Category: Formula 1

Grand prix fans thronged into the heaving Albert Park with renewed zeal, abuzz at the prospects of local hero and title contender Oscar Piastri

As Formula One prepares to open a season the sport hopes will be a spectacular battle royale, it surely could not ask for a finer venue than Melbourne’s Albert Park to see things off in a suitably splendid fashion.

The true form for the year ahead has yet to be discerned from the opening day of practice in Australia. But with the cars fizzing with intent round the glorious circuit in the parkland in the heart of the city, it was a pleasure to welcome Australia back as the opening race of the season for the first time since the Covid pandemic brought proceedings to a desultory close here on the Friday before the race in 2020.

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Verstappen is under pressure from a revitalised Hamilton at Ferrari with McLaren’s Norris set to challenge from the off

Car MCL39 Engine Mercedes Principal Andrea Stella Debut Monaco 1966 GPs 970 Titles 9 Last season 1st. In position to build on securing the constructors’ championship in 2024, McLaren will be quick out of the blocks. The car was the standout in testing and confidence is high. Lessons were learned through questionable execution last year and they have two outstanding drivers who are both hungrily eyeing the team’s first drivers’ title since 2008. How they manage them may be key from the off.

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• Australian signs contract extension with driver’s title hopefuls
• F1 season begins with 23-year-old’s home grand prix in Melbourne

Australian star Oscar Piastri has secured a multi-year contract extension with Formula One champions McLaren ahead of the season start in Melbourne on Sunday. The 23-year-old, who was already under contract until 2026, has now locked in a long-term future with the British team.

Piastri finished fourth in the championship last year, claiming his first F1 victory in Hungary in his second season before winning again at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. With McLaren expected to carry over their constructors’-winning form into the new season, Piastri looks set to battle with team-mate Lando Norris – who was second last year behind Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen – for the 2025 world title.

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‘There’s magic here,’ says the F1 veteran whose mission at Scuderia is under threat from McLaren and Verstappen

In the maelstrom of the buildup to the new Formula One season, which opens in Melbourne next week, one figure stands at its heart, preternaturally calm as the crescendo builds around him. Lewis Hamilton, the sport’s most successful driver, now in a Ferrari, the sport’s most successful team, promises to make F1 in 2025 unmissable, his grand, romantic challenge playing out to the backdrop of what may be the most closely fought season in more than a decade.

Hamilton, now 40 years old and with seven titles, has nothing to prove but is set on securing the greatest achievement in his career. To return a record-breaking eighth title with Ferrari, who have not won the drivers’ title since 2007, would be a feat to rank among the greatest of them all. Watching him try will be as gripping as McLaren trying to steal his thunder.

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• F1, FIA approve GM-backed Cadillac entry as 11th team
• Bodies say necessary assessments have been completed

Formula One will have an 11th team on the grid next year after Cadillac’s long-anticipated entry was finally rubber-stamped by the sport’s bosses.

Cadillac, a division of American motoring giant General Motors, will be supported by TWG Motorsports and powered by Ferrari before it develops its own engines.

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• Seven-time champion says winning is his ‘No 1 priority’
• Eddie Jordan and Bernie Ecclestone scornful of signing

Lewis Hamilton has delivered a stinging rebuke to criticism of his move from Mercedes to Ferrari, dismissing it as an irrelevance from what he describes as older, white men and insisting he “welcomes” the negativity.

Hamilton is making his debut with Ferrari this year and is currently taking part in pre-season testing in Bahrain, where he was quickest in the morning session. This will be the 40-year-old’s 19th season in F1 and comes after 12 years at Mercedes with whom he won six of his seven titles. Speaking in an interview for Time magazine he addressed criticism he has received from the former F1 team chief Eddie Jordan and the sport’s former chief executive Bernie Ecclestone.

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• 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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