Australian GP: F1 2025 kicks off with excessive anticipation, totally different title favorite and Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari

System 1 prepares to embark on what might be one of the crucial aggressive and open seasons in years on the Australian Grand Prix this weekend.

Whereas the game’s laws could also be largely unchanged for the brand new marketing campaign, there was a winter of change throughout the grid with 10 of the 20 seats altering arms – a driver reshuffle headlined by Lewis Hamilton’s blockbuster arrival at Ferrari.

“We’re expecting one of the all-time classic Formula 1 seasons and there’s nothing that we saw in the pre-season test in Bahrain that changed our minds,” stated Sky Sports activities F1’s Martin Brundle earlier than flying out to Melbourne.

“The top four teams – McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes – are incredibly close.”

The 2025 season represents the fourth and closing 12 months of the present regulation period and comes scorching off the again of the second half of a 2024 marketing campaign which noticed seven totally different drivers win the ultimate 12 races.

One other 24 race weekends throughout 21 international locations now lie forward over the following 9 months, all reside on Sky Sports activities F1 and the Sky Sports activities App, with Melbourne’s often-dramatic Albert Park internet hosting the season-opener for the primary time since 2019.

Observe motion begins with observe in a single day on Friday earlier than qualifying at 5am on Saturday and the 58-lap race underneath means at 4am on Sunday.

Norris the title favorite for first time?

Whereas the formidable Max Verstappen enters his fourth successive season because the reigning world champion and is aiming to match Michael Schumacher’s report of 5 titles in succession, the bookmakers – and lots of pundits – have put in his McLaren rival Lando Norris because the pre-season favorite.

“Off the back of last year and what we have seen at testing, I think Lando is the favourite for the championship for the first time in his career going into the season,” stated Sky Sports activities F1’s Karun Chandhok.

Norris, 25, loved the most effective season of his profession in 2024, profitable his first 4 grands prix and ending runner-up on the earth championship to Verstappen.

Nonetheless, Verstappen nonetheless completed the 12 months a snug 63 factors away from the Briton within the standings regardless of Crimson Bull being usurped from mid-season because the grid’s quickest automobile and McLaren coming by means of to win their first constructors’ title in 26 years.

However the important groundwork for the Dutchman’s fourth drivers’ crown was really laid again in final season’s early months, when he gained seven of the opening 10 occasions. So one 12 months on from that early blitz, and with Crimson Bull’s one-time dominance actually not but restored, the chance for Norris, McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri and their fellow title protagonists at Ferrari and Mercedes to attempt to change the narrative of their respective favours with everybody again beginning on zero factors is evident.

And in line with impressed rivals, it’s the McLaren pair of their new MCL39 who look like those with the automobile to beat early on.

“I think McLaren are going to be pretty strong,” stated Mercedes’ George Russell, whose personal workforce loved encouraging pre-season working.

“Lando says they’ve found a lot over the winter and he’s looking pretty confident.”

In response, McLaren’s drivers and workforce chiefs have performed down the MCL39’s displaying relative to the competitors after three days of unseasonably combined climate in Bahrain, however Norris has additionally acknowledged that, with the workforce now firmly re-established again on the entrance of the sector, he and Piastri have to enter the season with the mindset that they’re real title contenders.

“After last year I think we kind of have no excuses,” stated Norris at F1 75 Dwell. “In the past we’ve had our fair share, but honest and true excuses. I think this year we have nothing to hide behind. We proved last year we have everything we need and everything it takes to fight at the top and be the best.”

How is Hamilton’s Ferrari profession going to begin?

For the primary time in 13 years, Lewis Hamilton will line up on a season’s first grid on Sunday morning not driving a Mercedes works automobile after F1’s most successful-ever driver joined its most successful-ever workforce.

Since arriving at Ferrari headquarters for the primary time on January 20 – a second that was all the time going to be historic however rapidly earned absolute iconic standing due to the Godfather-like photograph of the seven-time champion taken exterior workforce founder Enzo Ferrari’s previous workplace – Hamilton has launched into an in depth acclimatation course of to his new house on and off the monitor.

After initially testing some older Ferrari automobiles at Fiorano and Barcelona earlier than placing their new SF-25 by means of its paces in Bahrain testing, Hamilton’s means of integrating into his new environment and Italian tradition continued at a avenue demonstration in Milan alongside new team-mate Charles Leclerc final week, the place the 40-year-old declared to the Tifosi-packed crowd: “I think the team has everything to fight for a championship.”

Whether or not that certainly proves to be instantly true this 12 months, and in that case whether or not it’s Hamilton or Leclerc – the driving force who scored probably the most factors of all within the second half of 2024 – who delivers the stronger problem, is a query that can solely be answered in time however Ferrari do actually seem optimistic of constant their momentum after ending solely 14 factors adrift of McLaren within the constructors’ chase on the finish of final 12 months.

For Hamilton, the widespread fascination is simply how rapidly he’ll rise up to hurry together with his first Ferrari on the monitor. After a troublesome closing season at Mercedes, throughout which he ended a two-and-half-year victory drought however made some uncharacteristic errors and was trounced within the team-mate qualifying head-to-head by Russell, the now 40-year-old has stated he’s “slowly bonding” with the SF-25 and that “this is the most positive feeling that I’ve had in a long time”.

Sufficient to be battling for a podium, or perhaps a win, on his race debut in Melbourne the place Ferrari took a one-two final 12 months? Up in opposition to a brand new fierce in-house problem in Leclerc, that is one of many opening weekend’s most fascinating questions.

Crimson Bull beginning on the again foot?

Verstappen has spent the final 63 races courting again to Might 2022 sitting atop the Drivers’ Championship desk however that report run seems removed from sure to proceed past Sunday in Melbourne.

Crimson Bull’s three days of pre-season testing with their new RB21 appeared removed from horrible but on the similar time was additionally nowhere close to as convincing, and positively in comparison with final 12 months wherever close to as dominant, across the Bahrain Worldwide Circuit relative to their three chief rivals.

Whereas there didn’t appear to be any main reliability considerations with the brand new automobile both, Crimson Bull did full the fewest laps of any workforce with the Milton Keynes-based outfit seemingly experimenting with quite a lot of set-ups, and on the ultimate day components, to attempt to get the most effective stability and efficiency out of the automobile.

Verstappen, who like new team-mate Liam Lawson had a spin in the course of the check, stated after ending the ultimate day with the second-fastest time to Mercedes’ Russell that whereas the week as an entire “wasn’t bad” there was “still a bit of work to do”.

However maybe probably the most telling disclosure about the place Crimson Bull discover themselves got here from technical director Pierre Wache, who admitted: “I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development.”

Even with out the quickest, and even at instances the second and even third-fastest, package deal within the second half of final 12 months, Verstappen nonetheless recurrently introduced house the massive outcomes – together with two spectacular late-season wins – that finally meant Norris was by no means going to catch him for the title no matter McLaren did.

It due to this fact appears that the early portion of the brand new season could show a equally hard-fought problem, albeit this time with out the consolation of a helpful factors buffer. But, as his rivals know too nicely, nobody shall be counting Max out.

Sky Sports activities F1’s reside Australian GP schedule

Thursday March 13

• 2.30am: Drivers’ Press Convention
• 5am: The F1 Present: Lights Out 2025*
• 9.45pm: F3 Follow
• 10.55pm: F2 Follow

Friday March 14

• 1am: Australian GP Follow One (session begins at 1.30am)*
• 2.55am: F3 Qualifying*
• 3.40am: Crew Principals’ Press Convention
• 4.45am: Australian GP Follow Two (session begins at 5am)*
• 6.25am: F2 Qualifying*
• 7.15am: The F1 Present*

Saturday March 15

• 12.10am: F3 Dash*
• 1.10am: Australian GP Follow Three (session begins at 1.30am)*
• 3.10am: F2 Dash*
• 4.15am: Australian GP Qualifying build-up*
• 5am: AUSTRALIAN GP QUALIFYING*
• 7am: Ted’s Qualifying Pocket book*
• 9.55pm: F3 Characteristic Race*

Sunday March 16

• 12.25am: F2 Characteristic Race*
• 2.30am: Australian GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
• 4am: THE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX*
• 6am: Australian GP response: Chequered Flag*
• 7am: Ted’s Pocket book*
• 7.55am: Australian GP race replay
• 10am: Australian GP highlights
• Villeneuve Pironi – Racing’s Untold Tragedy

*Additionally on Sky Sports activities Principal Occasion

Watch all 24 race weekends from the 2025 System 1 season reside on Sky Sports activities F1, beginning with the Australian GP on March 14-16. Stream Sky Sports activities with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime