Australian GP: F1 2025 begins with high expectations, different favorite titles and Lewis Hamilton in Ferrari | F1 news
Formula 1 is preparing to move on what could be one of the most concnity and open seasons in the years at the Australian Grand Prix this weekend.
Although sports regulations are largely unchanged for a new campaign, there has been a winter change over the network with 10 of 20 seats that change their hands – the driver re -diverted the arrival of Lewis Hamilton in Ferrari.
“We expect one of the classic formulas seasons and there is nothing we saw in the preseason test in Bahrein, which has changed our minds,” he said Sky Sports F1 Martin Brundle before traveling to Melbourne.
“The best four teams – McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes – are incredibly close.”
The 2025 season represents the fourth and last year of the current era of regulation and comes hot from the back of the second half of the 2024 campaign. In which seven different drivers won in the last 12 races.
Another 24 race weekend in 21 countries now lie in advance in the next nine months and all live Sky Sports F1 AND Sky Sports appWith Melbourne’s often dramatic Albert Park, which has been hosting a seasonal opener for the first time since 2019.
The trail action begins by exercising overnight on Friday before qualifying at 58 rounds at 58 rounds on Saturday at 5am on Sunday.
Norris is the first time favorite of the title?
While incredible Max Verstappen enters his fourth consecutive season as a ruling world champion and aims to reconcile the record of Michael Schumacher about five titles, bookmakers – and many experts – they installed their rival McLaren Lando Norris as the favorite of the pre -season season.
“Out of last year and what we’ve seen on testing, I think Lando’s favorite for the championship for the first time in a career in the season,” he said Sky Sports F1 Karun Chandhok.
Norris, 25, enjoyed the best season of his career in 2024, winning his first four Grands Prix and finishing the winner at the Verstappen World Cup.
However, Verstappen has completed a pleasant 63 British points in the rankings for another year, despite the fact that Red Bull is usurped since the middle of the season, as the fastest network car and McLaren has passed to win his first constructor title in 26 years.
But significant foundations for the fourth driver’s crown were truly set in last season’s early month, when he won seven of the opening of 10 events. So, one year of that early Blitz, but with a one-time domination of Red Bull, it is certainly not yet renovated, an opportunity for Norris, a teammate with McLaren Oscar Piastri and their colleagues protagonists in Ferrari and Mercedes to try to change the narrative in their suitability with everyone who started with zero.
And according to impressed rivals, McLaren seems to be a couple in their new MCL39 that are those with a car that will win early.
“I think McLaren will be pretty strong,” said Mercedes’ George Russell, whose own team he enjoyed encouraging preseason running.
“Lando says they found a lot of winter and looks pretty confident.”
In response, McLaren drivers and team chiefs were played by the MCL39, which shows compared to competition after three days of unusually mixed time in Bahrein, but Norris also admitted that the team was now firmly restored to the front of the field, he and Piastra who are in that season.
“After last year, I think we somehow have no excuse,” Norris said on F1 75 live. “In the past, we had our honest share, but honest and truly pronounces. I don’t think we have something to hide this year. We proved that last year we had everything we needed and everything we needed to fight on top and be the best.”
How will Hamilton’s Ferrari career begin?
For the first time in 13 years, Lewis Hamilton will line up on Sunday morning on the first network of the season, not driving a Mercedes Works car after the F1’s most successful driver joined his most successful team.
Ever since January 20th, Ferrari’s headquarters first arrived – the moment that will always be historical, but has quickly earned absolute iconic status thanks to the photo of the seven -kid champion in the founder of the Enz Ferrari team, like a godfather, Hamilton has embarked on an extensive aclimatation in his new track.
After initially tested some older Ferrari cars in Firan and Barcelona before putting their new SF-25 through steps in Bahrein’s testing, Hamilton’s integration process into their new environment and Italian culture continued on a street demonstration in Milan, along with the new teammate Charles: ” Thifsi.
Whether it really shows that it is immediately true this year, and if it is, whether it is a Hamilton or Leclerc – a driver who scored the most points from all in the second half of 2024. -UU MCLAS construction construction MCLAS -AU MCLAS construction construction MCLAS -AU MCLAS Construction McLes construction
For Hamilton, a widespread fascination is how quickly it will accelerate with its first Ferrari on the track. After a difficult final season in Mercedes, during which he ended up two-year-old drought victory, but made some of the attic mistakes and was handed to a teammate who qualified Russell on his head, now the 40-year-old said he was “slowly connecting” with the SF-25 and that it was the most sincere feeling I had in a long time. “
Enough to fight for a podium or even a victory, at my debut in a race in Melbourne, where Ferrari took two or two last year? Against the new fierce internal challenge in Leclerc, this is one of the most fascinating questions of the open weekend.
Red Bull starts on the back leg?
Verstappen has spent the last 63 dating races since May 2022, sitting on the championship driver’s table, but that record ride seems to be safe after Sunday in Melbourne.
Three days of the preseason testing of the Red Bull with their new RB21 appeared far from the awful, but at the same time it was not so convincing, and certainly compared to last year anywhere near as dominant, around the Bahrain International Circle compared to their three main rivals.
Although there was no greater concern for reliability with a new car, Red Bull ended up at least circles of any team with clothing based in Milton Keynes, seemingly experimenting with various installation, and in the last parts, to try to get the best balance and performance from the car.
Verstappen, who, like the new teammate Liama Lawson had Spin during the test, said after ending the last day with the second fastest time to Mercedes’ Russell that, although the week was “not bad”, “there was still a bit of work.”
But perhaps the most common discovery about where Red Bull came to come from the technical director Pierre Wache, who admitted: “I am not as happy as I could be, because the car did not react as we sometimes wanted, but it goes in the right direction, only maybe the size of the direction was not as big as we expected and something we should work on for the first race and future development.”
Even without the fastest, or even in the second or even third fastest package in the second half of last year, Verstappen still brought home big results regularly – including two impressive victories in the late season – which in the end meant that Norris would never catch him for the title McLaren did.
Therefore, it seems that an early part of the new season can prove to be a similar strenuous challenge, although this time without the comfort of a practical clipboard. However, as his rivals know too well, no one will count Max.
Sky Sports F1 -ov Australian GP -ASA LIVE
Thursday 13th March
- 2.30am: Driver’s press conference
- 5:00: The F1 Show: Lights 2025*
- 21.45: F3 Practice
- 10.55: F2 Practice
Friday 14th March
- 1:00: Australian practice GP one (session begins at 1:30 pm)*
- 2.55 hours: F3 qualifying*
- 3.40 hours: a press conference of the team director
- 4.45 hours: Australian practice GP two (session starts at 5:00)*
- 6.25 hours: F2 qualifying*
- 7.15 hours: F1 Show*
Saturday, March 15th
- 12.10am: F3 Sprint*
- 1.10 hours: Australian Practice GP Three (session begins at 1:30 pm)*
- 3.10 hours: F2 Sprint*
- 4.15: 00: Australian GP qualifying buildup*
- 5:00: Australian qualifying GP -A*
- 7:00: TED -O’s qualifying notebook*
- 21.55: F3 Race features*
Sunday 16th March
- 12.25: 00: F2 Race features*
- 2.30 hours: Australian GP Building-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
- 4:00: Australian Grand Prix*
- 6:00: Australian reaction GP -a: Plated flag*
- 7:00: Ted’s notebook*
- 7.55pm: Australian reproduction of GP race
- 10:00: Australian GP prominent parts
- Villeneuve Pironi – Racing’s Compled Tragedy
*Also at the main event Sky Sports
Check out all 24 racing weekends from the Formula 1 2025 Live Season Sky Sports F1Starting from the Australian GP from March 14 to March 16. Stream Sky Sports with now – No Treaty, cancel anytime
