Everything You Need to Know About Formula 1’s Massive Offseason Driver Changes
While the 2024 Formula 1 season began with the near certainty that Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team would win the championship—the driver did, the team didn’t—the only certitude this year is that it will be one of the most humanly interesting seasons in a long while.
Last year, for the first time since the series started in 1950, there were no changes of drivers at any of the teams from the end of the previous season to the beginning of the next. Now, in an about face, when the first grand prix is held on March 16 in Australia, only Aston Martin and McLaren will race with the same two teammates.
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And with six new drivers between the ages of 18 and 23 joining the series, along with four others jumping teams, half the grid is facing a beginner’s pressure to perform. That can only mean action and upsets at the expense of the participants, and unpredictable variety and human-interest stories for the fans.
The most exciting of these newfound situations is that of 40-year-old Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion who has joined Ferrari after 12 seasons at Mercedes. His new teammate is Charles Leclerc, a 27-year-old at the peak of his form and with six years seniority at the Italian squad. Should Hamilton beat him, the younger driver is likely out. But if Leclerc dominates, the veteran champion could be excused for calling a sudden end to his career. After Hamilton was regularly out-qualified last season by his younger Mercedes teammate, George Russell, Hamilton said in November: “I’m definitely not fast anymore.”
Yet the year’s key question is whether Red Bull will continue its decline. After a great start to 2024, Verstappen only sealed his fourth title thanks to a spectacular win in Brazil—with three events remaining—in a wet race, where the driver’s talent compensated for the car’s defects. Still, the team finished only third for the season, due both to the weakening car and an underperforming Sergio Perez. The pressure is now on the latter’s replacement, Liam Lawson, to make a difference.
Red Bull’s woes opened the door for McLaren to take its first constructors’ title since 1998, thanks to a rebuilding process led by Andrea Stella, the team principal since 2022, and two very strong multiple-race winners in Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Above all, where both Ferrari and Red Bull cars failed to finish several races, McLaren completed them all. Picking up where it left off, McLaren might now be considered the favorite for both titles.
At Mercedes, Russell can relax more now that Hamilton is gone; but he also gains more pressure as team leader. His new teammate, Kimi Antonelli, age 18, has the burden of being a teenage rookie sensation in the spotlight. And it won’t help either of them that Valtteri Bottas has returned to Mercedes as a reserve driver after three years at Sauber, just waiting for Russell or Antonelli to mess up.
Part of the reason Red Bull has been losing its edge might be due to at least seven directors having left the team over the last year. But, again, its loss is the other outfits’ gain. The most notable among these departures is Adrian Newey, who joins Aston Martin. As the greatest Formula 1 car designer in the last 35 years, the Brit should be an asset. The big question, however, lies with Fernando Alonso, a two-time world champion, who, at age 44 in July, is the oldest driver in the series. He is, understandably, getting impatient for success. While Newey will focus mostly on the 2026 challenger, Aston Martin is nevertheless restructuring under this month’s newly appointed team principal, Andy Cowell, a former top director from Mercedes.
Other teams that have profited by the brain drain at Red Bull include Sauber, taking the longtime sporting director Jonathan Wheatley as its team principal, and the chief mechanic Lee Stevenson. Then there’s Alpine, that got Vin Dhanani, the vehicle performance manager, and Michael Broadhurst, a top aerodynamicist. As for the Williams team, it gains Steve Winstanley, another designer, and McLaren has nabbed Will Courtenay, former head of strategy, as sporting director.
Hopes are high at Alpine after the return last year of Flavio Briatore as an advisor, the former team director of Alpine’s precursors, Benetton and Renault. The Italian hired Oliver Oakes, a young hope from the lower series, as the new team director. And while the rookie Jack Doohan, age 22, races alongside Pierre Gasly, Alpine now has as a reserve driver Franco Colapinto, age 21, who competed in nine races for Williams last year, and sits in the wings waiting, just like Bottas at Mercedes.
At Williams, Carlos Sainz Jr., ejected from Ferrari, hopes to lift his new outfit back from the depths, in its renaissance under the team director, James Vowles, who joined in 2023 from Mercedes. The Haas team has two new drivers, Esteban Ocon, coming from Alpine, and Oliver Bearman, in his first full season in Formula 1. Haas will aim to continue its rejuvenation after its longtime team principal, Günther Steiner, left before the start of last season.
Other rookies are Gabriel Bortoleto, age 20, at Sauber, and Isack Hadjar, also 20 years old, at Racing Bulls. Finally, the Red Bull team finds itself under pressure from its star driver. Although Verstappen is under contract until the end of 2028, the Dutchman’s father, Jos, said that Max is also getting impatient.
“His goal is to win races,” Jos Verstappen told German daily newspaper Münchner Merkur in December. “If he feels that this is no longer possible at Red Bull, a switch is not out of the question.” What is out of the question is that the 2025 Formula 1 Season will be anything but dramatic.
Click here for more photos of the driver changes for the 2025 Formula 1 season.
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