What can we take away from the first two races of the 2025 season?

If someone had said a year ago that Williams Racing Team would been on par with Ferrari in the constructor’s championship, it would have been a wild prediction. Yet, here we are two races into the 2025 season and the top 5 teams are Mclaren, Mercedes, Red Bull Racing, Williams and Ferrari – Williams and Ferrari both sitting with 17 points.

In just two races fans have been given a wet opening race and a sprint weekend with plenty of topics to talk about.

Chinese Grand Prix 2025

1) Is there anything good to take away from the Ferraris after these two opening races?

There were high hopes for Ferrari at the end of the 2024 season, but these hopes have quickly simmered down. From strange radio calls, to a racing incident, nobody then thought it could get any worse. But it did of course as both drivers were summoned to the stewards at the end of the race to face a disqualification from the Chinese Grand Prix Race.

A big shame as Leclerc said he felt more confident coming into this Sunday with a different set up and better race pace. That confidence was soon marred when his car got damaged in the very first lap with a touch to his teammate's car. It was deemed a racing incident as neither predicted their moves in the midst of a fight between all 20 cars.

 This however meant that Leclerc sustained damage to his front wing affecting his race. The team chose not to replace the front wing in order to avoid falling further behind in positions. A reminder that this is not a track Leclerc feels confident in and there may have possibly been fear in making up on the lost time if they had opted for the longer pit stop. He consequently felt he could ‘survive’ better staying on the one stop strategy till the end of the race.

Leclerc finished a respectable P5 after losing his long standing P4 position to Verstappen in the last few laps when he lost his race pace. There was even a point that Leclerc was chasing Mercedes’ George Russel for a podium position, but a slight mistake dampened this desire.

Hamilton had an incredible Saturday with the sprint race. He successfully put the Ferrari on pole and continued the success with a dominant sprint win – his first in a Ferrari and one he described as what ‘he now understands what it means to win in a Ferrari’. This accomplishment unfortunately couldn’t continue into the Sunday Grand prix after a set up change led to him struggling with the race pace.

To make matters worse; both drivers were then disqualified from the race as Hamilton’s skid block “was measured and found to be… below the minimum thickness of 9mm”. Leclerc’s car was also found to be under the minimum required weight of 800kg. When his car was weighed after the race along with his retrieved endplate and an official spare front wing (following his damage with Hamilton), the car weighed 800.5kg. However, after fuel was drained from the car [as per the draining procedure submitted by Ferrari] the car was then found to be 799kg. The same happened to Alpine’s driver Pierre Gasly who also faced disqualification from the Chinese Grand Prix.

This is a track which Hamilton has historically done very well on and one that Leclerc is not very confident on, which did continue to prove itself this weekend.

Coming into China, the Ferrari did show improvements in qualifying times and did show some good race pace. By the end of the sprint race, Hamilton won by a clear 6 seconds – one that even Piastri in the McLaren couldn’t quite catch up to in the dirty air. Leclerc showed faster race pace in the grand prix with a different set up and it would have been interesting to see how he would have finished without any damage. The car does exhibit potential to do better despite an unlucky start and both drivers and team principle still have faith in the coming races.

2)        Will we see Lawson racing in Japan?

When Liam Lawson got called into the second seat at Red Bull, there was plenty of speculation on whether his competitor Yuki Tsunoda deserved it more. Red Bull racing CEO and team principle Christian Horner was adamant that Lawson’s race pace was on par with teammate Max Verstappen, and he was the right person for the second seat.

Unfortunately, this has not translated well into the season as the Kiwi driver has qualified a disappointing P18 in Australia and P20 in both the Chinese sprint race and the grand prix. He has been unable to score a single point in all 3 races, whereas his teammate sits second in the drivers standing with 36 points.

Onboards have made it evident that the red bull car is not the smoothest to drive this year. It is very much Verstappen’s incredible talent to control a very sharp front end that has led to his success rate while the second seat driver (since Daniel Ricciardo) seems to struggle. Verstappen has made it no secret that the 2025 Red Bull car is ‘not easy’ to drive despite pulling out a respectable P4 in China and P2 in Australia.

Last season, Checo Perez disappointed the team by not being able to score enough points and the decision was made to replace him. However, as Ted Kravitz (Sky Sports) tells Horner “You didn’t pay off Checo for this… the point was to replace Checo with a quicker driver”.

Following this weekend’s frustrations for Red Bull, there has been heavy rumours of a swap between Tsunoda and Lawson for the Japanese Grand Prix. This would mean Yuki Tsunoda taking on the role of the second driver at Red Bull while Lawson gets demoted back to the sister team Racing Bulls [who seems to have a far more stable car set up] alongside rookie Isaac Hadjar. Nothing has been confirmed by either teams.

3)        McLaren stays on top

Just as predicted from the 2024 constructors’ championship, the McLaren Racing team have successfully won the two first races of the season and a respectable 1-2 podium in China. The car has shown tremendous speed from two very talented and hungry drivers in Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Each driver securing comfortable wins.

There is no doubt that the car is the best out of all so far and is expected to stay on top throughout the season. The interesting aspect to witness is the growth in driving skills from Oscar Piastri this season as both drivers now hold the qualities needed in a number one driver.

Last year, McLaren lost a lot of points from bad strategy calls and failing to determine which driver to prioritise. As both drivers will be hungry for the drivers’ championship title this year, there is an exciting curiosity around what will happen between the two drivers and how the team will respond to their eagerness.

Piastri had a weekend he probably wanted to forget in Australia as he was one of the drivers who suffered a huge loss in time after going off the track during the wet race. His determination to get that car back on track, where most other drivers probably would have called it quits, showed fans just how important this means to him. Lando Norris won the race despite everything thrown at him.

In China, luck changed between the two with Lando suffering possible break damage and losing a lot of time, despite getting P2, while his teammate Oscar drove a very dominant race and kept his lead throughout.

It is interesting to keep in mind that this is only Oscar’s 3rd year in Formula 1 and he has proven exactly why there was so much hype around him through the motorsport stages. Lando has been with McLaren from the very beginning of his F1 career (2019) and he is incredibly loved and respected by the team. Despite many learning curves from both drivers, it is safe to say that both drivers now possess the abilities to win the championship – both drivers and constructors.

4)        So how exactly are Williams racing on par with Ferrari in the constructors championship?

With Ferrari’s disqualification from the Chinese Grand Prix, the team have lost 18 points. Meanwhile Carlos Sainz scored 1 when he moved up to 10th position and Alex Albon scored 6.

Adding this to Albon’s 10 points in Australia after his P5 position equates to 17 points in total for William’s.

Both Ferrari boys earned 5 points from the Australian Grand Prix and 12 points from the sprint race which also equates to 17 from what would have been 35.