F1 2025 champion? Is Norris the favorite to win? Mclaren and Ferrari tussle for the championship?
With the 2025 season tipped to be one of the closest and most exciting seasons in the sports history. Let's have a look at who the potential contenders for the title can be.
F1 fans from around the world go into this season not really knowing what to expect from it and how things will play out. It’s a season with a lot of unknown variables. New faces on the grid, familiar faces but in different team wear, it’s going to take a while to get used to.
The ingredients for an absolute classic F1 season are there, it just begs the question.. who will come out on top after all of this?
We’ll take a look into the candidates who have a shot at the world title this year.
McLaren
The reigning champions from 2024 come into this season with a target on their back, setting the benchmark for the rest of the grid with the pressure on them to deliver with the competition getting ever more fierce.
With one of the strongest driver pairings on the grid in Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, they’ll have to deliver week in and week out.
Lando Norris
After a strong end to the season last year in Abu Dhabi and with the momentum the team are carrying, Lando Norris is one of the bookies favorites for the world title.
He’s shown blistering raw pace in both qualifying and the race, his weaknesses seemed to be race craft in certain points of the season against a certain driver in Max Verstappen who would most of the time come out in their tussles ahead.
His biggest weakness is his lap 1 starts, losing the lead at the start on several occasions. Such as Spain, Monza, Zandvoort, Hungary just to name a few. His pole to win ratio is 33.3% with only 3 out of his 9 poles converted.
If he wants to be champion, he needs to lean more into his killer instincts as a racing driver.
Oscar Piastri
The young Australian is coming into his 3rd year of F1, he comes off the back of a strong sophomore year in 2024, with 2 race wins, 8 podiums, 1 sprint pole and a sprint race win.
He’s shown world class racecraft on several occasions such as Monza and Baku, with him not being afraid to get his elbows out. He’s shown exponential growth in race management from his rookie campaign in particular his tyre management.
However, it always felt like for the most part he was still lagging behind Lando even if he did cut the gap down in performance. With Piastri being able to seldom beat him, the Head to Head comparisons certainly don’t do him any favors…
His qualifying head to head is 20 - 4 in Lando’s favor and his race head to head is 16-8 in Lando’s favor also.
Having inconsistencies for raw pace from race to race. He’s certainly in with a shot of competing for the title, but I don’t think he has the best of chances to win.
Ferrari
The Tifosi come into this season with arguably the strongest driver pairing on the entire grid as viewed by the majority of the fanbase.
There’s is a lot of expectation on them to deliver this season with everything seeming to fall in place personnel-wise. They either deliver to the delight of the Tifosi or flop big time.
Lewis Hamilton
“I’m working on a masterpiece… and I haven’t quite finished it yet”
Those were the words Sir Lewis Hamilton uttered after his 6th world championship triumph at the 2019 United States grand prix.
With all the success he’s earnt, all the jubilation he’s experienced over the past 18 years.. winning with the Tifosi to claim his 8th world title would certainly be the sweetest out of them all and a fitting end to a masterpiece he’s been trying to create.
Lewis Hamilton comes into this season with a point to prove, to prove he’s a veteran who still has the speed to battle it out with the best and claim his 8th title.
Last year, he’s biggest weakness was his Qualifying where he lost out 19 - 5 to Russell. No matter how blisteringly quick he was in the races especially at Las Vegas, his grid position was always putting him on the back foot for the races.
It has been largely rumored by the fanbase that he was greatly affected in Qualifying due to running testing set ups as data for next year. If he is able to reclaim that qualifying form and shut the doubters up combined with his blistering pace in the race and his tyre management, no one can count Hamilton out of the title battle.
Charles Leclerc
After Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc seems to be the most complete and in form driver coming into 2025.
2024 was arguably he’s best season in F1 to date and the most all round version of Leclerc we’ve seen throughout his career. He’s nowhere near as mistake prone as he used to be and seems to have balanced extreme raw pace especially over one lap with improved car control.
After beating Carlos Sainz 3-1 in their time as teammates, he has a new challenge in Lewis Hamilton the statistical greatest of all time and a proven champion, he’ll have to battle it out with him to see truly how good he is and if he can take the fight for the title.
2025 will be a season for him to prove himself.
Red Bull
The team who have triumphed for the past 4 year in either drivers or constructors are most likely to start the season off on the back foot.
With the loss of Aerodynamicist engineering genius Adrian Newey his loss has certainly left a gaping hole for Red Bull.
Max Verstappen
It wouldn’t be a championship contenders post without talking about the man who's won it for the past 4 years.
As Adrian’s influence on last years car decreased over the course of the season after he departed for Aston, the cars performance dramatically dwindled, allowing for rival teams to catch up.
It almost felt like the downfall of Red Bull was covered up due to world class performances that Max Verstappen was putting in, particularly the generational performance in Brazil where he won the race from 17th on the grid.
His main weakness seems to be his hot headedness that puts him in unfavorable positions like his contact with Hamilton in Hungary 2024. If the teams downwards trajectory continues, expect more tantrums but certainly don’t count him out of the fight.
Liam Lawson
Now out of the 8 drivers I’m going to be talking about, he will probably have little to no chance of winning the title.
Unfortunately for Liam, he was signed to Red Bull to fit a better role as 2nd driver to aid in Max’s title campaign. He’s the least decorated out of all the drivers in the top 4 teams and has the least excitement coming into this season.
He did a solid job for Racing Bulls last year in the races he did but it was nothing to write home about with a 6-0 qualifying loss to Tsunoda and 4-2 race head to head loss.
His role will be to fit a solid 2nd driver role in Red Bull and not fall off like Perez did. It will be a good opportunity to score his first ever podium for the team and maybe a potential win if the chance ever comes.
Mercedes
It’s the top team with the least amount of expectation coming into this season, with a new driver pairing and addition of a potential generation talent Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The team is building for the future.
George Russell
After an impressive 2024 season, George takes the mantle from Lewis Hamilton as team leader for Mercedes, and against up coming star Antonelli.
Throughout 2024, George showcased amazing qualifying pace in relation to Hamilton and able to claim several pole positions in Canada, Silverstone and Las Vegas and claiming 2 race wins.
His downfall seemed to be in the races though as he would eat away at his tires early on into the stint, with his pace dropping off.
It happened countless times throughout last year, where there would be big discrepancies in grid position between Russell and Hamilton but they always found a way to finish next to each other.
As for Russell’s chances, him and the team don’t seem to be in the strongest position to fight for the title compared to McLaren and Ferrari. Russell would certainly put up a good fight, but could definitely fade away towards the latter parts of the season.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Along with Liam Lawson as one of the most inexperienced drivers on the grid, unfortunately for Antonelli, there’s little to no chance of a title campaign from him.
I see him doing better in his rookie campaign relative to Lawson.
He clearly has the raw pace and has a very high potential ceiling but on top of his inexperience, he comes in as the youngest driver on the grid at 18 years of age.
If his crash from Monza in FP1 last year is anything to go by, expect a lot of messy moments from Antonelli which is to be expected from a rookie. However,
expect him to keep Russell on his toes this season.