The One 2025 Formula season has all the shows of a 24 -hour celebration in the White Manche to mark 75 years since the first championship of seven races in 1950, while the move from Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari provides an intriguing scenario. The Max Verstappen of Red Bull seems to have his work cut to seal a fifth consecutive title with Lando Norris ready to bring down the Dutchman from his perch. Hamilton says that his passage from Mercedes to Ferrari gave him a new breath.
Here, AFP Sport looks at five discussion points before the start of the season in Australia on Sunday:
The fifth title for Verstappen? Seventy-five years after Giuseppe Farina won the first F1 world championship at the wheel of an Alfa Romeo, Verstappen was launched in the 2025 season in pursuit of a fifth successive title, one feat only achieved once before, by Michael Schumacher.
If he succeeds, he will cement the place of Dutch as a Titan of Sport.
He sucked seven of the first 10 races in his raid Red Bull last year, before a race without a 10 -hour victory while McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari ran Riot.
But Verstappen had the last word, retaliated to win in Brazil and in phase the title number four with two races to lose.
McLaren has prevented the manufacturers’ championship far from Red Bull to seal their long road to the F1 summit.
The difficult task against Verstappen is underlined by the bets, which does it as the second favorite behind Norris (which finished last season 63 points behind) for the crown 2025.
Can Hamilton do Ferrari Magic? Hamilton is convinced that he can help Ferrari to win a first pilot championship since 2007 after the seven times world champion has moved to Italy.
At 40, the Briton seems full of young enthusiasm for the new challenge.
“The passion here does not look like nothing you have ever seen. They have absolutely all the ingredients they need to win a world championship and it is simply a question of gathering all the pieces,” he said.
Class of 2025 rookiesan Italian adolescent who did not succeed in his driving exam in January, he is part of the recruit contribution of 2025.
Kimi Antonelli is an exciting 18 -year -old who uses his uncle’s nickname who was a fan of the last world champion in Ferrari, Finn Kimi Raikkonen. He takes the seat of Hamilton alongside George Russell in Mercedes.
“I really want to make my own story,” insists that the winner of Formula 2 of last year, brushing the suggestions, he is the “replacement” of the world champion seven times at the Arrows Silver.
Kiwi Liam Lawson, a “ veteran ” from 11 Grands Prix already, made his full -fledged debut as a new Verstappen winger at Red Bull.
The Pilot of the British Academy of Ferrari, Ollie Bearman, was thrown into the F1 Deep End when he was called to replace Carlos Sainz at the Saudi Grand Prix last year, becoming the youngest driver of the Scuderia.
He seized his luck, holding Hamilton and Norris to finish seventh. He joined Haas propelled by Ferrari. Brazil is present on the grid for the first time in five years in the champion F2 Gabriel Bortoleto in Sauber.
The Australian Jack Doohan even hopes to take advantage of a small slice of his father Mick’s success on two wheels of MotoGP while he obtained his diploma in a reserve driver to become a teammate of Pierre Gasly in Alpine.
The last but not the least is Isack Hadjar of RB, the 20 -year -old French who brought Bortoleto for the title F2.
The FIA in the driver’s reticle in the unpredictable volatile bubble with high octane which is F1, one thing seems ensured in 2025: renewed tension between the director organ and the conductors. Particularly above the FIA repression against the swears.
Verstappen and Charles Leclerc fell in fault in the rules in 2024 for turning the air blue during press conferences.
The directives were reinforced in January, triggering an indignant response from drivers, who made a blow to the president of the FIA, Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
“We urge the president of the FIA to also consider his tone and his own tone when they spoke to our members of members, or even about them, whether in a public or other forum”, they wrote, adding: “Our members are adults. They do not need instructions via the media, on questions as trivial as the port of jewelry or sub-pants.”
From Australia to Abu Dhabiaustralia, the first of the 24 races next weekend with Bahrain moved in April while Ramadan takes place throughout the month of March. The six sprints of 2025 are in Shanghai, Miami, Belgium, Austin, Sao Paulo and Qatar.
The FIA tries to put the jewel in the calendar – Monaco – where the overtaking is almost impossible, imposing a compulsory two -pit stop strategy.
With the traditional summer holidays of three weeks in August, the F1 circus presents itself in the Abu Dhabi desert for its final program on December 7.
“2025 will be a special year when we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Formula 1 World Championship of the FIA, and it is this heritage and the experience that allows us to provide such a strong calendar,” said F1 CEO Stefano Domenicini.
The test times, the three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain last month did not tell anyone.
With the unknown fuel loads and the team configurations kept under the Wraps, it was difficult, if not impossible to locate the winners and the losers.
The Mercedes de Russell was at the top of the battery on the last day, with Williams de Sainz at the head of the Times in the middle of the day and McLaren of Norris winning the honors of the first day.
Ferrari was booming, and Verstappen was satisfied with his last day.
One thing seems certain – most of the teams seem close, which prompted McLaren CEO, Zak Brown, to predict: “I can see that it is super competitive. Last year, four teams won several races, this year, I could see that it is even more. I am more excited.”
(With the exception of the title, this story has not been published by NDTV staff and is published from a unionized flow.)
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