Before we start, my deep condolonces, to the Biffle, Grossi, Dutton and Lunders families after the horrible plan crash tragedy that happened just before I clicked “post”. Greg Biffle was not only one of NASCAR’s greatest drivers, but he was also a wonderful humanitarian, who was on the front line of the relief efforts during the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. He and everyone else, will be very sadly missed.
Welcome to Part 2 of my 2025 Formula 1 Season Review. In Part 1, we started going through the midfield scrap with Alpine, Kick Sauber’s final season and Haas’ new chapter. And now, we finish the fight with the leaders in the clubhouse – Aston Martin, Racing Bulls and Williams! Skip to the bottom if you wanna go back to Part 1 in case you missed it. Otherwise, let’s continue.
Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team
Constructor’s Position: Seventh (89 Points)
Head-To-Head Records: Alonso 29-1 In Qualifying, 17-12 In Races
Best Finish: 5th (Hungary)
Season In A Nutshell: The Prelude
The countdown clock has begun. Aston Martin’s finally putting the pieces of the puzzle together before the big reveal of what their 2026 contender looks like. But man, it feels overly messy for them, and what they are right now, isn’t great.
If you compare them to last year, it’s quite interesting that back then, they started as an upper-midfielder and scored points pretty easily, but as the year went on, they struggled to stay on pace as their competition got better. This year was the opposite, with a slow start, and then got better as the year went on. They ultimately ended up with a very similar amount of points (94 last year), but because of that chasing pack all getting better, 89 dropped them to seventh rather than fifth. 2025 is so weird, I swear to- *is taken out back and beaten with a cricket bat*
The car was… fine? I think? See, the difficult thing about evaluating Aston Martin this year is that the disparity between their drivers was big enough that it’s hard getting a read exactly where they sat in the pecking order. Lance Stroll started strong with a P6 in Australia’s rain and ninth in China, but then took half the season off. In the right hands (Fernando’s), the AMR25 was pretty good. Certainly fast over a single-lap given the Spaniard’s never been known for his Qualifying and yet he made Q3 13 times across the season. And despite not scoring a point until his home round in Barcelona, he still ended up in the Top 10 of the Championship, out-scoring both Hulkenberg and Hadjar by five. Unc still got it?
Behind the scenes though, things look a little messier. Adrian Newey’s starting to put his backroom together, and we’ve had two big technical reshuffles this season. The first was seven of the senior design staff being let go, only for a bombshell just a couple of months later, where in November, it was announced that Adrian Newey will be Team Principal for the first time in his nearly 40 years in F1. Turns out he and Andy Cowell weren’t on the same page, despite the latter being just a year into his role as TP and CEO. Turns out, when you give your legendary figure a £25m a year salary, an ownership stake in the team, a seat on the board and free-reign on technical hierarchy, apparently there’s still confusion over who’s in charge?
Cowell’s now Chief Strategic Officer, a role that you can’t even find on LinkedIn, mostly to talk to the incoming Honda powertrain department (makes sense), and I can’t help but think this entire front office was Lawrence Stroll cutting the cheques to bring in the people he wanted, but then not having a strategy in place to incorporate them. I’m still divided on Newey’s new role. On the one hand, he’s arguably the best prepared Team Principal ever seen in F1, coming off the back of being able to do whatever the hell he wanted at Red Bull for nearly 20 years. He’ll have the support staff to take some of the other roles away like speaking and media and whatnot. But he’s also 67 on Boxing Day, he won’t even be in attendance for every race weekend, and you could make an argument that if he’s TP, it’s taking time away from what he’s best at, which is being your car whisperer. Not sure if that trade off is worth it, especially with Newey explaining that he’s not going to be at every race.
2026 is right around the corner. This is what Aston Martin have been waiting for since we got a glimpse of their promise in 2023. You’ve got the biggest technical name in the business, a Championship-winning power-unit supplier exclusively in Honda, and an F1 legend behind the wheel, even if he’s 45 next year. Anything less than the 2023 start where they were immediately on the podium, will feel like a disappointment. This is a team that’s written a lot of cheques and made some lofty statements, but have they got the minerals when it counts? And arguably just as importantly… Can they win with Lance Stroll in one of their cars?! (Probably not.)
Lance Stroll – 16th in Points (33), 6 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 6th / Average Start: 15.7 / Average Finish: 13.7 (23 Races)
Before I really get into Lance’s season, a small tangent if you’ll entertain me. Can we please stop this shit about Lance not wanting to be here? I get it, he’s not the media’s best friend. I know Aston Martin is generally quite protective of him. Given how some on the Internet have treated him (Some of it fairly, some people who own mohawks rather unfairly), it’s understandable that he’d become reluctant to open up to a world where a lot of people don’t want him to be there.
On a human level, that sucks. It feels like because it’s Year 9 of Lance’s career, and we can’t just say he’s not very good, we have to bend narratives around that to placate our feelings on it. I don’t care what you tell me – Someone who (wrongly) smashes up a garage in frustration of a Q1 elimination or tries to drive on broken wrists has never come across to me as someone who doesn’t want to be there. Critical thinking people, he’s a billionaire’s son – If he didn’t want to drive racecars, he’d have walked years ago.
We can just say he’s not very good. And this season, he wasn’t very good. Arguably, the weakest qualifier in F1 this season pound-for-pound with just two Q3 appearances, barely avoiding the seasonal sweep (if you include the Sprints), and on average he was four tenths a lap behind Fernando. Unideal.
He still had a handful of really solid drives, including his opening round salvo in Australia, and three seventh placed finishes in a block of four at Silverstone, Hungary and Zandvoort, but when Fernando’s in that ball park week-in and week-out, it feels like another classic Stroll season where he just isn’t up to the standard you want him to be in a team that has grander aspirations.
As I’ve said here before, it’s easy to be cynical about Lance – He has the safest seat in the sport, and he’s going to be here as long as he wants to be, so it’s only going to be a bigger and bigger eyesore as the years roll by and the team gets more ambitious about itself. And this is a guy who’s hitting 200 starts next year. Man. 4/10
Fernando Alonso – 10th in Points (56), 10 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 5th / Average Start: 10.2 / Average Finish: 11.9
Can you hear the bells, Fernando? They’re still saying you’re actually decent at this shit.
I’ll get the disappointment out of the way – Fernando isn’t in my Top 10. He just missed out. I just felt better about having the drivers in ninth and tenth compared to Fernando given he’s in an environment where it’s a little easier to impress and in a car that given Alonso’s tough start to the year, was probably a little stronger than all the other midfield contenders not named Williams.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a really good year, and you could absolutely make an argument that its Top 10 worthy. Alonso’s tough start wasn’t all of his own making, even if the Australia crash was an opportunity gone begging. He had a couple of driver moments across the year that show that the old man is losing half a step, like the spin in Qatar. But when on it, he is still more than good enough to be on this grid and in one of the better overall seats.
Think about it – From Barcelona onwards, Alonso hit the points 10 times in 16 rounds, and was a damn good qualifier too as mentioned earlier. The final round of the season where he finished 6th in Abu Dhabi while backing up a huge DRS train, and Esteban Ocon, his old teammate telling the media, “This is what he does, he knows all the tricks”, is classic Alonso, and why so many people appreciate him.
He’s about to make history – F1’s first 45-year old driver since Graham Hill in 1973. And he’s still more than good enough to be there. It could be an interesting year, Alonso has openly said that if the car is great, he’ll step aside at the end of 2026 as he considers his work done. Will he? Overall, really solid season again from the Veteran. 7/10
VISA Cashapp Racing Bulls F1 Team
Constructor’s Position: Sixth (92 Points)
Head-To-Head Records (Hadjar vs Lawson) – Hadjar 21-6 in Qualifying, 19-8 In Races
Best Finish: 3rd (Zandvoort)
Season In A Nutshell: Say Yes To The Mess
Welcome to Part 1 of the Red Bull messy bitch saga, Year 20. Racing Bulls were swept up and heavily involved in the mess that made up their senior team’s chaotic year. Despite that, I think they had a pretty good season overall, which puts them in a pretty weird place for 2026. Let me explain.
Yuki Tsunoda was in this team and had a full off-season to prepare. He was pretty solid the first two weekends of the season… and then he got yanked out and chucked into the senior team incinerator car, because they single-handedly broke Liam Lawson after just a month and a cup and coffee. And when Lawson came back, he was dumped on the opposite side of the garage because his old crew, were now being used for Isack Hadjar. Not ideal. (Credit to Ciara from our Discord, I didn’t know this, thanks my friend)
And then half way through the season, Team Principal Laurent Meikes was poached and made CEO at Red Bull Racing after Christian Horner was unceremoniously fired after Max Verstappen spun at Silverstone that one time. In comes Alan Permane, a man with three decades experience at Enstone, and former Sporting Director. And I think overall between the pair of them, they did an excellent job of managing a potentially difficult situation.
It took them a while, but Liam Lawson did slowly regain his confidence with his more familiar surroundings and started scoring good points, despite some occasional sketchy driving. More on that in a bit. But the star of the show was Isack Hadjar. The F2 Championship runner-up in 2024 came back from an embarrassing formation lap crash at a wet Albert Park, to immediately be on the pace and fighting for points in China. I try not too hard to evaluate “mental strength” because I’m no psychologist, but on any level, that’s mighty impressive and he for me, was the best rookie in a field stacked with them in 2025.
All that in a really solid all-round car. Good downforce on technical circuits, with a really high top speed that made them difficult to deal with on power tracks like Baku and Vegas. Throw in great leadership and a big improvement in the strategy department, being the first to work out how to manage the two-stoppers in Monaco, and getting everyone on the same page was impressive too.
So of course, Racing Bulls is starting over again for 2026. Hadjar was too good for his own good, and now has to figure out how to turn off the incinerator car, and Arvid Lindblad makes his F1 debut as the sport’s only rookie heading into a new regulation set. I’m still not fully convinced he’s ready and think he needs another year’s seasoning in F2 (I fear he could be another Tsunoda if not handled well), but Racing Bulls have generally done well with the talent they have. And just how good is Liam Lawson at this point now he’s expected to lead a team, coming off a year where he was second best to another rookie?
Again, I rate Alan Permane a lot. One of the best sporting directors in F1. It’s potentially a good problem to have. But we’ll see how Racing Bulls plays out in 2026. I think there’s a lot of ways this could go wrong, but also many where it goes right.
Liam Lawson – 14th in Points (38), 7 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 5th / Average Start: 12.3 / Average Finish: 13.2
Said it before in this series, will do so again – I feel a bit bad for Lawson here. On paper, this isn’t a bad season, but it’s another case of Folger-itis (See Bortoleto in Part 1). Because Hadjar was so great alongside him in the same garage, it makes Lawson look a bit worse than deserved by comparison.
Some mitigation is due, as mentioned with the inadvertent crew swap when he returned home, and the fact he didn’t get an off-season to bed in with the car. So understandably, he struggled a bit in the first third of the year. But as 2025 rolled on, he definitely pulled out some good drives. He beat his own career high three times across the year, in Monaco when excellent teamwork lead to RB’s second best points day, sixth in Austria without major shenanigans, then fifth in Baku, where the car’s excellent top speed left him borderline unpassable. When on it, there’s still a really good driver here.
But there were also some clumsy days where his racecraft left a lot to be desired. No one had more penalties in 2025 for causing a collision than Lawson did – Four in total, including two in Bahrain after hitting Stroll and Hulkenberg, another with Alonso in the Miami sprint, and hitting Bearman in the Brazil sprint. Even in the final round of the year in Abu Dhabi, he got the rare “Driving Eratically” penalty against Bearman again, where he admitted fault. 5 penalty points across the season, He loses half a point with me in the overall score for avoidable sketchy bullshit.
Overall, I still think Lawson was okay. Fast for sure, but still with some problems to address, mostly via his aggression. The problem is, I’m not sure we should be saying that about a guy whose 35 starts into his career now, especially with a surprisingly better rookie alongside the garage. 2026 is going to be a huge year as to seeing just what Lawson truly is. 5/10
Isack Hadjar – 12th in Points (51), 1 Podium, 10 Top 10’s / Average Start: 9.8 / Average Finish: 11.8 / 2025 Rookie of the Year / Dre’s Top 10 Drivers of 2025 – #6
Liam Lawson, meet your Johann Zarco. As much as it burns me to admit it, Isack Hadjar might be Helmut Marko’s final parting gift for the Red Bull team.
Going into 2025, Hadjar felt like the rookie with the most to lose. Antonelli was groomed into his role by Mercedes from Age 12. Bearman had hype going in from his stand-in spells and four F2 wins as a rookie. Bortoleto was joining a poor team so the pressure was off. Jack Doohan… anyway. Hadjar was going into a famously ruthless battleground against a 4-year veteran in Yuki Tsunoda who was still solid in Racing Bulls colours. And then he crashed on the formation lap in Australia and was comforted by Anthony Hamilton for the world to see. Oh boy.
But I’ll give Hadjar this given he’s a huge anime fan. He bounced back harder than Gohan after Android 16 gets destroyed. Man landed in China and got to work, qualifying seventh immediately. Hadjar’s pace was electric out of the box – 16 Q3 appearances in all, only eliminated in Q1 twice all season, the eighth best average start in the field and over a tenth quicker than Lawson on average.
Hadjar quickly racked up points, but we all know the jewel in his crown was the Zandvoort weekend, where he qualified fourth, was matching Max Verstappen for pace, and when Lando Norris suffered a car failure, he took a legit podium finish on merit, the first for the B-Team since Pierre Gasly’s third place in Baku four years ago. He’s Top 10 in the standings if his wheel cover doesn’t fall off and puncture his tire in Qatar from P6.
Hadjar played down the likelihood of being a Red Bull driver with the form he was in. Turns out, he was probably more ready than he gave himself credit for… either that or he was being a very good liar. Either way, he’s earned the opportunity. It’s a pressure cooker that’s laid waste to everyone before it, but the new regulations, and blank slate could be an opportunity to give Hadjar the best possible chance of success. For his sake, I hope it works out, he’s an exceptional talent and for me, the pick of everyone outside of what you’ll see in Part 3 as “The Big Five”. 8.5/10
Atlassian Williams Racing
Constructor’s Position: Fifth (137 Points)
Head-To-Head Records: Sainz 17-12 In Qualifying, Albon 16-13 In Races
Best Result: 3rd (x2 – Baku and Qatar)
Season In A Nutshell: Meet Potential Man
Damn, didn’t think James Vowles and his sexy voice had it in him. But Williams, comfortable fifth in the standings, well clear of 100 points and actually fulfilling some promise. “Potential man” is coming good with Williams’ best season since 2016.
I was skeptical about them going in for a few reasons. We didn’t know what Carlos Sainz was going to be coming out of Ferrari. Turns out he was pretty good once he found his footing. There were concerns about Grove from an operational standpoint. There was a rough patch for Alex Albon in the middle of the season but generally, better. And I was concerned that the car being a glorified carryover from 2024 would be an issue. So of course Albon scored points in seven out of the first eight weekends, including three Top 5 finishes.
Do you know how wild it was that a carryover Williams was out fighting and beating Ferrari’s and Mercedes’ in the first half of the season? Albon was doing damage early on and for the first time in a decade, Williams looked like podium challengers on pace alone.
The hype was derailed in the middle of the year. Albon was taken out in Spain, before back-to-back power unit failures in Canada and Austria, the latter being a double donut given Sainz brakes caught fire before the race had even started. But Sainz picked up the slack in the back half, with two monster podium finishes in Baku off the back of a brilliant early qualifying banker amidst the chaos, and in Qatar, doing enough to hold off ol’ bestie Lando Norris late on. Nice Sprint Podium in Austin too.
That’s what makes Williams somewhat frustrating. They were really good, but you can see with Albon’s huge late season drop off, Sainz taking the time to acclimatize, some technical issues sprinkled in too, this could have been a team with a 100-point driver, and a team around 170-200 points. There’s still room for improvement here, despite the obvious gains.
And that’s what worries me about this team. They have to start all over again with the 2026 regulations, they’re a customer team so the power-unit is Russian Roulette (even if Mercedes you’d think would give you a shot), and I’ve heard rumblings on the grapevine that there’s been staff poached for other teams in the last year or so. I think if there’s a team that’s risky for recession next year, it’s this one.
But that’s tomorrow’s problem, an exceptional season for Williams, and we’re starting to see Vowles’ vision for the project. But can they do the unthinkable and bridge the gap between them and the big factory hitters?
Alex Albon – 8th in Points (73), 11 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 5th / Average Start: 12.8 / Average Finish: 11 / Dre’s Top 10 Drivers of the Year – #10
If this was the mid-season vibe check, Albon would be in the Top 5. The Thai driver started the season doing what he’s done so well for the last four years – Putting the WIlliams brand on his back and racking up the points.
Albon scored points in seven out of the first eight races, and three of them, were Top 5 finishes. In Year 3 of the Vowles programme, there were races like Imola where Williams were punching above Mercedes and giving Ferrari a bloody nose. Albon’s probably fourth that day if it wasn’t for Leclerc’s referendum on the Driving Guidelines later on.
Albon was at 150-point pace, but then his season hit the skids in the back half. Three unfortunate DNF’s in a row with Lawson hitting him in Catalunya followed by two engine failures in Canada and Austria. Albon scored only three points after Monza for the rest of the season, and none of them were in Grand Prix. He looked ropey, acted flustered on the team radio, and made some uncharacteristic errors like driving into Lewis Hamilton in Vegas and Franco Colapinto in Baku.
I don’t think there’s a huge cause for concern, rough spells happen, and Albon’s done more than enough in blue to earn a benefit of the doubt, but I will be curious to see how 2026 starts out. There is a chance we’re starting to see his teammate start exerting his will on the team. 7.5/10
Carlos Sainz Jr. – 9th in Points (64), 2 Podiums, 10 Top 10’s / Average Start: 11.2 / Average Finish: 12.2 / Dre’s Top 10 Drivers of the Year – #9
Carlos’ season across the garage was somewhat of the opposite to his teammates. But that’s also a bit more natural due to the fact he was in a brand new team and had to adapt, and that was a bit of a struggle for the Spaniard early on when he stuffed it in the rain on the opening lap in Australia.
It was a tough start for Sainz in general. Unlucky in Bahrain to have to retire from minor contact with Tsunoda, his brakes failed before Austria even started, having to start Spa from pit lane after a wrong call to change to a wet setup. Williams might be quicker but they still have execution problems as a team.
But when things did start clicking for Sainz, it came quickly. His best work was obvious. An opportunistic front row start in Baku Qualifying was converted into an exceptional podium finish, with another in Austin’s Sprint Race, and another third in Qatar, holding off bestie Lando Norris in the closing laps. Even with the blip in Austin’s GP when he drove into Antonelli. That final third of the season I mentioned yesterday, with 48 points in the final eight weekends was exceptional, and by year’s end, he had taken the Qualifying head-to-head away from Albon, being on average just under a tenth of a second quicker.
It was a tough call choosing between Sainz and Albon for who had the better season, but given the William FW37 was a carryover car and Albon had a ton of time within in already, for Sainz to start outperforming him by years end is doubly impressive and that’s what just gave him the #9 spot in my Top 10 for me. As said earlier, I’ll be very curious to see if that trend continues for 2026 when Williams starts over with a new regulation set. 7.5/10
In Part 3, the Big Four teams – The struggles of Ferrari, the end of an era for Red Bull, the questionable nature of Mercedes, and how McLaren nearly lost the Driver’s Championship. See you then.
