This time Max Verstappen did not bite and instead chose his words carefully.
Having been punished to do ‘some work of public interest’ for giving his forthright views in a televised press conference in Singapore last year, the F1 world champion was not going to make the same mistake again. Back then, he was slapped with community service for swearing, which ultimately saw him hauled to Rwanda ahead of the FIA prize-giving ceremony last December.
Instead, this time he put it diplomatically and succinctly when he was asked about his thoughts about McLaren’s rear wing flexing during the Japanese GP.
“I’m not disappointed in that. Everyone is trying to do their best and some people read the regulations a bit differently”, he said during his Dutch media session at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Thursday. “I don’t make the rules. And I’m also not the one enforcing them either.”
The subject was raised again after a video emerged on X (Twitter) showing clips of the McLaren rear wing during the Japanese GP, which appears to flex under load. For context, a video of the Red Bull rear wing is also attached to the short clip, but does not flex to the same extreme.
There were no technical infringements picked up by the FIA’s scrutineering at Suzuka and while the short video is hardly conclusive, there is perhaps more to it than what Verstappen is making out, especially since the video was reposted by his dad, Jos Verstappen.
On the surface, it seems as though Verstappen is attempting to brush off the concerns. He even trotted out the line, “it’s up to the FIA to decide what is allowed”, as he volleyed the ball into the governing body’s court.
But is there is more to read in between the lines?
Indeed, the timing of his swearing outburst last year in Singapore is poignant as it centred on a brewing row between Verstappen’s Red Bull team and McLaren over a claim the latter was benefiting from a ‘mini-DRS’ which allowed for a degree of drag reduction at speed.
Back then, McLaren’s rear wing has been under the spotlight since the Azerbaijan GP last year, yet it came to a head at the race in Singapore — before Verstappen swore and the focus was shifted on the the Dutchman and his ludicrous punishment.
The FIA has since issued a new Technical Directive [TD] (ahead of the Australian GP) with regard to rear wings. The governing body made an even stricter clampdown at the Chinese GP, cutting down the tolerance from 0.5mm to 0.25mm on a vertical load bearing test on 75kg on the mainplain. For context, last year, the maximum slot gap was 2mm.
Motorsport.com understands that the FIA are aware of the video on social media and while there has been no official comment from the governing body, the rear wing will come under intense scrutiny in Bahrain. And with a new TD not being issued until the Spanish GP in June, it could come to a head this weekend, only Verstappen will not be doing the finger-pointing.
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Although Max Verstappen chalked up a decisive victory over the McLarens at last week’s Japanese Grand Prix, he believes the higher-degradation properties of the Bahrain circuit will ensure Red Bull is in for a much tougher weekend.
It has been well documented that McLaren’s MCL39 has an advantage over its rivals regarding tyre degradation over a race stint, with the first clues of the team’s prowess on a longer stint emerging in the pre-season test at Bahrain; estimates put its per-lap advantage over the rest of the field at around 0.4s on average over a stint.
Due to low levels of degradation at Suzuka, Red Bull’s disadvantage to McLaren was significantly mitigated. The resurfaced track cut the tyre wear significantly, with tyres largely only limited by thermal degradation at the rear – which did not end up making much of an impact.
But Bahrain has a very different surface, given that it remains unchanged since the circuit was opened for use in 2004. High roughness and warm temperatures, even at night, means that the drivers will have to work very hard to maintain tyre life over a stint. This won’t be particularly easy to achieve, even with the hardest trio of Pirelli compounds – the C1-3 constructions.
Verstappen expects a “severe” deficit to McLaren, and reckoned that he was even conferred a small tyre preservation deficit versus the Woking squad at Suzuka on the opening stint, but it was difficult to notice given Lando Norris could not pass.
“It will be more severe. The first stint in Australia we got destroyed also with the overheating, and the same in China,” Verstappen said.
Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images
“I would say to a certain extent also in Suzuka, but you can’t pass because Lando was closing up to me in the end of that first stint again. I was just driving to my own pace, but I think because the track temp dropped quite a bit, on the day that helped a bit.
“Here, it’s going to be hot. We drive in the night, so it’ll cool down a little bit, but it’s still hot – with aggressive tarmac.
“On paper from what we’ve seen so far this season, that’s not ideal for us compared to McLaren. But it’s up to us of course to try and find those improvements in the car or tyre behaviour and go from there.”
Last season’s grand prix in Bahrain was a two-stopper for most – although a handful of drivers cast out of the reckoning attempted to salvage something from their races with three stops. Pirelli’s revised C2 and C3 compounds are also marginally softer compared to last season’s constructions.
The tyre company estimates in its pre-round preview that, even with softer constructions, the C2 could prove to be a much stronger race tyre and potentially offer some teams a way into a one-stop strategy.
But this would depend largely on thermal degradation of the tyre; managing blistering through the stints will be a key mechanic over the course of a grand prix. Furthermore, track conditions over the Bahrain Grand Prix will be hotter compared to testing.
It’s very plausible that, if left unchecked, the stint delta between teams could escalate as a result depending on progress between the February prelude and today. To keep that in check, tyre pressures have also been raised by 0.5psi versus the pre-season test to mitigate the effect of increased wear throughout the race.
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Jake Boxall-Legge
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Red Bull Racing
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McLaren has ended years of speculation by confirming it will enter the World Endurance Championship’s top class in 2027.
The 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours winners will build a car to compete in the series’ Hypercar class.
McLaren confirmed the news in a brief statement quoting McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown, saying simply: “We’re back.”
The Formula 1 constructors’ champions are the latest grand prix team to expand into the top flight sportscar class. Ferrari, Aston Martin and Alpine already compete in WEC.
WEC stands to have 11 different manufacturers competing in its top class by 2027. McLaren will be one of three manufacturers to join the championship at that point along with Ford, who announced their plans in January, and Hyundai, which will compete with its Genesis brand. Ford will also join F1 next year through its involvement in Red Bull’s power unit programme.
McLaren will go up against existing manufacturers including Porsche, BMW, Toyota, Peugeot and Cadillac. The latter will also enter F1 next year.
McLaren won the Le Mans 24 Hours 30 years ago
WEC’s eight-round season began at the Losail International Circuit in February. Its calendar includes the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hours, which McLaren won with a version of its F1 road car driven by JJ Lehto, Yannick Dalmas and Masanori Sekiya.
With the announcement of their WEC programme, McLaren is now active across four major series. Its F1 team ended a 26-year wait for a world championship last year and is currently leading the constructors’ and drivers’ standings, the latter headed by Lando Norris. It won the first two grands prix this year.
McLaren also has a three-car team in IndyCar, where its driver Pato O’Ward lies second in the standings. It is similarly competitive in Formula E, where Taylor Barnard is second in the standings after the first four rounds. All three of McLaren’s existing teams will be in action this weekend: F1 in Bahrain, IndyCar in Long Beach, California and Formula E in Miami, Florida.
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The FIA has worked with McLaren and Deloitte to produce a guide for Formula 1 teams on how to produce racing cars more sustainably.
The F1 Constructors’ Circularity Handbook, which will be distributed to all teams, is intended to assist teams develop more sustainable practices. Its goal is to minimise the consumption of resources, reduce waste and maximise the value of materials used in car production.
The handbook includes guidance on how to gather data, how to examine circularity of input and waste, and ultimately “calculate a single circularity metric.”
McLaren was the first F1 team to receive the FIA’s three-star Environmental Accreditation. It has also experimented with the use of recycled carbon fibre on its cars in past seasons.
The FIA’s single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis said the governing body will consider what steps it should take to promote more sustainable car production in F1, which could ultimately include new regulations.
“Obviously all the environmental matters have been increasing in importance in the last decade in a fairly rapid manner and will continue to do so,” he said. “So it is our obligation towards society, towards our sport, towards the long-term sustainability of the sport to keep pushing on all such topics.
“The circularity is a key aspect, obviously a huge number of components get made and raced on cars on a daily basis and to measure and to encourage a more responsible use of these components and potentially reuse as much as possible is as vital.
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“We share the objective with McLaren and with other Formula 1 teams that the sport needs to become more sustainable. We have a dual role. We obviously have meetings with all the Formula 1 teams to discuss all of these matters in progress with the sustainability directors of the FIA and of the Formula 1 teams. And we’re also here to make either regulations, if necessary, or guidance documents, if not, and to try to push this message across.”
Tombazis said the fact the reigning world champions had undertaken the project showed sustainable practices do not necessarily compromise performance.
“I think it’s quite significant that McLaren have carried out this work,” he said. “They’re already in a leading position amongst teams for sustainability matters and at the same time, they’re also in a pretty good position on the track. And I think that’s quite shows that the two things are not conflicting.
“We, the FIA, want to work with all the teams for these matters, we want all the teams to adopt certain practices. Where necessary, we may have regulations in the future pushing to the use of certain materials, so pushing to certain responsible practises. That is in order to not give a disadvantage to somebody performance-wise or cost cap-wise who engage with these practises, but ultimately to make sure that all the teams follow suit and do a similar thing.”
The scope of the handbook is limited to chassis construction only and does not include other components including the power units and tyres. However Tombazis sees it as a useful starting point for future development which could have applications beyond motor racing.
“It’s an area of innovation in Formula 1. We soon hope to expand it to the PU manufacturers and to tyres and to all aspects of Formula 1.
“But also we hope that we’ll eventually reach the full automotive industry and spread across many aspects of society. So that is a very good and important message of innovation through motorsport helping in the general picture.”
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Straight after pre-season testing for the 2025 Formula 1 season, Motorsport.com predicted the team pecking order for the forthcoming campaign – naturally accounting for the usual obfuscations that the annual pre-season running often provides.
Now that the campaign is in full flow with three grands prix completed, F1’s travelling circus is currently making a return voyage to Bahrain for the middle stage of an early triple-header.
The competitive order is a little different to what we expected; some teams have shown their hand a little bit more, relegating those who perhaps looked more promising in testing. So, with that three-round sample set, we’ve got a good idea of where each team stacks up in outright pace.
As we sit on the cusp of the Bahrain Grand Prix, perhaps it’s time to review the order that we’d put teams in – and rework them based on their current performance level.
Performance ranking after three races: 10th (supertime: 101.603%)
It was largely expected that Sauber would once again sit towards the bottom of the order after failing to set the world alight in testing. Its C45 is largely an evolution of last year’s C44, a car that failed to score any points until the penultimate round of the championship, although the Swiss outfit has started off in much better shape as Nico Hulkenberg grabbed seventh in a wet Australia opener.
However, this should not detract from the idea that the team remains the slowest on the grid; although both Hulkenberg and rookie Gabriel Bortoleto have shown enough speed in qualifying to bring themselves into Q2 on occasion, both drivers have tended to fall towards the back of the order over a race distance.
The team has also been prolific so far with its update trajectory, bringing something new in all three races with the intent of pushing the C45 further up the order. There’s much less inertia under the leadership of COO and CTO Mattia Binotto, while new team principal Jonathan Wheatley has now started work with the team and will look to impart his championship-winning knowhow from Red Bull. Yet, there’s a long road ahead; even when Sauber becomes Audi next year, it would be unexpected to see it suddenly vault up the order.
Performance ranking after three races: 5th (supertime: 100.640%)
Perhaps the biggest discrepancy in our rankings, as Racing Bulls’ VCARB 02 appears to be a malleable and rapid machine that helped Yuki Tsunoda set out his stall for an unexpected promotion to Red Bull.
It’s been seemingly easy to get performance out of the car on a Saturday too, as Tsunoda qualified fifth in Melbourne and rookie Isack Hadjar has qualified seventh in China and Bahrain.
Car balance appeared to be a problem in testing, but the Faenza squad has seemingly made breakthroughs in the opening rounds and this has allowed it to sit at the top of the midfield pecking order. It’s been direct in the corners, giving the drivers a platform to perform on Saturdays.
The team’s bugbear has lain in strategy; the team’s willingness to stay out on dry tyres for a lap too long in Australia cost Tsunoda the chance of a big points haul, and its steadfast adherence to a two-stopper in China despite the durability of the hard tyre also sapped at its chance to break its duck in a grand prix. Tsunoda’s sixth in the China sprint showed what the team could do when strategy was not an issue, although the one-dimension one-stop Japanese Grand Prix helped Hadjar get off the mark for 2025.
How it progresses with Hadjar and now Liam Lawson will be of interest, as the Kiwi looks to regain his confidence after a bruising two grands prix with Red Bull.
Performance ranking after three races: 9th (supertime: 101.551%)
Under the leadership of Ayao Komatsu, Haas is a very different team to what it was under Guenther Steiner. There seems to be much more of a proactive approach in the technical department, exemplified by its Japan upgrade to implement a quick fix to a high-speed corner issue that became evident in Australia. The car struggled so much with the Turn 9-10 transition that it spent the weekend propping up the order.
It was hard to see where Haas truly stacked up in testing as it once again avoided doing any performance running; it sat at the bottom of the times having chosen to focus on race pace. Its performance in Australia, or lack thereof, was nonetheless surprising.
Things have been brighter since; a hefty points haul in China ensured heads at the American team wouldn’t drop, as Esteban Ocon held his own against the Racing Bulls and Williams cars, and Oliver Bearman cut his way through the order to score 10th on the road – upgraded to eighth after disqualifications.
Komatsu reckons the quick turnaround in revising its floor for Japan worked out, which allowed Bearman to break into Q3 and score another point to ensure the team can keep its hand in the midfield battle. The above supertime has been skewed by its off-colour weekend in Australia; at the Chinese and Japanese grands prix, Haas was seventh overall in the race-by-race metrics.
Performance ranking after three races: 8th (supertime: 101.264%)
This season feels very much like a holding year for Aston Martin, as it waits for its Adrian Newey-influenced, Honda-powered 2026 car to hit the ground running next year. Performances have largely been expected, as the team sits where it left off last season; although the drivers have found the AMR25 to be well-balanced, it simply just lacks the tenth or two needed to regularly break into Q3.
Lance Stroll has scored all of the team’s points this year, as Fernando Alonso has endured poor luck in the opening rounds. Stroll clinched sixth in the rain-affected Australian Grand Prix, climbing up the order thanks to a well-timed stop for intermediates, while Alonso crashed out at Turn 7. The Spaniard then suffered a brake fire in China, as Stroll kept his head above water in the top 10.
Japan appeared to show where the team really sits: on the cusp of the top 10, but needing cars ahead to encounter strife. The team has stated on multiple occasions that Newey is fully focused on the 2026 car, but it may be incredibly tempted to borrow the design maestro from next year’s development process to help steer the ship with its current car.
Performance ranking after three races: 6th (supertime: 100.844%)
Things have looked good for the Grove squad so far. Alex Albon has scored points in all three grands prix, and has the upper hand over star signing Carlos Sainz as the Spaniard has needed time to get up to speed with the FW47. It’s a car that seems to be good everywhere, underlining the transformation work behind the scenes led by team boss James Vowles, who sought to modernise the squad after years of underinvestment.
Unlike last year’s challenger, the 2025 Williams began its life on the weight limit. And, as observed in testing, the car was a benign-handling car that seemed to play to Albon’s strengths. Small wonder, then, that the Anglo-Thai racer has been a consistent force within the top 10. His fifth in Melbourne was his best result for the team, and best result in F1 since ending 2020 with fourth in Abu Dhabi for Red Bull.
Sainz has struggled more; although he’d got into Q3 in Australia, he immediately undid that weekend with his Turn 14 crash at the start of the race. He finished 13th on the road in China but was promoted to the points following three disqualifications, and then couldn’t make much ground in Japan after being handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding Lewis Hamilton.
But there’s reasons for Sainz to be optimistic, as his race pace at Suzuka was generally very good; despite the difficulties involved with following and overtaking, he reeled off passes on Lawson, Hulkenberg, and Doohan to bring some respectability to his race. He just needs to nail qualifying, and he’ll be up and running for the year.
Alpine
Pierre Gasly, Alpine, Jack Doohan, Alpine, Carlos Sainz, Williams
Performance ranking after three races: 7th (supertime: 101.211%)
The pink-and-blue Alpine looked like a genuinely solid midfield contender in testing, having appeared to keep the momentum from its late-2024 renaissance going after starting the year with an overweight car. And, on pace, it still is. It’s a little above Aston Martin in the supertimes, but its season has hardly started.
Despite great optimism at the start of the year, continued as Pierre Gasly made Q3 in Australia, the races haven’t fallen in the French team’s favour. Gasly got shuffled out of the points late on in the rain-affected season opener, and struggled in China; he rose to 11th before his disqualification for being underweight; he was then 12th in Japan after losing places to Alonso and Tsunoda.
In the other car, rookie Jack Doohan is yet to have a clean weekend; hefty shunts in Australia and Japan were separated by a clumsy race in China, where he got penalties in both the grand prix and the sprint race. The performance is there in the David Sanchez-led design of the A525, but poor luck and misjudgements have left the team bottom of the pecking order. Bahrain offers the team a chance to reset, having shown up well in the pre-season test.
Performance ranking after three races: 3rd (supertime: 100.358%)
Brackley’s finest has finally produced a car under this ruleset capable of challenging for regular top results – the only problem is that it has to face up against the might of McLaren and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to do so. The car is consistent, compliant and, above all, fast; the team has so far not encountered any of the issues that have dogged it over the past few seasons.
This appears to be down to much greater correlation between its simulation tools and the real car, and this gives the team much more latitude to try different set-up directions at base and retain confidence that they’ll work at the track.
George Russell has taken on the mantle of team leader with aplomb, and has looked assured throughout the opening three grands prix. He put the car on the front row in China, although unsurprisingly struggled to contain Lando Norris on the opening lap and had to be content with third place. He missed a little on Saturday in Japan, but noted that to be disappointed with fifth was a gauge of how far the team has come this season.
In the other car, rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli has already shown significant improvement. Although he’d fluffed his lines in qualifying in Australia, and very nearly put himself out with a Turn 4 spin, his rise through the order to clinch fourth was impressive. He’s been much more solid in China and Japan, with just a smidgen missing to Russell’s outright pace – not bad for someone in only their first few races. He’ll get stronger as the year goes on, which won’t help Mercedes’ PR department from trying to shield him from the expectation of becoming F1’s next superstar.
Performance ranking after three races: 4th (supertime: 100.490%)
Ferrari hasn’t enjoyed the smoothest start to 2025, despite the hype of Hamilton’s arrival and expectation given its strong finish to 2024. A revised car concept has had its fair share of teething issues, and its double-disqualification in China for different reasons (Charles Leclerc being underweight, Hamilton suffering from excessive plank wear) has pegged it back from challenging the current top three teams in the championship.
It has shown glimmers of speed; Leclerc qualified fourth in Japan, just 0.3s off Verstappen’s pole time, while Hamilton created a water-cooler moment with his sprint pole and win in China. There have also been moments where Leclerc and Hamilton have turned it on in practice, but the Ferrari just doesn’t seem to be able to unlock that final iota of pace between FP3 and qualifying to make it competitive in grand prix trim.
Testing showed that Ferrari was struggling on tyre preservation; although this hasn’t been particularly exposed in the opening three rounds, a high-wear circuit like Bahrain might prove to be the indicator if that issue persists. Race pace just doesn’t seem to be quite up there with the Mercedes and Red Bull at the moment. Both drivers feel that upgrades are necessary to unlock more speed, as they now feel up to speed with the car and are taking it to its maximum.
Performance ranking after three races: 2nd (supertime: 100.236%)
Much has been said about Red Bull’s RB21, particularly in relation to Lawson’s inability to tame the car across the opening two weekends. Although his ‘demotion’ to Racing Bulls seemed incredibly harsh, even for Red Bull’s standards, his performance was so far away from Verstappen that he almost seemed like a downgrade on Perez.
Tsunoda has shown hints that he’ll be much closer, given his lack of testing before Japan. But he encountered the famous ‘shrinking window’ of performance needed to string a lap out of the RB21, while Verstappen has managed to find this. The Dutchman was impeccable in Japan, with his pole position shocking the paddock given his own distaste for the car’s less-than-user-friendly nature.
Red Bull is ultimately shy of McLaren on outright performance, but the team runs a tight ship at the circuits – and the world-class talents of Verstappen can take the car to places it might not necessarily have assumed possible. Without him, Red Bull would be a far less potent force.
Performance ranking after three races: 1st (supertime: 100.005%)
As forecast in testing, McLaren has kicked off the year with the quickest car. The MCL39’s greatest strength lies in race trim, with a delicate touch on the tyres that contributes to an inevitability that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will sit at the top of the order by the end of a grand prix. Melbourne should have been a dominant 1-2, had Piastri not come off worse in both drivers’ excursions off the road at Turn 12, and the team corrected this in China.
Although it’s also the fastest car in qualifying, the McLaren does appear to have a bite to it should the drivers over-push. When Norris lined up ‘only’ third for the Chinese Grand Prix, team principal Andrea Stella suggested that he’d likely benefit from holding that final one-percent back; the car appears to struggle with the usual approach to attacking corner entries on a hot lap. Instead, the approach seems to be to take a conservative entry and then stamp on the throttle on the exit. Both drivers might find this counter-intuitive, at least in the early stages of the year.
How the team approached the Japanese Grand Prix will also split opinion. It’s true that one of the McLarens should have beaten Verstappen to pole, but the world champion’s earth-shattering lap ensured he could control the order in a race where it was incredibly difficult to overtake. It was suggested that McLaren should have pursued an undercut with Norris, with it assumed that he could potentially return to the circuit ahead of Verstappen, but the team preferred a lower-risk approach to ensure parity between the two drivers.
Having two drivers in the championship race might pose a problem to overcome, especially if Verstappen continues to transcend his machinery, but that’s only something it needs to worry about later in the year. For now, it’s about banking the wins and podiums consistently.
In this article
Jake Boxall-Legge
Formula 1
Ferrari
Red Bull Racing
Mercedes
Sauber
McLaren
Racing Bulls
Williams
Aston Martin Racing
Haas F1 Team
Alpine
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Straight after pre-season testing for the 2025 Formula 1 season, Autosport predicted the team pecking order for the forthcoming campaign – naturally accounting for the usual obfuscations that the annual pre-season running often provides.
Now that the campaign is in full flow with three grands prix completed, F1’s travelling circus is currently making a return voyage to Bahrain for the middle stage of an early triple-header.
The competitive order is a little different to what we expected; some teams have shown their hand a little bit more, relegating those who perhaps looked more promising in testing. So, with that three-round sample set, we’ve got a good idea of where each team stacks up in outright pace.
As we sit on the cusp of the Bahrain Grand Prix, perhaps it’s time to review the order that we’d put teams in – and rework them based on their current performance level.
Performance ranking after three races: 10th (supertime: 101.603%)
It was largely expected that Sauber would once again sit towards the bottom of the order after failing to set the world alight in testing. Its C45 is largely an evolution of last year’s C44, a car that failed to score any points until the penultimate round of the championship, although the Swiss outfit has started off in much better shape as Nico Hulkenberg grabbed seventh in a wet Australia opener.
However, this should not detract from the idea that the team remains the slowest on the grid; although both Hulkenberg and rookie Gabriel Bortoleto have shown enough speed in qualifying to bring themselves into Q2 on occasion, both drivers have tended to fall towards the back of the order over a race distance.
The team has also been prolific so far with its update trajectory, bringing something new in all three races with the intent of pushing the C45 further up the order. There’s much less inertia under the leadership of COO and CTO Mattia Binotto, while new team principal Jonathan Wheatley has now started work with the team and will look to impart his championship-winning know-how from Red Bull. Yet, there’s a long road ahead; even when Sauber becomes Audi next year, it would be unexpected to see it suddenly vault up the order.
Performance ranking after three races: 5th (supertime: 100.640%)
Perhaps the biggest discrepancy in our rankings, as Racing Bulls’ VCARB 02 appears to be a malleable and rapid machine that helped Yuki Tsunoda set out his stall for an unexpected promotion to Red Bull.
It’s been seemingly easy to get performance out of the car on a Saturday too, as Tsunoda qualified fifth in Melbourne and rookie Isack Hadjar has qualified seventh in China and Bahrain.
Our pre-season rankings stated that “drivers seemed to be struggling badly with handling balance”, but the team has seemingly made breakthroughs in the opening rounds and this has allowed it to sit at the top of the midfield pecking order. It’s been direct in the corners, giving the drivers a platform to perform on Saturdays.
The team’s bugbear has lain in strategy; the team’s willingness to stay out on dry tyres for a lap too long in Australia cost Tsunoda the chance of a big points haul, and its steadfast adherence to a two-stopper in China despite the durability of the hard tyre also sapped at its chance to break its duck in a grand prix. Tsunoda’s sixth in the China sprint showed what the team could do when strategy was not an issue, although the one-dimension one-stop Japanese Grand Prix helped Hadjar get off the mark for 2025.
How it progresses with Hadjar and now Liam Lawson will be of interest, as the Kiwi looks to regain his confidence after a bruising two grands prix with Red Bull.
Performance ranking after three races: 8th (supertime: 101.264%)
This season feels very much like a holding year for Aston Martin, as it waits for its Adrian Newey-influenced, Honda-powered 2026 car to hit the ground running next year. Performances have largely been expected, as the team sits where it left off last season; although the drivers have found the AMR25 to be well-balanced, it simply just lacks the tenth or two needed to regularly break into Q3.
Lance Stroll has scored all of the team’s points this year, as Fernando Alonso has endured poor luck in the opening rounds. Stroll clinched sixth in the rain-affected Australian Grand Prix, climbing up the order thanks to a well-timed stop for intermediates, while Alonso crashed out at Turn 7. The Spaniard then suffered a brake fire in China, as Stroll kept his head above water in the top 10.
Japan appeared to show where the team really sits: on the cusp of the top 10, but needing cars ahead to encounter strife. The team has stated on multiple occasions that Newey is fully focused on the 2026 car, but it may be incredibly tempted to borrow the design maestro from next year’s development process to help steer the ship with its current car.
Performance ranking after three races: 9th (supertime: 101.551%)
Under the leadership of Ayao Komatsu, Haas is a very different team to what it was under Guenther Steiner. There seems to be much more of a proactive approach in the technical department, exemplified by its Japan upgrade to implement a quick fix to a high-speed corner issue that became evident in Australia. The car struggled so much with the Turn 9-10 transition that it spent the weekend propping up the order.
It was hard to see where Haas truly stacked up in testing as it once again avoided doing any performance running; it sat at the bottom of the times having chosen to focus on race pace. Its performance in Australia, or lack thereof, was nonetheless surprising.
Things have been brighter since; a hefty points haul in China ensured heads at the American team wouldn’t drop, as Esteban Ocon held his own against the Racing Bulls and Williams cars, and Oliver Bearman cut his way through the order to score 10th on the road – upgraded to eighth after disqualifications.
Komatsu reckons the quick turnaround in revising its floor for Japan worked out, which allowed Bearman to break into Q3 and score another point to ensure the team can keep its hand in the midfield battle. The above supertime has been skewed by its off-colour weekend in Australia; at the Chinese and Japanese grands prix, Haas was seventh overall in the race-by-race metrics.
Pierre Gasly, Alpine, Jack Doohan, Alpine, Carlos Sainz, Williams
Performance ranking after three races: 7th (supertime: 101.211%)
The pink-and-blue Alpine looked like a genuinely solid midfield contender in testing, having appeared to keep the momentum from its late-2024 renaissance going after starting the year with an overweight car. And, on pace, it still is. It’s a little above Aston Martin in the supertimes, but its season has hardly started.
Despite great optimism at the start of the year, continued as Pierre Gasly made Q3 in Australia, the races haven’t fallen in the French team’s favour. Gasly got shuffled out of the points late on in the rain-affected season opener, and struggled in China; he rose to 11th before his disqualification for being underweight; he was then 12th in Japan after losing places to Alonso and Tsunoda.
In the other car, rookie Jack Doohan is yet to have a clean weekend; hefty shunts in Australia and Japan were separated by a clumsy race in China, where he got penalties in both the grand prix and the sprint race. The performance is there in the David Sanchez-led design of the A525, but poor luck and misjudgements have left the team bottom of the pecking order. Bahrain offers the team a chance to reset, having shown up well in the pre-season test.
Performance ranking after three races: 6th (supertime: 100.844%)
Things have looked good for the Grove squad so far. Alex Albon has scored points in all three grands prix, and has the upper hand over star signing Carlos Sainz as the Spaniard has needed time to get up to speed with the FW47. It’s a car that seems to be good everywhere, underlining the transformation work behind the scenes led by team boss James Vowles, who sought to modernise the squad after years of underinvestment.
Unlike last year’s challenger, the 2025 Williams began its life on the weight limit. And, as observed in testing, the car was a benign-handling car that seemed to play to Albon’s strengths. Small wonder, then, that the Anglo-Thai racer has been a consistent force within the top 10. His fifth in Melbourne was his best result for the team, and best result in F1 since ending 2020 with fourth in Abu Dhabi for Red Bull.
Sainz has struggled more; although he’d got into Q3 in Australia, he immediately undid that weekend with his Turn 14 crash at the start of the race. He finished 13th on the road in China but was promoted to the points following three disqualifications, and then couldn’t make much ground in Japan after being handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding Lewis Hamilton.
But there are reasons for Sainz to be optimistic, as his race pace at Suzuka was generally very good; despite the difficulties involved with following and overtaking, he reeled off passes on Lawson, Hulkenberg, and Doohan to bring some respectability to his race. He just needs to nail qualifying, and he’ll be up and running for the year.
Performance ranking after three races: 4th (supertime: 100.490%)
Spot on here. Ferrari hasn’t enjoyed the smoothest start to 2025, despite the hype of Lewis Hamilton’s arrival and expectation given its strong finish to 2024. A revised car concept has had its fair share of teething issues, and its double-disqualification in China for different reasons (Charles Leclerc being underweight, Hamilton suffering from excessive plank wear) has pegged it back from challenging the current top three teams in the championship.
It has shown glimmers of speed; Leclerc qualified fourth in Japan, just 0.3s off Max Verstappen’s pole time, while Hamilton created a water-cooler moment with his sprint pole and win in China. There have also been moments where Leclerc and Hamilton have turned it on in practice, but the Ferrari just doesn’t seem to be able to unlock that final iota of pace between FP3 and qualifying to make it competitive in grand prix trim.
Testing showed that Ferrari was struggling on tyre preservation; although this hasn’t been particularly exposed in the opening three rounds, a high-wear circuit like Bahrain might prove to be the indicator if that issue persists. Race pace just doesn’t seem to be quite up there with the Mercedes and Red Bull at the moment. Both drivers feel that upgrades are necessary to unlock more speed, as they now feel up to speed with the car and are taking it to its maximum.
Performance ranking after three races: 2nd (supertime: 100.236%)
Much has been said about Red Bull’s RB21, particularly in relation to Lawson’s inability to tame the car across the opening two weekends. Although his ‘demotion’ to Racing Bulls seemed incredibly harsh, even for Red Bull’s standards, his performance was so far away from Verstappen that he almost seemed like a downgrade on Perez.
Tsunoda has shown hints that he’ll be much closer, given his lack of testing before Japan. But he encountered the famous ‘shrinking window’ of performance needed to string a lap out of the RB21, while Verstappen has managed to find this. The Dutchman was impeccable in Japan, with his pole position shocking the paddock given his own distaste for the car’s less-than-user-friendly nature.
In his pre-season testing analysis, Alex Kalinauckas noted “the car was understeering in the slower turns and oversteering in the faster ones […] Red Bull insiders were left concerned with how unresponsive the RB21 was overall to the set-up changes it tried”. This came despite Red Bull’s efforts to make a car that perhaps had lower peaks compared to its predecessors, but was more easy to set up; this does not yet appear to be the case.
Red Bull is ultimately shy of McLaren on outright performance, but the team runs a tight ship at the circuits – and the world-class talents of Verstappen can take the car to places it might not necessarily have assumed possible. Without him, Red Bull would be a far less potent force.
Performance ranking after three races: 3rd (supertime: 100.358%)
Brackley’s finest has finally produced a car under this ruleset capable of challenging for regular top results – the only problem is that it has to face up against the might of McLaren and Red Bull’s Verstappen to do so. The car is consistent, compliant and, above all, fast; the team has so far not encountered any of the issues that have dogged it over the past few seasons.
This appears to be down to much greater correlation between its simulation tools and the real car, and this gives the team much more latitude to try different set-up directions at base and retain confidence that they’ll work at the track.
George Russell has taken on the mantle of team leader with aplomb, and has looked assured throughout the opening three grands prix. He put the car on the front row in China, although unsurprisingly struggled to contain Lando Norris on the opening lap and had to be content with third place. He missed a little on Saturday in Japan, but noted that to be disappointed with fifth was a gauge of how far the team has come this season.
In the other car, rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli has already shown significant improvement. Although he’d fluffed his lines in qualifying in Australia, and very nearly put himself out with a Turn 4 spin, his rise through the order to clinch fourth was impressive. He’s been much more solid in China and Japan, with just a smidgen missing to Russell’s outright pace – not bad for someone in only their first few races. He’ll get stronger as the year goes on, which won’t help Mercedes’ PR department from trying to shield him from the expectation of becoming F1’s next superstar.
Performance ranking after three races: 1st (supertime: 100.005%)
As forecast in testing, McLaren has kicked off the year with the quickest car. The MCL39’s greatest strength lies in race trim, with a delicate touch on the tyres that contributes to an inevitability that Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will sit at the top of the order by the end of a grand prix. Melbourne should have been a dominant 1-2, had Piastri not come off worse in both drivers’ excursions off the road at Turn 12, and the team corrected this in China.
Although it’s also the fastest car in qualifying, the McLaren does appear to have a bite to it should the drivers over-push. When Norris lined up ‘only’ third for the Chinese Grand Prix, team principal Andrea Stella suggested that he’d likely benefit from holding that final 1% back; the car appears to struggle with the usual approach to attacking corner entries on a hot lap. Instead, the approach seems to be to take a conservative entry and then stamp on the throttle on the exit. Both drivers might find this counter-intuitive, at least in the early stages of the year.
How the team approached the Japanese Grand Prix will also split opinion. It’s true that one of the McLarens should have beaten Verstappen to pole, but the world champion’s earth-shattering lap ensured he could control the order in a race where it was incredibly difficult to overtake. It was suggested that McLaren should have pursued an undercut with Norris, with it assumed that he could potentially return to the circuit ahead of Verstappen, but the team preferred a lower-risk approach to ensure parity between the two drivers.
Having two drivers in the championship race might pose a problem to overcome, especially if Verstappen continues to transcend his machinery, but that’s only something it needs to worry about later in the year. For now, it’s about banking the wins and podiums consistently.
In this article
Jake Boxall-Legge
Formula 1
Ferrari
Red Bull Racing
RB
McLaren
Williams
Sauber
Aston Martin Racing
Mercedes
Haas F1 Team
Alpine
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McLaren call Bahrain their “second home race” – but they’ve never won it. Will they change that this weekend? Here are the talking points for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
McLaren to hit back at ‘home’?
Since McLaren ended their 26-year championship drought last year, winning has started to seem familiar again for the team. It’s easy to overlook the fact that, though they won the first two rounds this year it took them more than half a season to score as many victories last year.
Now the team is winning regularly again, there’s a gap in their trophy cabinet which they will be especially keen to fill. McLaren has never won the Bahrain Grand Prix – its best result remains Lewis Hamilton’s second place in 2007.
This is an especially important race for the team as Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat took full ownership of the McLaren Group last year, which owns a majority stake in the racing division which includes the F1 squad.
The squad may be British-based and founded by a New Zealander (as Liam Lawson was eager to draw attention to last year) but as team principal Andrea Stella noted Bahrain is their “second home race.” Will they finally win it?
Verstappen’s shot at the lead
Verstappen is just one point off championship leader Norris
Max Verstappen’s record reign in the lead of the drivers’ championship came to an end at the season-opening race. But there’s a strong chance he could take it back this weekend.
His superb performance at Suzuka, which resulted in his first victory of the season, has brought him within a single point of Lando Norris at the top of the championship table.
Norris talked up Red Bull’s chances this weekend in the wake of Verstappen’s win, pointing out how effectively the RB21 pulled out of the slower corners at Suzuka, neutering McLaren’s advantage through the quicker corners. Bahrain, which is biased more towards low-speed turns than Suzuka, should therefore suit the RB21.
However McLaren’s performance over a long stint looked strong in pre-season testing at the circuit. Verstappen won in Japan by capturing pole position and resisting his rivals for 53 laps, but the same approach may not work so well for a second weekend in a row.
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Ferrari seeking a solution
All is not quite right with the Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton revealed all is not well with Ferrari’s car after the team’s disappointing start to 2025 continued in Japan. He finished seventh while team mate Charles Leclerc had a more successful run to fourth, but neither was happy with their car’s performance.
Will they have a solution ready for this weekend? Rumours in the Italian media suggest changes are coming to the car.
Ferrari’s start to the season has been much less successful than many expected for the team which ended last year just 10 points off world champions McLaren. They are already 76 points behind and badly need to stop the rot.
Qualifying championship?
Before the 2025 season began hopes were high that the championship would remain as competitive as it was at the close of last year. In one respect the signs are encouraging so far – three different drivers have won the first three grands prix; that becomes four from four if the Shanghai sprint race, won by Hamilton, is included.
But the racing has tended to be processional. Last weekend’s race, where more than half the field finished in the same places they started, was the clearest example yet.
The Bahrain International Circuit may be as exciting a layout as you’d expect a converted camel farm in the middle of a desert to be, but its long, wide straights at least make overtaking fairly straightforward.
That plus high tyre degradation and ample DRS zones should make for plenty of changes of position. But it’s becoming clearer with every passing year that F1’s post-2021 rules overhaul did not achieve its stated goal of making the cars less sensitive to running in turbulence.
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Rookie takeover
Ferrari junior Beganovic will drive in practice
Now that teams must give twice as many opportunities for rookies to drive their cars this season, at least half of them will do so this weekend. Therefore George Russell, Carlos Sainz Jnr, Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc and Oliver Bearman will all sit out the first practice session so a junior driver can take over their car.
Dino Beganovic will get the thrill of driving a Ferrari in an official F1 practice session for the first time. Ryo Hirakawa will be in action for the second Friday practice session in a row, but this time with Haas instead of Alpine.
Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin), Frederik Vesti (Mercedes) and Luke Browning (Williams) will all join in the fun. But how many of them are likely to graduate to F1 race seats in the future?
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Lando Norris expects Max Verstappen will be a significant threat again in this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix as the track layout will play to Red Bull’s strengths.
The McLaren driver said the Red Bull’s superior performance in low-speed corners prevented him from getting close to Verstappen throughout Sunday’s race. The Bahrain International Circuit features a higher proportion of lower-speed corners than Suzuka.
“Our weakness was the slow-speed compared to them,” said Norris after Sunday’s race. “There’s a lot less high-speed [in Bahrain], so we’re kind of losing some of our strengths and we’re going more into our weaknesses.”
Norris believes Red Bull have improved their car since the beginning of the season, after Verstappen narrowly beat him and team mate Oscar Piastri to pole position in Japan.
“Clearly, they’re quick,” he said. “I feel like between Oscar and myself, we got a lot out of the car [in qualifying]. It was probably a little bit more, yes, but both our theoretical [lap times] were not that far ahead.
“So Max is doing a good job and Red Bull seemed to maybe have caught up a little bit. But they’ve also not been that bad the whole season.
“When you look at Australia, he was fighting for a win. When you look at China, he wasn’t miles away. And this weekend he’s done very good. So I expect him to be challenging us every weekend.”
McLaren have “got areas to work on” with their car, he added. “In high-speed [corners] we were very, very strong and I think definitely the strongest car out there.
“In slow-speed we’re quite a chunk off the Red Bull, and that’s where we lost in qualifying. We lost again consistently in the race. So there’s a lot of areas we have to try to work on.”
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When Oscar Piastri decided to get new tires on lap 20 of 53 in the Japanese Grand Prix, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris responded just one lap later. Once in the pit lane, McLaren gained Norris over a second as Verstappen’s pit stop was a bit slower.
This gave Norris the perfect opportunity to take over the lead. As he was released by the team, he pulled alongside Verstappen as they quickly approached the pit lane exit. Verstappen was well ahead with his front tires but Norris continued to drive alongside as they exited the pits. Norris throttled up and nearly drew even with Verstappen as he ran out of pavement, running through the grass in a heart-stopping moment.
Immediately afterwards, accusations flew across radio channels. Norris stated that Verstappen pushed him off the track while the Dutchman claims the McLaren driver drove himself onto the grass. The stewards take note of it but not much later, a final verdict follows: No further investigation.
Priority for the fast lane
There is also a clear reason why there was no investigation. Verstappen was driving in the so-called fast lane, while Norris was coming from the inner lane, also known as the working lane. The FIA’s international sporting code states that drivers in that fast lane have priority, so drivers coming from the working lane must give way and merge behind them.
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“Cars in the fast lane have priority over cars rejoining from the working lane,” states Appendix L, Chapter IV, Article 5.b of the International Sporting Code. “Once a car has left its garage or pit stop position, it must join the fast lane as soon as it is safe to do so, without unnecessarily obstructing cars already in the fast lane.” The same article also emphasizes that drivers should not overtake other cars in the fast lane, “unless there are exceptional circumstances. One should think of a “slow car suffering from an obvious mechanical problem” or a car that is stationary or an obstacle.
No unsafe release
That still leaves another question: was there an unsafe release by Norris here? In principle, no. Penalties have been handed out in the past for an unsafe release, but this usually involves a situation where a driver moves into the fast lane from the working lane and a driver already in the fast lane has to take an evasive action – be it braking or steering. In this case, no mechanics were at risk because this took place at the end of the pit lane and Verstappen was not hindered by Norris in any way.
Under Appendix L, Chapter IV, Article 5.f, the wording makes clear when an unsafe release actually does occur. “Cars may not be turned away from a garage or pit stop position in a manner that may endanger or unnecessarily hinder pit lane personnel or another driver. Equipment or tires may not be left in the pit lane in a manner that will endanger or unnecessarily hinder pit lane personnel or endanger or unnecessarily hinder another car.”
The same tenor can be read in Formula One’s sporting regulations under articles 34.14 and 34.14a. “In all cases described in Article 34.14, a car shall be deemed to have been sent off as soon as it has driven out of the designated garage area (when leaving the garage) or after it has fully emerged from its pit stop position following a pit stop. Cars may not be released from a garage or pit stop position in a manner that could endanger pit lane personnel or another driver.” This rule, for example, was the reason Racing Bulls was fined 5,000 euros in China when it allowed Isack Hadjar to drive into the fast lane in qualifying while Verstappen was approaching and had to take evasive action.
Mowing the grass
Discord between Norris and Verstappen was readily apparent during the race, but afterward, both drivers were able to joke about it. Moreover, Norris admitted that he knew not to expect much space from Verstappen. For his part, the Red Bull driver joked in the press conference: “I think the grass was not really well cut on the right-hand side. I think Lando saw that as well and he made sure it was nicely cut.”
Norris then added: “The guys just did a very good pit stop under pressure. It was our one opportunity to try and get a bit closer. I wasn’t even trying to race Max, I was just trying to cut the grass like he said! Didn’t even know he was there, actually. So no, nothing. He had the position and he had the right to do what he did, so fair play.”
As for Red Bull’s slower pit stop, which led to such a moment between the drivers in the first place: team boss Christian Horner explained afterwards that the team had to call on reserves after two members of the pit crew left Suzuka. “The two number one mechanics, twins, had to go back to the UK because, unfortunately, their father is not doing so well. So we had spare guys at the pit stop and that stop was a little slower than would have been ideal,” explained Horner.
In this article
Laurens Stade
Formula 1
Max Verstappen
Lando Norris
Red Bull Racing
McLaren
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Red Bull Formula 1 team boss Christian Horner thinks Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri having equal status made it harder for McLaren to fight Max Verstappen in Suzuka.
Having been outqualified by Verstappen’s stunning pole lap on Saturday, Norris and Piastri spent the grand prix chasing the reigning champion in an intrinsically quicker McLaren, with Suzuka’s one-stop race void of overtaking opportunities.
In the second stint Piastri asked the team to swap positions and hand him a chance to fight Verstappen, the Australian feeling he had extra pace in hand.
But that call never came, with team boss Andrea Stella not convinced Piastri was actually faster than Norris in the Red Bull’s dirty air.
“I don’t think it is so clear that Oscar was faster,” Stella said. “Lando was trying to get Max’s slipstream even closer, but anytime you went below a second there was a significant loss of grip.
“At this track you need seven, eight tenths of performance advantage in order to be able to overtake.”
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
While Horner envies McLaren’s position of having two frontrunning cars, which Red Bull is yet to have as it tries its luck with Yuki Tsunoda as Verstappen’s latest team-mate, he did feel its equal driver approach also came with compromises that made it harder for the team to attack the Dutchman.
It pitted third-placed Piastri first because of pressure from behind, leaving Norris to come in on the same lap as Verstappen to negate any strategic options.
“I guess the problem they have is they have two drivers that are fighting for the drivers’ championship,” Horner offered.
“The difficulty they have is that they’ve made a bet where they’re going to let them race. So that’s the compromise that inevitably comes with that.”
Asked if Norris could have beaten Verstappen by pitting one lap earlier, he replied: “The undercut was reasonably powerful. There’s ‘could have, should have, would have’, I’m sure, up and down the pitlane.
“I think the majority of the hard work was done on Saturday. I guess 90% of the cars finished in the order that they started in. It was a flat-out sprint race today. There was very low degradation.
“We know the McLarens are very, very fast. And it needed Max to be inch perfect with two very fast McLarens right behind him.
“For 53 laps he made not a single mistake and had the pace to cover them, keep them out of his DRS. I think that’s one of Max’s best weekends.”
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In this article
Filip Cleeren
Formula 1
Red Bull Racing
McLaren
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