The 2025 Method 1 season has reached the Summer season Shutdown.
Making it an ideal time to pause, and declare some early winners and losers.
At present we’ll take a look at six winners from the primary half of the season, a set of groups, drivers and sure, a toy firm, that stole the present over the primary 14 race weekends.
Photograph by Mark Sutton – Method 1/Method 1 through Getty Photos
2024 was a dream season for McLaren, as they rocketed up the standings over the second half of the schedule to seize their first Constructors’ title since 1998.
The alarm clock has but to go off to wake Workforce Papaya up from that dream.
McLaren entered the 2025 season because the favorites to repeat as Constructors’ Champions, and so they have lived as much as these expectations. Lando Norris’ win within the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, coupled with a hard-fought factors end from Oscar Piastri after the hometown hero discovered the grass in moist situations, was sufficient to see McLaren go away Melbourne stage with Mercedes atop the standings, however with a tiebreaker benefit because of Norris’ win.
Since then, they haven’t seemed again, recording a mixed 11 Grand Prix wins between Piastri and Norris (together with Norris’ win in Melbourne) and 24 mixed Grand Prix podiums, roaring into the break with 4 consecutive one-two finishes. That introduced their complete variety of front-row lockouts to seven on the season, their highest mark since Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna recorded that many in 1988.
After 14 race weekends their lead over second-place Ferrari is 299 factors, on par with the 310-point benefit Crimson Bull loved over Mercedes after 14 races of their dominant 2023 marketing campaign.
Add to all this the truth that Piastri and Norris have seemingly turned the combat for the Drivers’ Championship right into a two-man race, and you’ve got a season to recollect within the works at Woking.
Oscar Piastri’s type has taken a major leap ahead, placing him atop the Drivers’ Championship standings on the Summer season Shutdown.
After successful a pair of grands prix final season, Piastri secured six wins over the primary 14 races, bringing his factors complete to 284, simply eight wanting his 2024 mark. He enters the break with a nine-point lead over teammate Lando Norris within the title race, giving him a slight benefit within the title chase.
There’s a lengthy option to go till a champion is topped, however the Oscar Piastri we noticed over the primary half of the season can definitely carry the large trophy by the tip of the season.
Lando Norris entered the 2025 season because the odds-on favourite to win the F1 Drivers’ Championship after falling wanting Max Verstappen a season in the past, and his win in Melbourne definitely bought his title chase off to a roaring begin.
Whereas it has been extra of an up-and-down marketing campaign when contrasted with what his teammate has performed — together with a troublesome second in Montreal when he clashed with Piastri within the closing laps of the Canadian Grand Prix — Norris continues to be simply 9 factors behind his teammate because the second half looms. He additionally secured two main wins, taking the Monaco Grand Prix after which successful his residence race at Silverstone, among the many 5 Grand Prix victories over the primary 14 race weekends on his 2025 resume.
Can he catch Piastri? Definitely. Will he? We’ll discover out over the second half of the season.
Let’s have some enjoyable for a second.
Though not almost as a lot enjoyable because the grid had within the buildup to the Miami Grand Prix.
The drivers’ parade seemed a bit of totally different because the grid wound round Exhausting Rock Stadium in Could, because the 20 drivers climbed into life-sized LEGO F1 vehicles for a lap not like another. In the event you had any doubt over how a lot the drivers themselves cherished this occasion, simply watch the onboard cameras and see how veterans, together with Fernando Alonso, Max Verstappen, and Lewis Hamilton, became youngsters once more.
It’s quarter-hour of pure pleasure.
And an epic win from the primary half of the season.
Photograph by Clive Rose/Getty Photos
2024 was a troublesome season for the staff at Sauber. The 12 months started with struggles in pit lane — exemplified by a 52-second pit cease for Valtteri Bottas on the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix because the staff handled a wheel nut concern — and they didn’t safe their first factors till the Qatar Grand Prix, the place Zhou Guanyu completed eighth to financial institution 4 factors for the staff.
The one 4 they scored all season.
This 12 months started with a brand new driver lineup (veteran Nico Hülkenberg and rookie Gabriel Bortoleto), and the turnaround has been dramatic. Sauber sits seventh within the standings with 51 factors, only one level behind sixth-place Aston Martin and 29 factors behind fifth-place Williams, placing them squarely within the midfield combat.
A giant chunk of these factors got here from Hülkenberg’s third-place end on the British Grand Prix, a outcome that marked the veteran’s first podium end in his 239th begin in F1. But in addition notable is what Bortoleto has performed in latest weeks, because the rookie completed eighth within the Austrian Grand Prix, ninth within the Belgian Grand Prix, and a career-best sixth within the Hungarian Grand Prix, all three outcomes coming within the 4 most up-to-date races.
Sauber introduced a vital improve bundle to the Spanish Grand Prix (the place Hülkenberg completed fifth), and that bundle has given the staff momentum heading into the second half of the season, and an opportunity to complete as excessive as fifth relying on outcomes.
Additionally they have the wind at their backs heading into 2026, after they change into the Audi works operation.
After taking a step ahead in 2023 after they completed seventh within the Constructors’ Championship standings, Williams got here again to Earth a bit in 2024. Logan Sargeant was dropped by the staff following the Dutch Grand Prix and changed by Franco Colapinto, who confirmed flashes over his first 4 begins — together with an eighth-place end within the Azerbaijan Grand Prix — however stumbled down the stretch.
Even with a stable season from Alexander Albon, Williams limped to a ninth-place end.
However James Vowles scored maybe the largest win of the motive force switch market (placing Lewis Hamilton’s transfer to Ferrari apart) when he inked Carlos Sainz Jr. to a brand new contract.
In the intervening time, Williams sits fifth within the standings with 70 factors, buoyed by 54 from Albon alone, a mark that has put him again into the dialog concerning a possible transfer to a different staff. Nevertheless, Albon insists that his future lies at Williams, as he advised RacingNews365 in a latest interview.
“I need to see the fruits of the place we get to. I really feel like we made it. Once I take a look at us in comparison with different groups, perhaps you possibly can take away or add McLaren, however McLaren have had the consistency, and so they’ve had their sparks all through the years,” started Albon.
”Once I take a look at Williams and take a look at the trajectory that we’ve been on, I don’t assume there’s one other staff which have simply gone 12 months on 12 months, simply this consecutive steep climb.
“And I really feel like, rightly or wrongly, I’ve been part of that course of, and I need to see us go the entire manner.”
Holding onto fifth within the Constructors’ Championship race could be an enormous step in that course of.
