It’s a new year and there’s a new Formula 1 season ahead of us. Here’s what’s changed in F1’s 75th anniversary season.
Drivers and teams
No drivers changed places between the previous two seasons, so perhaps it was inevitable that the 2025 season would see significant upheaval. Sure enough, only two teams – Aston Martin and McLaren – head into the new season with the same driver line-up as they started the last one.
Six drivers will start their first full seasons this year. The most experienced of those is Liam Lawson, who has already started 11 grands prix over the previous two years, and now has the unenviable task of going up against Max Verstappen at Red Bull.
Two others have also made their F1 debuts already. Indeed, Oliver Bearman has driven for two different teams, impressing when he finished in the top 10 when he first turned out for Ferrari last year, and achieving the unique feat of scoring points with two different teams in his first two races when he returned for Haas. Jack Doohan also got his first race under his belt in Abu Dhabi.
Three others, meanwhile, will make their grand prix debuts. Formula 2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto, who will make his debut for Sauber, hasn’t even appeared in an official F1 practice session yet. Lawson’s replacement Isack Hadjar has, four times, while Andrea Kimi Antonelli turned out twice for Mercedes last year.
He has the biggest shoes to fill of anyone, as Mercedes picked their upcoming star to replace Lewis Hamilton. The seven-times champion and winner of 105 grands prix is a Ferrari man now, and will face up against Charles Leclerc, now in his seventh year as a Ferrari driver.
Hamilton’s move sent Carlos Sainz Jnr to Williams. Sauber lured Nico Hulkenberg to join them for the second time in his career, while Haas have cleared house and picked Esteban Ocon to partner Bearman.
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So with half the seats having changed hands in the last 12 months, the grid of 2025 will have a fresh new look. Six of those who lined up for the first race of last year – Sergio Perez, Valtteri Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo, Kevin Magnussen, Logan Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu – have all moved on.
One of the teams has also had a change of name: Red Bull’s second team was officially known as RB last year, and though they said at the time this was not an abbreviation for their company name ‘Racing Bulls’, they have entered under that name this year.
Calendar
The state of flux on the F1 grid is not mirrored on the schedule, as the same 24 rounds as last year will take place again. However there are some notable differences.
Australia is due to hold the season-opening race for the first time since 2019. It was scheduled to do so in 2020, but the race was cancelled by the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Last year’s season-opener, Bahrain, is the fourth round this year, to be followed again by Saudi Arabia. F1 has moved the Chinese and Japanese rounds to the second and third rounds respectively on the calendar.
There will be six sprint rounds again but for the first time since the format was introduced, none of them will take place in Austria. The Belgian Grand Prix will host a sprint race again, as it last did in 2023.
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But while this year’s calendar is unchanged, F1 has already confirmed one new event for next year. A new street track in Madrid will host the Spanish Grand Prix, though the Circuit de Catalunya also has a contract to hold a race in 2026.
There is one other notable change planned for the year ahead. F1 will host a special new launch event in London called F1 75 Live, where teams will present their new driver line-ups along with the new-look liveries for 2025.
Rules
A huge change is coming in 2026, when F1 will overhaul its chassis and engine regulations together for the first time in 12 years. Until then this is the last hurrah for the new-style ‘ground effect’ cars which have delivered some, but not all, of what was promised.
The field has undoubtedly closed up, which produced some badly-needed unpredictability last year after Red Bull’s annihilation of their rivals in 2023. But the actual racing remains depressingly reliant on the gimmick of DRS to engineer overtaking. That is unlikely to change in a year when the technical regulations are largely untouched.
One significant change has materialised on the sporting side. Five years after trumpeting the decision to reintroduce the bonus point for fastest lap, F1 is quietly dropping it without a word of explanation. It is surely no coincidence the decision came to light soon after Red Bull’s second team was accused of using Ricciardo to help Verstappen by taking the bonus point away from Lando Norris.
Over to you
Are you planning to go to an F1 race this year? Will you be going to F1 75 Live? Let us know in the comments.
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