Karun Chandhok's 10 big F1 questions of 2025

How will Lewis Hamilton fare against Charles Leclerc’s pace?

Everywhere I’ve gone in the past few weeks, the first question people ask is, ‘Do you think Lewis can win at Ferrari?’ The impact of the most successful driver joining the most successful team has been unprecedented, and the buzz across the global fanbase is great for the sport on the whole. But past history and hype is no guarantee of future success and, crucially, both Lewis and team boss Fred Vasseur are acutely aware of it. The marketing and communications departments will have plenty to excite them, but the number one thing that matters is the on-track performance. Charles Leclerc has always been devastatingly fast over one lap, but I feel like 2024 was his best season in terms of consistency, reducing errors, and race pace. He’s developed into the title contender he wasn’t ready to be in 2022. Charles is also genuinely excited to go up against Lewis because he knows that beating the Brit could be career defining, and I think he will raise his game again.

I greatly admire Lewis for taking on the challenge as he turns 40. With the career he’s had and the money he’s earned, it would have been easy to tick off a couple more years at Mercedes, but he’s gone for a massive legacy project to try to win Ferrari’s first drivers’ title for nearly 20 years. Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso tried but failed and they were at an earlier stage in their careers. There were so many days in 2024 when it seemed like Hamilton wanted to be anywhere but in his Mercedes W15, and I do think that the change will reinvigorate him. If we consistently get the Hamilton magic that we saw in that final stint at Silverstone, then Leclerc – and the others – will have to watch out.

It seems odd to say this about statistically the most successful qualifier in F1 history, but Hamilton will come into this year needing to rebuild his Saturday form. If he ends up three or four cars behind Leclerc on the grid, it will be hard to recover despite any heroics he can perform on a Sunday. Leclerc is too good to let go any advantage he builds by being a few places ahead in the first stint. Qualifying could be key to Hamilton’s success.

Will McLaren still have the best car?

Everything that we’ve seen from May’s Miami Grand Prix onwards last year suggests that McLaren will start 2025 as the favourite. The team had a somewhat disappointing start to the 2024 season but, once it got its upgraded package, the cars were absolutely flying. Every upgrade that was introduced delivered results, the new wind tunnel is going at full steam, and the combination of Rob Marshall alongside the design team led by aero guru Peter Prodromou would now have cemented a much better working relationship.

The race team led by Randy Singh and Will Joseph is full of praise for the work done by the factory. When I popped down to McLaren in December, both of them were very quick to point out how much the team was focused on unlocking more lap time for the following season. There’s a very positive atmosphere at McLaren, one that comes from a no-blame, yet high-performance-driven culture that Andrea Stella has created. Yes, they celebrated the constructors’ championship as they fully deserved to but, very much like Ron Dennis or Frank Williams used to do, the next day after Abu Dhabi the focus was back on the job.

Last season taught us that the level of competition is so close that we shouldn’t judge the form guide for the year based on the first few races. Things can change very quickly with in-season development. The challenge for McLaren this year is that it will have reduced wind tunnel time as a result of success last year. Having 10% less than Red Bull and 15% less than Mercedes are not insignificant amounts, especially as the brain power of the aerodynamics departments will be increasingly focused on 2026.

Norris will target the F1 drivers' title while also aiming to defend McLaren's constructors' championship

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Can Lando Norris win the drivers’ title?

If we assume that my previous answer is correct and McLaren has the fastest car, then this has got to be the year where Lando Norris starts as the title favourite for the first time in his career. History has taught us that most drivers only get one or two chances where the stars align for them to be a title contender, and you have to do everything you can to grab that opportunity. Ask Nico Rosberg about the attention to detail and sacrifices he made in 2016 when he sniffed that chance.

When Norris woke up on Sunday in Miami, he wasn’t yet a race winner and was 60 points behind Max Verstappen. Fast-forward to post-Abu Dhabi and he was 63 points down. The two things I’m highlighting are that Lando lost the title in the first five weekends of 2024 ,when McLaren wasn’t fast enough, and the team and he could have done more to win it even after that.

Dropping positions at the start or the opening lap in Spain, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Austin and Brazil had a direct effect on Norris’s points tally. The team could have done a better job in terms of communication and strategy in Canada and Silverstone as well, which cost him more points, and not being on top of the rules at Austin and in Qatar didn’t help either. Critically, he and the team all know this and will be working to be better.

How will Max Verstappen react if he doesn’t have the best car from the start of the season?

The biggest question the paddock is waiting to get answered is whether Red Bull can reset and regain its competitiveness for 2025. As last season unfolded and the RB20 became relatively less competitive, the questions around Verstappen feeling the pressure started popping up more often.

Personally, I was never a subscriber to the theory that he was feeling the pressure of the title slipping away and publicly said so many times, even though most people didn’t seem to believe me! Verstappen is someone who strives for perfection and sets very high standards for himself and everyone around him. He believes that he is the best, delivers performances worthy of that, and demands that everyone around him does the same. Combine that mentality with his no-nonsense communication style and people often mistake his brutally harsh tone with someone being under pressure. I believe that it’s not pressure – it’s frustration.

Leaving aside the Brazilian masterclass, the drives he put together at Barcelona, Silverstone, Zandvoort and Marina Bay when the Red Bull was not the fastest car were sublime. There’s no doubt that Max pushes the boundaries on legality in terms of wheel-to-wheel racing, but Austria and Austin proved that he’s intelligent enough to know where that boundary is.

Verstappen's super start to last year set up his title success, but what if he and Red Bull are on the backfoot from the off?

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The lunge at Turn 8 with Norris in Mexico and into Oscar Piastri in Abu Dhabi showed that the red mist still comes down on occasion. I believe these were borne out of frustration rather than pressure. Would that happen if he had a car that was at least an equal of the opposition? Maybe not. The rules of engagement are being reviewed for 2025 but, if the RB21 is more competitive, it may not be a conversation anyway.

Will Liam Lawson be a stronger Red Bull driver than Sergio Perez?

The fact that Red Bull has sacked Sergio Perez makes me wonder even more why it didn’t sign Carlos Sainz in the first place. Sure, his dad and Jos Verstappen didn’t get on when the boys were at Toro Rosso, but that was a decade ago and, let’s be honest, it’s not like Christian Horner and Jos are best mates now. I would have even expected the more experienced Alex Albon to be next in the queue as Red Bull still has a historical link with him.

Throwing Liam Lawson into the lion’s den without a full season of F1 experience under his belt is going to be tricky. He’s a driver that I have rated very highly throughout his junior career. Like Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Ollie Bearman, I don’t think Liam’s F2 results on paper were a fair reflection of his talent. He’s smart, fast and has shown already to be a hard racer in wheel-to-wheel combat. Liam’s also got that extra fire in his belly that any young athlete who has sacrificed their home life to live halfway around the world will have (I know that feeling!). He hasn’t bought his way into F1 from a super-wealthy family and is very appreciative of the opportunity that’s come his way.

Psychologically he’s got to approach this challenge in an Eddie Irvine circa 1996-99 sort of way. As a driver it’s hard to accept this, but somehow he’s got to go into this year thinking, ‘I’m team-mates with the best in the business. I’m not going to beat him but I’m bloody fortunate to be in a top seat, and if I can get close to him then there will be days when the stars align for me to win some races.’

Red Bull relied heavily on Verstappen’s extraordinary talent to win the drivers’ title last year. But it’s also clear that his once-in-a-generation ability and car control has sent the team in a developmental direction that has been really biased towards him. This was very much what happened at Benetton in the mid-1990s where Michael Schumacher’s unique style of having a pointy front end and remarkable feel and car control to balance the rear meant that all his team-mates suffered (including Max’s father Jos!). When Michael left, the Enstone team went from domination with him in 1995 to winning one race in the next seven years.

Losing the constructors’ title last year would have been a wake-up call to Red Bull that it needs to create a car that both drivers can handle, while obviously chasing the outright performance and downforce. By finding this overall gain, the greatest drivers will maximise it even more, but it will mean that their team-mates will be closer too. Lawson will be hoping that Red Bull goes for this approach, giving him a less poisonous chalice than his predecessors.

Antonelli comes into F1 as the most hyped rookie in a decade

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Can Andrea Kimi Antonelli live up to the hype at Mercedes?

Every single person who has seen and worked with Antonelli throughout his junior formula career tells me that he’s one of the special ones. Engineers who I have known for many years and whose opinions I trust implicitly tell me that he’s the best talent that they have seen in their cars since Max Verstappen. There is no doubt that he’s got the talent, but is it going to be a case of too much too soon?

I still wonder whether Mercedes would have been better off doing a deal with Sainz and placing Antonelli at Williams for two seasons. James Vowles has said that he’s not interested in training up drivers to send elsewhere, but he also knows first-hand how talented Antonelli is from his time running the Mercedes driver academy, and two years with him would have been better than none.

I’m a bit conflicted with how I feel about Antonelli getting the top seat at Mercedes. Much like Ron Dennis with Hamilton in 2007, I really admire Mercedes for making a bold choice of a rookie; we often criticise teams for being too conservative with driver selection. On the flip side, unlike Antonelli, Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh forced Hamilton to go through every rung of the ladder until he had won the title, sometimes to Lewis’s annoyance, because they knew that he was gaining valuable experience.

George Russell drove very well in 2024 and some of his qualifying performances in particular were outstanding. Mercedes has put together an exhaustive test programme for Antonelli and he will arrive in Melbourne with plenty of miles under his belt. It’s one thing pounding round and round by yourself in testing, however, and another being under the microscope of a race weekend. I actually think that in qualifying, Antonelli’s natural speed will shine through against George but, as Piastri has shown, the bigger challenge for the rookies could be the relentless race pace and tyre management that the experienced drivers execute well.

What can we expect from Carlos Sainz at Williams?

In Las Vegas last year, I was having a conversation with Vowles around what a coup it was for him to get Sainz. We concluded that it’s got to be the first time a midfield team has managed to secure a top, recent race-winning driver for the following season since Damon Hill in 1996 – ironically that was Arrows getting him from Williams!

Williams had a tough season last year. Put simply, if you spend the best part of $10million and the man hours required to repair broken bits, that’s time and money not being spent on making new go-faster bits. Alex Albon is an excellent grand prix driver, but Williams hasn’t had a top-line multiple race winner since Felipe Massa retired. Sainz will bring recent knowledge of where the Williams package is lacking in comparison with the top teams, and also a strong work ethic and fresh perspective that the team will benefit from.

Sainz is expected to deliver Williams a huge push forward

Photo by: Williams

The wave of change at Williams cannot be underestimated. Vowles has often said that the measures he’s putting in place should not be judged until 2026 and I do think that’s fair. The entire process of design, manufacturing and validation is being transformed, which is a massive undertaking while still trying to go racing and cope with a significant regulatory change, let alone mend broken cars reasonably often. Haas and later Alpine quite clearly leapfrogged Williams in terms of pace as the season unfolded, which left the team in ninth, two steps back from 2023. Will it be a question of two steps back to take four steps forward? Let’s give it a bit more time before judging the Vowles era of Williams.

Will Aston Martin reverse its development slump?

The two biggest disappointments of 2024 for me were Mercedes and Aston Martin, but at least the silver cars won races and got podiums. Aston Martin went from scoring 280 points in 2023 to just 94 in 2024, a massive 572 points behind McLaren with the same power unit.

It feels like the start of Aston’s slump can be traced back to Barcelona in 2023. While Fernando Alonso managed to drag three more podiums out that season, they were on weekends where it was raining in either qualifying or the race. The lack of a single podium in 2024 was one thing, but the bigger worry was the lack of progress in terms of pace as the season went on. Alonso’s brilliant tenacity and consistency kept them scoring points, but both he and the Strolls will want more in 2025.

Lawrence Stroll deserves credit for putting his money where it matters. The new factory and wind tunnel are impressive and there’s been a star cast of technical brains brought to the team. Mid-way through 2023, Dan Fallows was being lauded as the man who was going to do for Aston what Adrian Newey did for Red Bull 16 years earlier. Yet by the end of 2024, with the car upgrades not delivering, he was gone, with Newey himself coming to Aston.

This will be Andy Cowell’s first full season in charge of the organisation. Cowell is not just an incredibly clever engineer but, if you listen to his former colleagues at Mercedes, they also talk highly about him being a very good people manager. He has already shown that he’s not afraid to make the decisive changes to restructure the team by first moving Fallows on after the disappointment of the Austin upgrade, but also then promoting himself to team principal and recognising that Mike Krack’s time was better spent focusing on the trackside operations.

Stroll Sr went for the big move last year of signing Newey as a minority shareholder of the team. With Newey joining after the start of the season, 2025 is very much about putting the building blocks in place for the new era beginning in 2026. Cowell and Newey are both engineers-turned-management, and their relationship with a common vision for how the team is run will be absolutely vital to Aston’s future.

Can Alpine have a year of stability?

The last two years at Enstone have been quite extraordinary, with a massive turnover of senior management and staff across the board. We’ve seen the public battle between the race team and the workers’ unions of their own engine department at Viry-Chatillon play out in the grandstands at Monza, and a new Mercedes engine deal moving it away from being a works manufacturer team from 2026 onwards.

Alpine will be hoping for a season of calm and steady progress

Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images

The latter point does raise the question of how long the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance will stay in the sport purely as a branding exercise because, in terms of team valuation, it is significantly up on what it paid when it took over from Genii Capital nearly a decade ago. Once the Concorde Agreement is signed, it would be a good time to package it up for sale, and certainly a fully functioning race team with plans to upgrade the wind tunnel and simulator on site, plus a Mercedes engine contract for the new generation, will make it an appealing proposition.

As far as the race team is concerned, this is the first off-season that Oliver Oakes and Flavio Briatore have been in charge together, and Oakes has started bringing in his trusted lieutenants into senior roles, including Dave Greenwood as racing director. This
is also the first winter that David Sanchez will be leading the technical department, after joining in May last year.

Judging by all the noises I’ve heard from engineers on the race team and in the factory, Sanchez has had a very positive and calming influence, offering a degree of practical and pragmatic thinking that has helped the team across the board. The 2025 car will be a carryover of last year’s chassis but the trend of performance, especially from Pierre Gasly in the final third of the season, indicates that there is untapped potential that the team can extract as it lays the blocks in place for a new era in 2026.

Which F1 rookie is under most pressure in 2025?

After a year in which we started the season with no changes to the grid, I love the fact that we not only have 80% of the teams with a new line-up for 2025 but also almost one third of the drivers will be full-season rookies. Of course Lawson, Ollie Bearman and Jack Doohan have done some races, but being dropped into a seat in the middle of the season is completely different to having a full winter and pre-season to prepare for the year ahead.

There’s nowhere to hide in F1, and all of a sudden every sector of every lap will be analysed and judged by people in the commentary boxes as well as millions of others at home. Drivers such as Hamilton, Verstappen, Leclerc and Piastri have raised the bar in terms of expectations for a rookie. There’s really not much grace period afforded to drivers anymore, and I guess nor should there be – F1 isn’t a finishing school, you’re there because you’re ready to fight with the best, albeit with some slack to gain experience.

Gabriel Bortoleto, Bearman and Isack Hadjar will be less under the spotlight since they’re not in top seats, while nobody is realistically expecting Lawson to blow Verstappen away. This means that the rookies under the most pressure are undoubtedly Antonelli and Doohan. The Italian is not only coming into F1 with a top team and the biggest amount of hype from this group, but has also had the best preparation in terms of testing mileage to prepare. With Alpine signing Franco Colapinto, Doohan has already been given a warning that he needs to look over his shoulder. I really love to see rookie drivers come in and do well, and I genuinely hope that this cohort can seize their opportunity to deliver on track.

This article is one of many in the new monthly issue of Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the March 2025 issue and subscribe today.

All 20 drivers and 10 teams at the F175 launch event marked the start of the 2025 season

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