I think Haas are going to stay 9th, and I’d be very surprised if Alpine improved. But then, I was very surprised when they did so in 2024, so it’s not impossible.
Team Mate Predictions So Far 17m08s
That’s how things stand so far, just over halfway into the season. But how are my many predictions stacking up? First on the list are the intra-team battles between team mates.Starting at the top, I did say Norris would beat Piastri but the contest would be close. Right now, that could still come off, it’s very tight between them with Piastri 9 points ahead. But if we stopped the season now then it would be in the red. I did think Piastri would improve year-on-year but never thought it’d be quite this much.
The Ferrari prediction is a lot more straightforward: I backed Leclerc to win this year and he’s 42 points ahead of Hamilton and has multiple podium finishes with none for his team mate. I’d be surprised if Hamilton finishes the season ahead.
My Mercedes prediction of Russell to beat Antonelli looks nailed on, but it was a rather obvious one. Russell’s currently 108 points ahead, and Antonelli’s had a string of DNFs and pointless finishes lately. I hope he can find his form, but even if he does, Russell’s been quicker, as might be expected when up against a rookie.
Red Bull is even more the case. I backed Verstappen to crush Lawson, and that’s come true. Even if we shift the prediction to Tsunoda it’s coming off. Verstappen’s 177 points ahead of his team mate. It’s the most one-sided team mate battle in the sport, again.
Williams is the first team where I’m clearly in the wrong, as I backed Sainz to beat Albon. Not a crazy prediction but Albon’s winning by a long way, and has 38 more points than Sainz.
I’m also, currently, wrong about Aston Martin. Shockingly, Alonso and Stroll are tied on 26 points each. I still expect Alonso to win comfortably, but his points tally was hit hard by the initial bad luck he suffered for most of the early season.
Sauber was a team I had to think about harder than others, and I did think it’d be close with Hulkenberg winning but Bortoleto doing well. So far, this is on course, with Hulkenberg 23 points ahead of Bortoleto. But the Brazilian’s been outscoring the German at the last couple of races so this could still change.
Racing Bulls is kind of hard to assess, because I said Tsunoda would beat Hadjar. For the two races they were together, Tsunoda did finish ahead by 3 points to zero. But I feel this is a void prediction, neither right nor wrong due to Tsunoda’s early departure.
Then we come to Haas. I shifted from my usual approach of backing a veteran over a rookie as Bearman had impressed me in his 2024 appearances and I thought he could beat Ocon. So far, it’s not happening and he’s 19 points behind. I’d be surprised if this got overturned in the remaining races.
Last and least, we have Alpine. I reckoned Gasly would beat Doohan, and he did, 7 points to zero when Doohan left. Since then, Gasly’s beating Colapinto 13 points to zero. I’m counting this as a correct prediction because, unlike Tsunoda, Doohan leaving early on was known about before the season began.
Rookie Rankings in 2025 20m13s
Before the season started I also decided to rank the rookies in predicted points order, with the exception of Doohan whom I placed last on the basis he would likely be replaced.I have mostly got things wrong.
Antonelli I had top, and with 64 points that is accurate and I can’t see it changing by the season’s end. However, Hadjar is 2nd with 22 points and I had him down in 5th, so that’s a steaming pile of wrong. Lawson is 3rd with 20 points, and I had him in 2nd, so it’s possible this could change as he’s been outscoring Hadjar recently.
Bortoleto is 4th with 14 points, and I had him in 6th, ahead of only Doohan. I think this could change but in either direction, and I’d be surprised if he ends up down in 6th now. Bearman is 5th on 8 points, and I had him in 3rd. I thought the Haas would be better and he’d be getting a little more luck. Colapinto is 6th with zero points. He might yet score but I don’t think he’ll rise above 6th. I had him in 4th, based on Alpine’s strong performance at the end of 2024.
Doohan, alas, did get tossed overboard, so my placing him 7th and last is correct.
Season Predictions 21m27s
Don’t worry, we’re nearly at the end of this surprisingly long summer break podcast. Just got the season predictions to go.The top three in the standings are Piastri, Norris, and Verstappen. My prediction was for Verstappen to win, Norris be runner up, and Leclerc finish 3rd. So far, Norris is in the right place but that’s it. Never expected Piastri to do so well or Ferrari and Red Bull to fall off a cliff.
As the driver prediction implies, I thought we’d have a nice close season but that Verstappen would be far ahead of his team mate, with McLaren and Ferrari roughly even. That’s why I backed the top 3 teams to be McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull. That’s almost right, as McLaren lead Ferrari and Mercedes at the moment, and I think it’ll stay that way all season. Mercedes might get back ahead of Ferrari but I still think the Prancing Horse has the advantage.
When it comes to best of the rest I went for Haas, who are currently 9th. Williams are in this slot and have been all season. Aston Martin and Sauber are provding some competition, but there’s no way Haas will manage to get into 5th now. They’re on 35 points to 70 for Williams.
One prediction that’s looking spot on is the biggest team mate gap being Red Bull. This stands at 177 points. There is a case for making this void, but even if we just take the first two races, when Lawson was there, the gap was 36 points to zero.
The smallest gap I had as being Ferrari for the percentage and Haas for points but either way you cut it, Aston Martin’s actually the answer at the summer break. Alonso and Stroll are tied on points, which remains bizarre. It’s possible this prediction could come good but I think McLaren and Racing Bulls have a good chance of being very close at the end of the year.
A very poor prediction was Leclerc for most poles. Right now, this is actually a three way tie with Norris, Verstappen, and Piastri on four each. For most wins, I had Norris. He does have five but is currently behind Piastri who has six.
When it comes to most DNFs, my pick of Hadjar was looking good in Australia. But since then he’s been rather good and the joint leaders here are Lawson and Antonelli, with four each.
I also got my prediction of nobody outside the top 4 teams finishing on the podium wrong, but I’m very glad Hulkenberg had such a great race in the UK. He fully deserves a podium after all these years and it was a fantastic drive.
Biggest improvement from 2024 is difficult to call because I predicted Williams. And I think you can make a case for Williams or Sauber. They finished 9th and 10th respectively in 2024, and are currently 5th and 7th. The points difference between the two in 2024 was 13 and right now it’s 19, so on that basis Williams is more improved as they’re more places higher in the standings and have a greater points advantage. But that could well change.
For the biggest decline from 2024 I had Aston Martin, but at the moment they’ve only dropped a single place going from 5th to 6th. Right now, this is clearly Alpine, dropping from 6th to 10th.
I also predicted we would see 22 drivers this season. So far, we’re on 21 but there have been rumours of Colapinto getting replaced, and Alonso had some back problems in Hungary, so this could come off.
Also, in addition to the official F1 website, fans of stats and numbers might want to check out https://www.bigdataf1.com/. I’m not affiliated in any way, it’s just a handy resource I know about and it’s where I found the poles data more quickly than checking every qualifying session.
F1 News 25m10s
F1 news.Hungary saw a return to the podium for Russell and better performance for Mercedes than had recently been the case. It turns out the car was faster due to removing a suspension update that actually made the car worse.
Because this is the last season of the current regulations teams will abandon development sooner rather than later and this probably means no more Mercedes updates this season, or minor ones if they do appear. However, shifting to the older suspension could also give them a better chance of fighting back against Ferrari in the battle for 2nd.
Thanks for listening to this longer than usual podcast. If you liked hearing how rubbish my predictions are looking then please remember to leave a positive rating wherever you listen to the podcast.
Next up we return to our regular schedule with a preview of the Dutch Grand Prix.
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