The 2025 Formula One Season After Five Races

Forbes

21-04-2025

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA - APRIL 20: Oscar Piastri of Australia driving the (81) McLaren MCL39 Mercedes and Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB21 battle for track position ahead of George Russell of Great Britain driving the (63) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team W16 Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Scuderia Ferrari SF-25 and the rest of the field during the F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia at Jeddah Corniche Circuit on April 20, 2025 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (Photo by Mark Sutton - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)
If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes. That's what we used to say about my home state of Connecticut and the greater New England area. A similar sentiment applies to this year's Formula One season. If you don't like how it's going, just wait until the next race.
F1 pundits have certainly had their hands full this season. After the first race in Australia, they were certain McLaren's Lando Norris had the World Drivers' Championship (WDC) locked up. Then Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton surprised everyone with a China Sprint pole and win. Look out, Ferrari was back and Hamilton could win his eighth championship! Then Oscar Piastri won the Chinese Grand Prix from pole. So the WDC would certainly come down to a fight between the two McLaren drivers. Then Red Bull's Max Verstappen won from pole at Suzuka, triggering headlines that the Dutch driver would win five in a row. After back-to-back wins in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Piastri now leads the championship by 10 points with 19 races to go.
As one of my investors was known to say, he invests in lines not dots. Which is to say he invests in trends of positive results as opposed to any single data point. And that's the only way to accurately analyze the 2025 F1 season. With at least five data points to play with, let's review the season to date in the context of my initial predictions.
TOPSHOT - McLaren's Australian driver Oscar Piastri celebrates winning the 2025 Saudi Arabia Formula One Grand Prix at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit on April 20, 2025. (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP) (Photo by GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images)
This has been a theme of my coverage since Monza last year, and it was one of my key predictions for 2025. Last year, I stated that Piastri was a cold-blooded assassin behind the wheel and that Norris lacked the killer instinct to be World Champion—at a time when Norris had a commanding lead over Piastri. How correct was this analysis? Norris admitted exactly this in a recent interview, though he wrongly believes one doesn't need killer instinct to win the WDC—such is the nature of his privilege. While I've never hired a racing driver, I've hired for all key roles at venture-backed tech startups, and this is the key quality I look for. You don't need to hire killers for Fortune 500 companies; in fact, they don't fit in. But startups can only be successful if the founder(s) and leadership team are all killers (also known as A-players). As with F1 and winning the WDC, the margin for error in startups is too small to accept anything less.
We know that Verstappen is a killer, and we saw two killers go head-to-head in Saudi Arabia. Verstappen got the best of Piastri in qualifying, but Piastri hit back with a brilliant start that led Verstappen to miss the corner entirely and incur a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Any objective analysis will conclude that Piastri's superior start put him ahead of Verstappen and in a position to take the corner. Where was Verstappen supposed to go? He's a big boy. He should have braked sooner in order to make the corner, which meant he had to slot in behind Piastri. That's what's dictated by both the rules and physics. But Verstappen doesn't think the rules apply to him, and Piastri was under no obligation to give Verstappen room. The corner was his. It's quite possible Verstappen has finally met his match with Piastri, and he does not like it.
Despite Piastri's and McLaren's formidable challenge, I still believe Verstappen will prevail. His brilliance at Suzuka and Saudi Arabia are two dots in the line of this trend. Granted, these are two high-speed tracks that put the Red Bull on par with the McLarens. Whereas the McLarens will be fast pretty much everywhere. However, this advantage will be offset by the infighting at McLaren, which will see Norris and Piastri taking points off of one another under 'papaya rules' while Verstappen gets the full support of Red Bull and his new teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, who is showing some promise compared to Liam Lawson and Sergio Perez. Plus, Red Bull will continue to develop the car. So while a win for Verstappen at Saudi Arabia would support this prediction, I call 'em like I see 'em. The penalty was deserved and even somewhat forgiving.
We couldn't get a read on this after Australia, and then it looked as though I might have missed this one in China. But after five races, it's clear that Hamilton is not keeping pace with Charles Leclerc. One could argue that he's still getting up to speed with a new team and car. However, the delta to Leclerc is similar to what he had with George Russell at Mercedes, and I think Russell and Leclerc match up quite well. Hamilton's gap to Leclerc hasn't come to the point that it's glaringly uncomfortable for the team or his fans, but we'll certainly get there before the summer break if things don't improve before then. Leclerc's podium in Saudi Arabia deserved Driver of the Day, and Hamilton actually deserves some credit for holding Norris up in their back-and-forth DRS games.
The Williams team currently sits fifth in the World Constructors' Championship (WCC), which is two ahead of where I predicted they'd finish. While Carlos Sainz took five races to get up to speed, the team has been scoring consistent points with both drivers in the top 10 at Saudi Arabia. This is despite the fact that the Alpine appears to be the faster car.
Which brings me to Alpine. Gasly is at the top of his game, extracting 100-percent of the potential from the car. Doohan is struggling. There are plenty of races left to catch Williams and claim fifth, but a decision needs to be made before Miami.