It’s been only a month since the start of the 2025 F1 season, and in only four races the excitement of this year’s championship battle is through the roof.
With the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix about to undergo live, what new exciting event will it bring which once again brings all F1 fans to the edge of their seats?
Is McLaren even ready for one of its drivers to be World Champion?
The McLaren F1 team have two good drivers and they have already won three out of four races this year. Both Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are very talented young drivers with a desire to win the championship.
They have the fastest car on the grid currently, but can they encash that opportunity?
Lando Norris the only contender for the championship last year, and the only man to challenge Max Verstappen in 2024, still needs to put together regular strong race finishes if he’s to make this world championship his own.
At times, it appears, even if ever so faintly that he doesn’t seem to have the fight in him this year.
Oscar Piastri his teammate, has already beaten Lando Norris, a driver with far more experience than Piastri.
Oscar came to F1 in 2022, while Lando has been driving in F1 since 2019. Yet, since the start of this year, Oscar has seemed to be in better control of his MCL39, excluding a slight mishap in Melbourne.
Oscar has been on the pole position in China, and in Bahrain, and he won both those races.
While Lando Norris started 3rd and finished 2nd and started 6th in Bahrain and finished 3rd, Oscar Piastri has already closed down the lead by Lando Norris in the championship points, as the gap is now down to 3 points.
After Norris’s scuffle during Q2, which saw him crashing into the wall and resultantly stacked on tenth for the start of this race, Piastri already holds the upper hand thanks to a P2 grid position
The Australian, who won his first race in Hungary last season is hungry for the Championship win and the title of Golden Boy of McLaren.
In Jeddah, we go racing in the fastest street circuit, with the most dangerous turns!
The Jeddah Corniche Circuit is the fastest circuit in the current f1 calendar. Imagine a NASCAR oval circuit, but instead of straight lines imagine S curved lines and you can almost picture the Jeddah Circuit.
The track has the most turns, a total of 27 turns line the circuit and what it makes it so dangerous is that these turns are taken by the drivers at an average of 250kmph.
What makes Jeddah hard?
The Jeddah Circuit is very hard on the tires as the all the turns put huge loads of strain on the tires. The 1st corner braking distance itself is a 168m.
To win here, doesn’t just require qualifying on Pole, a driver has to maintain ultimate focus throughout the entire race as every other corner is blind, and comes at you with a speed of 250kmph. Which is why everyone is following Verstappen closely in what could be an appetising fight to the finish with Oscar Piastri of McLaren.
Does Mercedes stand a chance at a championship win?
George Russell, ex-teammate of Lewis Hamilton, the driver who substituted for Lewis during the Covid period, has been a championship contender since the very start of this season.
Kimi Antonelli, the other Mercedes driver, the one who now sits in Lewis Hamilton’s seat, a rookie who has great skill and talent, has been a fierce competition for even the veterans of the sport.
Mercedes, this year, have finally managed to give their car some pace, and it’s not just faster than before, the car is now competitive, and defeating the Red Bull’s and Ferrari’s.
Especially, George Russell, the tire whisperer, has managed to keep even the fastest car on the grid the McLaren of Lando Norris at bay.
George Russell, is the hope of Mercedes F1 team. They have given him a car which can fight on track. George has been on the podium three times out of four this season. This consistency could very well lead to a championship win.
After all, it was consistency that lead Max Verstappen to win his 4th World Championship last season, despite being ailed by a woefully troubled RB20.
What’s wrong with Red Bull?
Source– F1.com
Despite Verstappen’s scintillating pole at Jeddah, all’s not right with the Christian Horner-led team.
The out the usurped the undeniable ring leader, Mercedes, back in 2021, and has been the winning team since then, has seemed to now lose all order and is frantically trying to fit together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle without even having all the right pieces.
The Red Bull car started having problems in 2023, but no one even paid any attention because they were miles ahead. But now their complacency has come to bite them back.
Is Max Verstappen thinking of leaving Red Bull?
Max Verstappen is furious with the management and may want to leave Red Bull.
With already having to struggle with a slow and troubled car, and having to drive around those problems, Max expected the team to give him near perfect pitstops.
But it seems a case of really bad luck for Red Bull as they could not even manage that. Max has always raced to win, and RedBull have left too many holes in their team to actually provide a fast car and better pitstops.
By the time Red Bull get their act together, it may be too late.
Pitstops was something the team have always had in the bag. They have won the fastest pitstop award since 2018 consecutively.
That is 7 years of continuous perfect pitstops, but this year, that does not seem to be the case. The Milton Keyenes-based outfit have not had one fastest pit stop in any of the four races.
Red Bull has also been shuffling drivers like shuffling cards before a game of bridge. They barely gave Liam Lawson any time to adjust and kicked him off to the Racing Bulls.
Yuki- the outlier?
Even though Yuki Tsunoda was the one who deserved the Red Bull seat after Sergio Perez, he still was not given it. Now because they had no other choice, they promoted him, and Yuki has performed much better than Lawson in the RB21.
This lack of clear strategy and erratic changes shows that Red Bull is in shambles. There is no chain of command of order in the team.
The team has lost its edge and since Adrian Newey left, Red Bull has been trying to pick up the pieces. But by the time it picks up two pieces, three more have fallen off.
How will they be able to put up a fight for the other top teams?
What is coming our way this Sunday in Jeddah?
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is around the corner with only a day to go. All the teams are ready to fight it out on the track.
McLaren seem to be one’s most likely to win, but knowing drivers like Max Verstappen, George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton are also going to give it their all. Well, the result may well surprise us all.
All-in-all, it is a win for F1, no matter which driver comes out on top.