Category: Formula 1

• Red Bull duo jeered at season launch in London this week
• FIA: ‘It was disappointing to hear the crowd’s reaction’

Formula One’s rulers have condemned the “tribalist” booing of Max Verstappen and Christian Horner at the sport’s season launch in London.

Both world champion Verstappen and his Red Bull team boss Horner were subjected to jeers by some of the 15,000 fans inside the O2 Arena earlier this week. The FIA was also targeted with boos, and on Saturday the sporting federation moved to stand up for the pair.

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• Hamilton sets sights on record eighth world title
• ‘The passion here is like nothing you have ever seen’

Lewis Hamilton is convinced Ferrari will give him the chance to win his eighth world championship, describing his “magic” new team as having everything in place to compete.

Hamilton has been reinvigorated by his switch from Mercedes and he and his teammate Charles Leclerc drove their new challenger, the SF-25, for the first time in a shakedown run at the team’s test track at Fiorano on Wednesday. Afterwards the seven-time champion gave an unequivocal “yes” when asked if he believed he could secure a record eighth world title with the Scuderia.

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• British driver to debut with Scuderia this year
• ‘It will all depend on how well he can adapt’

Ferrari are in a strong position to enable Lewis Hamilton to fight for his eighth Formula One world championship, according to their former driver Carlos Sainz, who was replaced by the Briton for this season.

Sainz has joined Williams for 2025 after three years with Ferrari, including last season when the team finished with a very competitive car and claimed second place in the constructors’ championship.

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‘It can be quite intimidating being the only black guy,’ says the Red Bull mechanic helping open up an overwhelmingly white business

“Asking for forgiveness rather than permission has been my philosophy for a while now,” Calum Nicholas says as he shows the conviction and daring which has made him one of the most recognisable faces in Formula One. Nicholas, who still describes himself as a mechanic, is the senior power unit assembly technician at Red Bull Racing where he has helped Max Verstappen win the last four drivers’ championships in a row, as well as being a key member of a team that clinched the constructors’ titles in 2022 and 2023.

Nicholas has also become famous as one of the very few black faces in the F1 pit lane and a minor star of Drive to Survive on Netflix. He is now an author, having written his first book without the help of a ghostwriter, and he smiles when I ask if he had to clear this new literary venture with Red Bull.

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• Ex-British driver helped rule on grand prix race incidents
• Hamilton “absolutely OK” after crash for new team Ferrari

Johnny Herbert has left his role as a Formula One driver steward after the FIA said his grand prix work was “incompatible” with his job as a media pundit.

Herbert attracted criticism from Max Verstappen’s camp last season for his comments about the Red Bull driver’s performance at the Mexican Grand Prix. The three-times race winner from 160 starts, who competed for an array of F1 teams in the 80s and 90s and won the Le Mans 24 Hours, had been scheduled to officiate at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on 16 March.

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• British former world champion runs out at foggy Fiorano
• ‘I couldn’t be happier to realise dream of racing in red’

Lewis Hamilton described his maiden drive in a Ferrari car as one of the best feelings of his life after he realised a childhood dream by completing his first laps for the Italian team. Hamilton, who turned 40 this month, left his garage at Ferrari’s private test circuit in Fiorano in foggy conditions before posting 30 laps.

The seven-time world champion, who will be paid more than £100m across his new two-year deal with the Italian team, tested a 2023 Ferrari – the latest model he is allowed to use. Hamilton will complete further miles at the Circuit de Barcelona‑Catalunya next week before Formula One’s official three-day pre-season test starts in Bahrain on 26 February.

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• British driver greeted by new F1 team at Maranello
• ‘There are some days you know you’ll remember forever’

Lewis Hamilton said he is realising his dream and starting a “new era” for Ferrari as he arrived at Maranello for his first official day with the team. The seven-time world champion posted a picture of himself standing in front of a Ferrari car at the team’s renowned base in northern Italy.

Hamilton, who announced his move to Ferrari after 12 seasons and six drivers’ championship wins at Mercedes ahead of the 2024 campaign, was greeted by team principal Fred Vasseur and chief executive Benedetto Vigna before meeting with various departments.

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• Belgian Grand Prix agrees rotational deal from next year
• Dutch GP at Zandvoort will exit the calendar

Formula One says the Belgian Grand Prix will be rotated from next year as the sport moves to introduce new races to the calendar. The deal means the fixture at Spa-Francorchamps – which is among the most recognisable circuits in F1 – will be omitted from the schedule in 2028 and 2030.

F1’s decision will free up room for new venues to be introduced – with Thailand, Argentina, Rwanda and a second race in Saudi Arabia all vying for spots on the schedule. It could also see the races in Imola and Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya rotated in the seasons to come. Both races are in danger, with a street round in Madrid due to be introduced next year.

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A jet-set lifestyle has riled critics who too easily forget the social endeavour and drive to overcome all obstacles on an unlikely journey from Stevenage to Monaco

As he turns 40 on Tuesday, Lewis Hamilton is hearing plenty of voices scornful of his decision, announced almost a year ago, to leave Mercedes, his home for more than a decade, and join Ferrari for the 2025 season. For a man whose record of seven F1 world titles is matched only by Michael Schumacher, and whose total of 105 grand prix wins is unequalled, he will step into one of the red cars for the first time knowing that he has everything to prove – and not just to the Italian team’s global army of supporters.

Obstacles and challenges are nothing new to Hamilton, who has been listening to criticism from the day he first ventured into a historically all-white sport, a mixed-race child whose father worked three and sometimes four jobs at a time to pay for his kart racing.

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• New Zealander steps in after 11 F1 races for RB team
• Valtteri Bottas rejoins Mercedes as a reserve driver

The New Zealander Liam Lawson has been confirmed as Sergio Pérez’s replacement at Red Bull for next season. It was announced on Wednesday that the Mexican driver had lost his seat after four years as Max Verstappen’s teammate after a disappointing year.

Lawson, who joined the Red Bull Junior Programme in 2019, steps in after 11 races for the RB team. The 22-year-old said: “To be announced as an Oracle Red Bull Racing driver is a lifelong dream for me. This is something I’ve wanted and worked towards since I was eight years old.

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• Mexican driver endured disappointing season
• New Zealander tipped to step up next year

Sergio Pérez has lost his seat at Red Bull after a disappointing season. Pérez, who joined the team in 2021, came under increasing pressure as the Formula One campaign wore on, finishing 285 points behind his teammate, Max Verstappen, as Red Bull surrendered their constructors’ championship title to McLaren.

Verstappen clinched his fourth consecutive drivers’ world title while Pérez finished eighth in the standings, failing to finish in the top five in his final 18 races for the team.

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• Former F1 team owner has bladder and prostate cancer
• Jordan, who is 76, discussed diagnosis on his podcast

Eddie Jordan has revealed he was diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of cancer earlier this year. The former Formula One team owner said he suffered with bladder and prostate cancer which spread to his spine and pelvis.

The 76-year-old, who ran his own team between 1991 and 2005, before continuing to work in the sport as a broadcaster, is also the manager of F1 designer Adrian Newey. Jordan compared his condition to the six-times Olympic track cycling champion, Sir Chris Hoy, who revealed in October he was terminally ill with prostate cancer.

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The Red Bull driver overcame an ‘undriveable monster', McLaren delivered and Lewis Hamilton ended win drought

With a fourth consecutive world championship, Max Verstappen deserves to be recognised as one of the greats, a place he has earned not least with this year’s title, his most hard-fought yet. After opening in a dominant Red Bull, he executed clinically to take four of the opening five races, keeping his head even as the controversy surrounding the team principal, Christian Horner, consumed Red Bull. However, McLaren’s upgrades at Miami launched a fightback from Lando Norris and after the Spanish GP with the McLaren a quicker ride, Verstappen had to buckle down and make the best of an unbalanced car that he described as an ‘undriveable monster’. He did so with the commitment and determination of an Alain Prost or Michael Schumacher. Repeatedly grinding out decent points between Spain and Brazil was vital and ultimately enough to ensure he closed it out, a champion’s performance. It was, however, one marked by an aggressive, uncompromising attitude on track that did him a disservice and for which he was penalised. That side of his character was not enhanced by his ill-tempered late-season spat with George Russell, nor the absurd dive he made on Oscar Piastri at the season finale in Abu Dhabi that meant nothing to him but could have affected McLaren’s championship challenge.

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