Autobayng News Team
With McLaren securing their second straight constructors’ championship victory with six rounds to go and a points tally double that of their closest rivals, it would be easy to look at the numbers and assume 2025 has not been a competitive season.
However, this year has seen a historically compact and competitive field. Not just in terms of the share of points between all ten teams, but in the lap time deltas between them.
Even with six rounds remaining in the season, 2025 has already set the record for the most points scored by the lowest ranked team. Even if 10th-placed Alpine fail to score over the remaining rounds, their 20 points will still be the best haul by a bottom-ranked team in the sport’s history.
But there’s also plenty of evidence that this year’s field is closer than last season’s – which was already arguably the most equal field in the sport’s history.
In qualifying, when teams are pushing their cars to the absolute fastest they will run all weekend, it’s undeniable how competitive this year’s field is. In Q1 sessions – the only time of the weekend when all 20 drivers are in direct competition over a single lap – the performance gap between the fastest and slowest cars is hovering around the 1% mark.
That means, over the course of a hypothetical 90-second lap, the difference between the fastest and slowest car in Q1 this year is just nine-tenths of a second. To put that in perspective, that is less time than the average gap between pole position and fifth place (1.00s) over the entire 2002 season – the final year F1 used its traditional 60 minute, 12-lap open qualifying format.
Lap time difference (in %) between all teams’ fastest Q1 times at selected circuits:
| Circuit | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
| Silverstone | 3.57% (Wet) | 1.25% | 5.60% (Wet) | 0.65% |
| Spa-Francorchamps | 1.68% | 1.70% (Wet) | 1.28% (Wet) | 1.36% |
| Hungaroring | 1.13% | 0.99% | 1.30% | 0.88% |
| Zandvoort | 0.71% | 1.39% (Wet) | 1.64% | 1.24% |
| Monza | 2.45% | 1.19% | 1.49% | 0.73% |
| Baku | 1.94% | 1.47% | 0.82% | 1.44% |
| Singapore | 3.47% (Wet) | 0.89% | 1.74% | 1.36% |
| Average of all times | 2.14% | 1.27% | 1.98% | 1.09% |
| Average of dry Q1s only | 1.58% | 1.16% | 1.40% | 1.09% |
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When did F1 last have a field anything like as close as this? As the V8 era ended in 2013 the leading cluster of nine teams were compressed within 2.01% in terms of lap time. But that was still a wider spread than covered the whole field over the last three seasons. Moreover, the total field spread in 2013 was much larger as Manor and Caterham were far further off the pace.
The unparalleled parity F1 enjoys today is something to be celebrated, say teams. “We’ve got a fantastic championship this year,” observed Sauber team principal Jonathan Wheatley in Baku. “We’ve got the pack separated often by eight tenths of a second in the first period of qualifying.”
F1’s ‘ground effect’ rules are now four years old and Wheatley says it’s no surprise that the field has compressed as the regulations have remained largely stable. “I do feel it’s just a natural coming together of a set of technical regulations that have been relatively stable for a certain period of time,” he explained.
“From my team’s perspective, I’ve been very encouraged by how we found performance on a car that was struggling a little bit at the beginning of the year, and we’ve turned it around in such a tight field. But I think it’s more a factor that the technical regulations have been stable for a while.”
However that is all about to change. Teams began the season with one eye on 2026 and the new cars and power units next year’s regulations will bring.
For several teams, that has meant the typical development cycle for this year’s car has been cut short to prioritise next year’s challenger and the revised power units instead. With championship winners McLaren admitting they have already switched focus to next season, the remarkably close figures we are seeing this season may be being flattered by the lack of development on this year’s ten cars.
This would match the pattern of previous ‘transitional’ seasons over the last decade or so. The last season before a major technical regulations change, 2021, saw the level of field spread between the fastest and slowest teams increase – although only if the absolute slowest team, Haas, are ignored due to their extreme approach to prioritising development for 2022.
There was also a similar growth in separation between the teams at the front and rear of the pack when F1 moved away from its ugly ‘Overtaking Working Group’ aerodynamics and cranked up the downforce to unparalleled levels. And when F1 introduced its 1.6L V6 turbo power units in 2014, Mercedes managed to build a huge gap over the rest of the field that has not been achieved since:
*Previously Renault, Lotus; **Previously Force India, Racing Point; ***Previously Alfa Romeo; ****Previously Toro Rosso, RB, Racing Bulls
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Should fans be concerned next year’s championship will be less competitive – and less exciting – than this season? New regulations – and especially new power units – often spreads the field out again.
But Aston Martin team principal Andy Cowell said he “doesn’t have any concerns” about the potential field spread next season. “That’s just natural competition when there’s a reset on everything,” he said.
“The industry’s shown that if there is a gap, it closes up quickly. That’s part of the sport. I’m sure we’ll see a team come up with the best aero package, a power unit manufacturer come up with the best PU. The tyres are new as well, so understanding the tyres, the energy deployment – a team will be the best at that. And it’s unlikely that a team will be the best at all the individual parts. So it will balance out, I think.”
Williams team principal James Vowles – part of the Mercedes squad that dominated the sport after the V6 turbo power units were introduced in 2014 – also does not foresee a similar situation next year. “I don’t think this is going to be 2014 levels at all,” he said. “I think it’ll be a lot closer than that, just to alleviate people’s fears.
“But more than that, we’re already having open dialogue now at this stage of “what if?” What if a power unit manufacturer is ahead or behind – how do we make sure? Because we do recognise that we are a sport, but we’re also here for the racing – making sure that we are racing each other on a very similar wavelength. So, watch this space. But as Andy said, people will catch up quickly.”
How 2026’s regulations will determine which teams and drivers end up competing for next year’s titles remains to be seen. But based on what we have seen in 2025 – especially with a brand new team entering the sport next season – fans should probably enjoy the close qualifying sessions we have this year while we still can.
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Formula 1
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