Lewis Hamilton’s arrival at Ferrari is the main talking point ahead of a season full of intriguing narratives. It will be a year marked by numerous shifts and new faces, including Adrian Newey’s move to Aston Martin and Kimi Antonelli’s debut at Mercedes. At the same time, the 2025 season promises to be a thrilling battle, with storylines that go beyond the championship outcome. This year represents a period of new chapters, major changes, and nostalgic farewells.
Ferrari Revolution
The media frenzy surrounding Lewis Hamilton’s signing overshadows the broader transformation taking place at Maranello. Under Frederic Vasseur’s leadership, Ferrari is embracing a more open approach, strengthening itself with new talent from outside and granting greater creative freedom to its internal resources. The result is a cultural shift reflected in the car’s design philosophy and overall approach.
There are many reasons why Ferrari hasn’t won a world title since 2008. One of them lies in recurring traits seen in its recent cars—flashes of competitiveness, especially in qualifying and tight corners on street circuits, but a lack of consistency over a full season. These issues stem from a narrow operating window and instability through high-speed corners on traditional circuits. The SF-24 initiated a shift, prioritizing race performance over qualifying speed and serving as a testing platform for improving cornering stability in its successor. Ferrari is now re-evaluating everything, and 2025 could mark the true turning point, redefining its design philosophy from the past decade.
McLaren’s First Car Under Marshall
McLaren’s constructors’ title win in 2024 validated the team’s model under Zak Brown and Andrea Stella, paving the way for a new era. The 2025 car is the first designed mechanically, structurally, and architecturally under the guidance of Rob Marshall, a key acquisition from Red Bull in recent years. “His expertise in car design, particularly in architecture, has impressed us more than expected,” said Stella. “He’s doing all the groundwork for 2025 and 2026. We lacked someone like him.”
McLaren’s 2025 car will be far from a mere evolution of the 2024 championship-winning machine. Marshall has overseen various projects, ensuring that only concepts applicable to the 2026 regulations are pursued. Certain solutions previously tested at Red Bull will help optimize packaging and provide greater flexibility to Peter Prodromou’s aerodynamics department. Furthermore, the new McLaren is the first car developed entirely within the team’s state-of-the-art wind tunnel in Woking, which became operational in October 2023, marking a fresh chapter for the team.
The Last Dance
2025 will also be a year of farewells. It will be Renault’s final season as an engine manufacturer before Alpine switches to Mercedes power in 2026. The hybrid era has yielded few successes for Renault, but its historical contributions remain significant, from securing the first turbocharged F1 victory in 1979 to perfecting blown exhausts on Red Bull’s championship-winning cars with Sebastian Vettel. A Renault-powered podium finish before the end of the year would be a fitting farewell ahead of a potential return in the future.
Renault’s struggles in the turbo-hybrid era pushed Red Bull toward Honda, a partnership that will also come to an end in 2025. Red Bull’s exceptional chassis and aerodynamics pushed Honda to go all-in, accelerating power unit changes in 2021, which ultimately secured the first of Max Verstappen’s four titles. Conversely, Red Bull’s success would not have been possible without Honda’s efficient and reliable engines. This collaboration is already an iconic chapter in F1 history.
The End of an Era
The upcoming season marks the final year of the current ground-effect regulations, providing an opportunity to assess the impact of the 2022 rule changes. The success of a regulatory cycle is best measured in its final season when cars are at their peak potential, leading to a convergence in performance. However, by 2024—just three years after the new rules debuted—F1 had already achieved unprecedented on-track parity, whereas previous cycles required at least five seasons before producing a genuine title fight.
Additionally, 2025 will be the last year of the current hybrid power units. Introduced in 2014, this engine formula has faced criticism for its muted sound, long-standing performance disparities, and rising costs—factors that led to Honda’s initial exit and Renault’s upcoming departure. Yet, from a technological standpoint, F1 has never tackled a challenge of this magnitude, pioneering innovations like the MGU-H and pushing engine efficiency to 50%, far surpassing the once-thought-impossible 33% barrier. This chapter in F1 history deserves to be savored to the very end.
Race Against Time Some stories unfold away from the spotlight, far from the intensity of race weekends. Behind the scenes, new engine manufacturers like Audi and the Red Bull-Ford consortium are preparing for their debuts, but nothing compares to the challenge General Motors is facing. Pending FIA approval, Cadillac will have just a few months to assemble an F1 operation with a few hundred employees, compared to the 2,000-strong workforce of top teams. A daunting task, even for the most optimistic observers—just one of many stories to watch in an action-packed 2025 season.
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