Start of the 2025 Season Recap

Published on 25 April 2025 at 15:00

I will do a quick recap on each Rookie individually and then a recap on every team performance so far to, in the end, compare my predictions to the so-far reality. Hope you enjoy it and I would highly appreciate if you took part in the poll at the bottom of the article.

Rookies

Oliver "decent" Bearman

Starts 16th and finishes 11th on average
He definitely is making use of his small headstart F1 experience of last season and is showing that he can compete at a pretty decent level especially considering he still has very little experience compared to the more established Drivers.

Liam "the dropped one" Lawson

Well, well... the unlucky one most certainly. Being placed in THE most ungrateful seat out there at an average of 200km/h. But that second RedBull seat is a topic for another day
Starts 16th aswell but only finishes 14th,5 on average
Partly his rough start definitely is to blame on the position he was placed in but he has yet to show some kind of stunning performance and that he really is an outstanding driver because he really lacks to compete with his new teammate Hadjar even though he has 6 races less experience and had his own rough start to the season. But I think as the season goes on, he will get a fair chance to be judged, however at the moment I don't really see him having a second season in F1 with other promising prodigies on the horizon.

Isack "I destroyed the car" Hadjar

Starts 10th and finishes 11th on average
He started his season by crashing the car in the formation Lap - funny anecdote: in a pre-race interview he was asked what his goal for the first few laps is and he said "No damage"
For me personally the best Rookie so far and is currently looking like the Visa Cashapp One-man army

Gabriel "Sonny Boy" Bortoleto

I mean can he really be judged with that car? I honestly doubt that. He is beating Hülkenberg in Qualifying which is good most definitely but the results are just bad even though I really can't see him doing all that much wrong so I just hope that this Sauber car will get competitive for both Bortoleto and Hülkenberg.
Starts 18th and finishes 17th on average (unfortunately by far the worst overall

Kimi "Starboy" Antonelli

starts 8th and finishes 7th on average
He does a quite solid job. With the Mercedes, he obviously has the fastest car out of the six rookies and hasn't really been able to challenge his teammate at all while Bortoleto, Hadjar and especially Bearman did manage to do so. In general, he performs very inconsistently when you compare his Australia to his Bahrain performance, there is quite a gap there. That being said Kimi and the other Rookies have 5 to 11 races under their belt so one has to give all of them a fair chance and not heavily judge them just yet. (I'm looking at you, Red Bull :) )

Jack "first gone" Doohan

starts 16th and finishes 15th on average
Compared to his teammate Gasly a difference of night and day appears that has only ever been seen with teammates of Lance Stroll but at least Doohan didn't race for a year and has now only got 5 races to his name. Nonetheless his performance so far really stinks - I just have to say it. He just makes very Rookie mistakes :) Very costly ones tho when looking at Suzuka FP2 where he tapped the break to close the DRS (which is technically working but the break really has to be pushed a bit however it is just one button-press to manually close the DRS which should always be the choice when going into a corner at approximately 300km/h (186 mp/h))
I just don't see him finishing the season honestly. With Colapinto and other Rookies or well experienced drivers like Bottas and Perez waiting for a re-entry into F1, it just seems very unlikely that Alpine will give him the time he needs

General Performance Recap

Each Teams performance so far, ranked from Sauber to McLarren

Sauber

Nothing much to say other than "lucky them, that they got points in the first race, otherwise could have taken a bit again"

To me, it's very impressive how they manage to lack so much performance time and time again. Nonetheless, I think Hülkenbergs experience, especially with helping bad teams, like he did with Haas, will help Sauber a lot in the long run. However, it has to be very frustrating to be him at the moment, cuz just when you managed to build a car that is competitive for points, you drop out and start from -20 again.

For Bortoleto, I see an advantage in the lack of performance in the car because that way, no one expects anything, and you can blame every bad performance on the car easily, so he will probably have a year of just gaining experience with constantly driving under the radar :)

Alpine

Like I said, it's a day and night difference from Gasly to Doohan, which is why I would assume that Doohan doesn't get much more time to prove himself. As soon as Gasly starts gaining points in each race, they will look for someone else who can keep up.

So a really impressive performance from Gasly and Alpine so far, but unfortunately very underwhelming from Doohan.

Haas

They just swapped Ocon's calmer twin brother in it seems like. Ocon and Bearman are both performing great so far. Over the last 4 years, Haas has evolved from being good at Qualifying but bad in the race to the total opposite, which seemingly they have now reached the peak of. Both drivers qualify 16th on average but finish 11th/12th on average and lead the list of positions gained with quite a gap. Bearman gains 5,4 positions and Ocon 4,6 positions per race, whereas Hülkenberg is third with 2,6 gained positions per race.

Very impressive development of the team, and both drivers perform very decently so far, which I heavily underrated.

Aston Martin

Boy oh Boy,
Just like last season, they started good and then flattened, but this season the high only lasted two races.

Since Shanghai, there's really nothing going on over there, and I can't even blame it all on Stroll. Alonso doesn't get anything done either, and the car doesn't look very fast anyway, so Daddy Stroll will have to open the Wallet again.

Williams

It's not a secret anymore that Albon is an absolute GOAT and is well-deserved as one of the 20 best race drivers in the world. With the addition of a well-experienced Carlos Sainz and now a car that seems destined for Q3 and top 10 finishes, we might just witness a Williams legacy comeback in the next few years.

Honestly, this seems like the perfect best of the rest team. Two very good drivers and a suitable car with the expected performance. I'm giving Sainz the benefit of the doubt here, I mean, he still has to adapt a bit, but it looks like a way better progress than with Hamilton and Ferrari, for example, so in my opinion, that's a reasonable assumption.

RB and RedBull

"How not to use Driver talents properly"

Gasly, Albon, Perez, and now Lawson are victims of Red Bull's talent consumption. I mean what the fuck.

You have Yuki Tsunoda performing for three years, and the chance to just promote him between the seasons and have Hadjar and Lawson develop slowly in the junior team. Instead, they chose to put Lawson into a position that, meanwhile, well-established drivers as listed fail to accomplish, and now, after only THREE races, they swap him out with Tsunoda.

Verstappen performs as GOATed as always, Hadjar does perform very outstandingly as well, with Yuki we will have to see and Lawson... as I said I don't think he will really recover from that in a way that he will be able to challenge Verstappen next season, especially since Hadjar is really threatening him at RB at the moment.

Mercedes

Decent so far

Russel does Russel things, finishing top 5 in five out of five races so far. He surely is an excellent driver, but with competition this season, I have to say I do think that he will slowly get squeezed out of the top 5. With drivers like Norris and Hamilton looking for their form, and drivers like Gasly, Hadjar or Albon seeming ready to sneak some top 5s out of the top team's hands, I see him on the losing side. However, I predicted Haas to be worse than Sauber, so what do I know :)

Antonelli, as said, is quite inconsistent with his individual performance so far, but rarely makes really big mistakes and his results definitely look like he can potentially challenge Russel in the future. Not to cause any confusion, with a 7th place finish on average, and now two results right behind Russel, his results are definitely looking good, just the way he gets there seems rather like it's due to his rivals' lack of form.

Ferrari

I honestly didn't expect Hamilton to have that hard of a time adapting. There is a harsh gap between him and his teammate Leclerc, who performs absolutely outstanding at the moment.

About the team has to be said, their pit stops are magnificent, fast, precise, double pitstops, single pitstops, nothing can stop them.

If Hamilton manages to adapt any time soon, though, they will definitely still be a contender for second place in the constructor's championship because there's no way past:

Mc Larren

Good Lord, what a time to be alive, witnessing OP81 Oscar Piastri. That downunder young gun is such a menace. I don't one, say I've predicted that, but I kinda did :)

It is just beautiful. F1 has gotten so boring lately, every race there are 2-4 corners where people can overtake, and there is just nothing happening, but OP81 just manages to overtake at the most uncommon spots, in the most unusual way, to give you a highlight in each race.
In case you're interested, I will link you to a more detailed breakdown of what makes Piastri so good, delivered by Scott Mansell, not to be confused with Nigel Mansell

Norris, on the other side, seems to struggle a lot with Piastri simply outpacing him right now. However, I have faith in him to adapt and get back to his winning ways of last year, tho not past OP81.

Maybe I also don't want to see it, but I honestly can't see someone beating Piastri this season.

Other Crazy facts and opinions

Pierre Gasly is the only driver who has yet to gain a position in a race.
On the other hand, Ocon, Bearman, Stroll, Albon and Norris are all yet to conceive a position during a race.
Lance Stroll finishes 14th on average while Gasly finishes 10th on average but Stroll got 10 Points whereas Gasly only got 6... I always knew the system was a Canadian.
I briefly mentioned it, talking about Piastri but in my opinion, modern F1 got kinda boring :( If I am being entirely honest, I sometimes just sit there waiting for something big to happen like a crash (without anybody getting hurt) or some sudden rain to mix things up. There are rarely many overtakes let alone real fights where the slower car doesn't just have to give up basically. Maybe I will make a separate Article about why that is in the future :) If you would like that, feel free to tell me down in the poll section. (you can suggest your own topic as well)

Prediction Vs. Reality

And finally my prediction recap:

Team	Actual Standings	My Prediction
Mc Larren	1	1
Mercedes	2	4
RedBull	3	3
Ferrari	4	2
Williams	5	5
Haas	6	10
Aston Martin	7	6
RB	8	8
Alpine	9	7
Sauber	10	9

In general, I'm still happy with that. I obviously underestimated Haas quite a lot, who are looking impressive and I definitely underestimated how hard of a time Hamilton would have at Ferrari but let's talk about it :)

I'm a sucker for the McLarren and Piastri Rise and I believed in it from day 1
Mercedes I didn't expect that good of a performance from either Russel or Antonelli but both impressed me in their own manner.
3rd is as high as Verstappen can get on his own this season
As repeatedly mentioned I expected Hamilton to start better but in Germany we say "The rabbits are counted at the end of a hunt" meaning that it's a long time to go still and he will get there surely. Leclerc tho even more impressive than I expected, keeps Ferrari in contention until then
Williams is pretty much where I thought it would be. The absolutely best of the rest, I can even see them contend for one or two little sneak-ins into the top 4
No one can tell me they expected them to work that well. I won't blame myself for not expecting them to be that good but I maybe was a bit too harsh on them.
I'm just sorry for the Spanish GOAT that he has to be part of the Daddy-Stroll-Team downfall.
RB Hadjar Cashapp - Isack really has the team on his back so far even though he sent his car into the barriers before his first F1-race-lap ever. I can only take my hat off to his performance. So the outcome is as expected for me, the way they got however is so far from it as can be :)
Alpine is basically the opposite I expected more from Doohan now we're here but they will 100% climb up at least past Aston Stroll.
Sauber still being Sauber. Here I really do blame myself for letting my hope betray my perception. I can see Hülkenbergs experience improving this team over time but until then they will be too far gone from good and evil in the championship.