With many new rookies, more equal cars and a great deal of drama, 2025 has been an exciting and action packed year for formula one teams. This was completely different from what we saw in 2023 and even the beginning of 2024. With all of this action, there are sure to be plenty of different dynamics and situations going on with every team around the grid.
The Red Bull car has been a decent top running vehicle for the team for many years, namely in 2023 where they had the most dominant season any team has ever had in Formula One. However, the Red Bull has started to see a drop off in its ability and performance in comparison to other cars such as the McLaren or the Mercedes. Even Max Verstappen, the lead driver for Red Bull said “The car is undriveable,” during an interview before the Chinese grand prix.
The McLaren, on the other hand, is by far and away the most dominant car on the grid, with one of their drivers, Oscar Piastri, finishing almost forty seconds ahead of George Russell who was in third place, and also finishing four and a half seconds ahead of his fellow McLaren, Lando Norris during the Miami Grand Prix.
A forty second lead between constructors is an insane level of difference in performance. The average distance between drivers is three to four seconds, and the leader of the race usually has a slightly smaller lead of two to three seconds. The McLarens, however, are ten times that normal lead, dominating every other car. Sure, the drivers are a major part of it as well, but no driver is able to get that kind of lead in a terrible or even mediocre car. “The McLaren’s are crazy. It’s insane that they are able to lead by so much,” Carter Anchondo, a sophomore at FMHS reports.
McLaren, over the end of last year and the beginning of this year, has started to slowly but surely pull further and further away from the rest of the grid. With it’s ability to take corners at high speeds and prevent sliding, the car is perfect to take on a lot of the current grid line up. As well as this, the cars are able to stay stable in the straights which helps them maintain their positions and defend well against every other car on the grid.
The Mercedes AMG Petronas team has been a very interesting and not well talked about car in its latest development. Lately McLaren and Red Bull have been taking ost of the spotlight with their drama and skill sets, however, Mercedes has been able to slowly but surely catch up and make what is the second best car on the grid. The Mercedes drivers have been consistently in the top five this entire season and have kept a very good pace with good engineering and strategy, no major drama, and an overall solid performance. They recently recruited Kimi Antonelli for his debut year in formula one as their second driver. As a rookie, with the help of his car, he has placed in the top ten five out of the six races and even placed fourth in the Australian Grand prix. Mercedes has shown themselves to be a dominant team in the past and are starting to show more of their capabilities as they develop their car this season.
The Ferrari team has been having a struggle the last couple of years. The last time they won a constructors championship was in 2008, almost seventeen years ago. For a team that is expected to be dominant, and has been in the sport much longer than any other team, this is a shock. This year, in 2025, the team seems to be struggling with leadership and the overall structure of their team starting with communication issues and unclear messages in Australia, to fighting between race engineers in Miami. Even one of their drivers, seven time world champion Lewis Hamilton has gotten exasperated with them getting pretty snippy with his engineers and their indecision saying “Have a tea break while you’re at it, come on!” and “Do you want to let him by too?” as he said over the radio during the miami grand prix; displayed for the audience by ESPN. Ferrari is in desperate need of some sort of change to help them get back to that champion fighting team that everyone knows that they can be. However, it seems like fans will have to wait at least one more year for that.
Overall, this year is set to be very exciting. With differences in cars, a wide range of ages and skills, as well as reasons to fight for every position every lap. Unlike in 2023, though there is clearly a better constructor, it isn’t to a degree where the skill level of other drivers can’t fight back.