The Winners and Losers of F1 2025
Winners, Losers & Wild Predictions After the 2025 F1 Season
“Merry Christmas, son.”
It’s been a month since Lando Norris won his first world championship. In less than two months, testing begins. And this isn’t a normal preseason — 2026 brings new power units, new regulations, two new teams, and a higher spending cap.
Next year’s testing won’t be polite sandbagging.
It’ll be revealing.
But first, we close 2025.
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Biggest Winner: Lando Norris
Seven wins. First title. From promising contender to world champion in under two seasons.
It wasn’t dominant. It wasn’t inevitable. He secured it late. But championships aren’t graded on style.
More importantly, McLaren didn’t just win — they overwhelmed the field.
They took both titles and nearly doubled Mercedes’ points in the final year of a regulation cycle, when convergence is supposed to happen.
Instead, separation did.
Grade: A
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The Complicated Case of Oscar Piastri
In his third season, Piastri led the championship for stretches of the year. Then the momentum faded.
When Norris needed pressure late in the season, it wasn’t Piastri applying it. It was Max Verstappen dragging a flawed Red Bull into contention.
If McLaren’s car was as strong as it appeared, both drivers should have been in the fight at the end.
Only one was.
Still immensely talented. Still young. But 2025 will linger.
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Red Bull: Saved by Max
Without Verstappen, Red Bull collapses into midfield irrelevance.
With him, they nearly steal a title.
The car lacked consistency. The second seat was unstable. Yet Verstappen masked almost all of it.
Team Grade: C
(Max adjustment included.)
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Ferrari: The Biggest Disappointment
After narrowly missing the 2024 Constructors’, Ferrari paired Charles Leclerc with Lewis Hamilton.
On paper, that’s a championship lineup.
On track, it never cohered.
Hamilton failed to podium. Leclerc was competitive but never truly threatening. Development stalled. Strategy faltered.
Ferrari and Hamilton together should mean contention, not confusion.
Expectation matters.
Team Grade: D
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The Rookies: Better Than Expected
The early optics were rough. A debut crash on a formation lap. A two-race demotion from Red Bull. Questions about readiness.
By season’s end, the narrative shifted.
Isack Hadjar justified his promotion. Oliver Bearman delivered standout drives. Kimi Antonelli grew into his Mercedes seat. Even those who stumbled showed legitimate pace.
The realistic expectation was survival.
They delivered credibility.
Rookie Class Grade: B+
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Williams: Quiet Progress
For years, Williams drifted at the back of the grid.
In 2025, they stabilized.
With Carlos Sainz and Alexander Albon sharing the scoring load and grabbing podiums, the team looked organized and upward-moving for the first time in a decade.
Not a breakthrough — but unmistakable progress.
Team Grade: B+
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Mercedes: Solid, Not Special
George Russell carried stretches of the season. Antonelli improved steadily.
But McLaren runs Mercedes power units — and doubled them in points.
That comparison is unavoidable.
Team Grade: B+
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Aston Martin: Investment Without Lift
Heavy investment did not translate to meaningful gains.
Fernando Alonso kept them relevant, but this wasn’t the step forward ownership envisioned.
Team Grade: C
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Racing Bulls and Haas: Professional Midfield
Racing Bulls were steady. Haas looked structured and serious.
Bearman’s P4 was one of the drives of the year for a midfield car.
No drama. No collapse. Just competence.
Grades: B range
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Alpine: Collapse
Former champions. Former works powerhouse.
Now adrift.
Poor leadership calls. Poor performance. An unclear future heading into a major regulation reset.
Team Grade: F
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A Bigger Loser: France
No French Grand Prix. Alpine fading. The French engine program ending.
For a country deeply embedded in F1 history, that’s a quiet retreat.
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A Big Winner: America
Three races. Apple controlling U.S. streaming rights. Netflix continuing Drive to Survive. Silicon Valley money everywhere.
Liberty Media’s Americanization of Formula One is no longer subtle.
The United States is the largest media and sponsorship market in the sport.
And it’s reshaping the business model.
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Hollywood, Tech, and the Power Shift
The Brad Pitt F1 film succeeded. Streaming platforms are competing aggressively. Apple is investing heavily.
This isn’t just sports growth.
It’s ecosystem expansion.
And if Apple can’t buy Formula One outright, it’s not inconceivable they buy Liberty Media instead.
Ambitious? Yes.
Impossible? No.
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The Casual Fan Problem
There’s a cost to growth.
Tickets are expensive. Streaming is fragmented. Subscriptions stack up.
The hardcore audience absorbs it.
The casual fan may not.
It’s a tension worth watching.
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2026–27 Predictions
The points system expands to reward the top 15 finishers.
Fernando Alonso finishes ahead of Lewis Hamilton in 2026.
Charles Leclerc signals his exit from Ferrari before the 2026 season ends.
Apple eventually acquires Liberty Media.
And somehow, Helmut Marko reappears.
Because in Formula One, no one ever truly disappears.
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Final Thought
2025 was uneven, dramatic, occasionally messy.
But it confirmed something important.
The sport is bigger than ever.
The money is real.
The next generation is legitimate.
The power structures are shifting.
When testing begins in 2026, we won’t just be measuring lap times.
We’ll be measuring who understands the new era.
