As the floodlights prepare to illuminate the 5.5km track in the glamorous desert of Abu Dhabi, one can’t help but wonder about the events of this instalment of Formula One.
A season we will remember for many things, but it will be most remembered for being a tumultuous season that shouldn’t have been.
We start in Australia, and the papaya of McLaren announce themselves strongly after a good end to 2024. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri occupy the front row, and this becomes a common sight for many of the opening races.
It would take 16 races before we see more than two races where it’s not one of the McLaren pair that wins; and team principal Andrea Stella and CEO Zak Brown are in heaven. This is the stuff of dreams. But trouble is brewing.
From as far back as April, it was put to McLaren that maybe they need to pick a lead driver. Do they go with Piastri — who was on a brilliant run of races — or do they back Norris, Brown’s golden boy?
Bold declaration
“We have two No 1s,” says the McLaren CEO, a bold declaration, great for fans, but a moment of licking lips for the rest of the paddock, and surely a moment that, when considered in hindsight, was a mistake.
Hate him or love him, Verstappen can never be out of the conversation, and if the last few races are anything to go by, Mad Max is the headache McLaren did not need
Elsewhere in Maranello, Lewis Hamilton (7- or 8-time world racing champion, depending on who you ask) is in Ferrari red; he teams up with Charles Leclerc, kicking out Carlos Sainz, who finds himself at Williams, while youngster Kimi Antonelli takes Hamilton’s seat at Mercedes.
Hamilton has a disastrous season, one he declares is his “worst behind the wheel”, with no win in a race, languishing behind his younger teammate and a growing chorus of keyboard warriors calling for his sacking. The prancing horse has some soul-searching to do.
Sainz, the man Ferrari booted in favour of Hamilton, has had two podiums in a Williams, a feat unthinkable a year ago.
Ollie Bearman, the rookie driving for the Haas F1 Team and Ferrari’s technical partner, is having a phenomenal end to the year, and some pundits argue he should get Hamilton’s seat and birth a new, fresh direction for F1’s most successful team.
Stuff of fiction
The events at Red Bull are the stuff of fiction: a car design guru leaving; a team principal embroiled in controversy and ultimately shown the door; and a car as predictable as Donald Trump’s social media feed.
But they have Max Verstappen, clinical, calculating and forever in the mix. Hate him or love him, Verstappen can never be out of the conversation, and if the last few races are anything to go by, Mad Max is the headache McLaren did not need.
With the 2026 F1 season a few months out, we say goodbye to a host of what has made the last couple of years exciting.
We will not see the Drag Reduction System fly open on those straights; we will see cleaner fuel and larger batteries playing a part; we will see new entrants in Cadillac and a rebranded Sauber as Audi; we will also see a host of technical designs and a flat floor.
Goodbye 2025 you have been fun, over to you 2026.
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