The Formula 1 paradox: everyone knows Max Verstappen will win and only counts down to see Lewis Hamilton wearing red in 2025

Welcome to the 2024 season of Formula 1. Max Verstappen He will win his fourth consecutive title and join the Frenchman in the winners’ register Alain Prost and to German Sebastian Vettel. Red Bull will get his seventh victory in the constructors’ championship, will tie the legendary Lotus of the 60s and 70s, and will arouse the morbidity of soon matching the eight of Mercedes and of McLaren. There will be record attendance at most 24 Grand Prix which will liven up the year with the largest number of races in the history of the top category of world motorsport. Some drivers will be kicked out of their seats due to poor results. Some team leaders will experience unbearable pressure from team owners. THE paddock and the grills will be full of them celebrity. Prince Albert will dress up to present the trophy to the winner in Monaco. The podiums of the Persian Gulf will not have champagne. THE fans They will invade the asphalt of Monza to see the winner. And the Las Vegas Strip will add more neon and fanfare to the most spectacular show.

Now, despite knowing (almost) everything that will happen this year in Formula 1, the attractive power of the top category not only does not decrease but always find an edge to gain followers. And as if he charmthe vertigo of running on the edge of the road stick very hard and the millions of dollars that lubricate the gears of this perfect engine will not be enough, the championship which will begin this Friday with the ranking of Bahrain Grand Prix has a special and unprecedented additive: the fans already want this season to end because They are only interested in seeing Lewis Hamilton dressed in Ferrari red in 2025. Nothing more, nothing less.

Nine teams know for another year that they will race to see Red Bull win. The DRS will be enabled from the second round to bet on incoming overtaking. And Shanghai and Miami have joined Sao Paulo, Spielberg, Lusail and Austin as Sprint racing venues. Nineteen drivers will compete to see if they can do it enter a few Grand Prix for Verstappen: in 2023 he could only do it Sergio Perez in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, e Carlos Sainz in Singapore. All city circuits. There will be a lot more kisses this year Kelly Piquet to her boyfriend Max. Don’t miss out on the romance of a script perfect for television.

And if we talk about screenplay, don’t miss the scandal. Nobody talked during the break about aerodynamics, design, spoilers or the genius behind Red Bull: Adrian Newey. The black mark of the Austrian team was placed on the figure of Christian Horner, the master and gentleman who leads the Austrian team and who was internally investigated for alleged “inappropriate behavior” reported by a woman in the team. It all culminated only last Wednesday with his acquittal.

The former pilot drives that very high arrogance that usually overwhelms those in power, as if they didn’t understand that as it comes, it goes. let me tell you Toto Wolffhis nemesis Mercedes, which after eight consecutive titles he saw as the Silver arrows They have been overcome like poles in circuits. And now he will experience a historic season with the unstoppable countdown to Hamilton’s departure at Ferrari.

When a friend leaves

Seen today, episode 6 of the sixth season of “Driving to Survive”the excellent docuseries Netflix which talks about the emotions and miseries of the Formula 1 business, seems like a joke. But everything changes so quickly that the grotesque is understandable. “Mr. Money is a powerful gentleman”he satirized Francisco de Quevedo… in the early 17th century!

“My goal is to get back to the top and win my eighth title, but the car is terrible. I no longer remember what the feeling of winning was like. When the car is slow, I feel helpless. Fernando (Alonso) made a good decision (going to Aston Martin). Has Ferrari contacted me? No,” Lewis is heard saying halfway through last season. “More than a driver, Lewis is my friend. This is your family. I wouldn’t want to have another rider on the team. He’s loyal. The red Ferrari uniform wouldn’t suit him”Wolff says with a smug face. And he says to Hamilton: “You lead this team.” And Lewis closes: “I don’t think I will ever stop being a Mercedes driver. “It’s my home and my family.”. Chanes Tsunami.

There is no way to follow this year of Formula 1 without imagining what will happen fans in Imola and Monza when they live more in Hamilton than in Charles Leclerc and Sainz, a “dead man Walking” who will surely have a place in another team in 2025. The Monegasque will race all year knowing that “they have wet his ears” and that he will be compared in every race to what Hamilton does. Nice pressure that you will have to handle.

It might seem that way George Russell He will be freer, knowing that Lewis will no longer be his partner in a year. But this is Formula 1, friends. And the morbidity grows because Mercedes will need a driver next year. Youth or experience? The range is so wide that it ranges from Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who at 17 will make his debut in Formula 2, the same Alonso, two-time F1 champion, the oldest on the grid (42), owner of an overwhelming personality and spectacular management which made Aston Martin bigger.

The Asturian was fourth in 2023, with eight podiums and 206 of the billionaire’s team’s 280 points Lawrence Walkfather of Lance, who took just three podiums in seven seasons.

“My situation is quite unique. There are only three champions on the grid and I’m the only one available in 2025, so I’m in a good position. There has been nothing about a possible move to Mercedes. Aston Martin will be my priority, but if we can’t reach an agreement, I know I’m attractive to other teams. “I won’t stay in Formula 1 just to have fun,” Alonso clarified with a knife and fork in his hands.

McLaren intends to recover its glorious past and fight for second place among the constructors. He needs to continue the momentum of the final eight races of last season, in five of which he put his drivers on the podium, still without a win. Lando Norris24 years old, British, and Oscar Piastri, a 22-year-old Australian, has the money to finally win a Grand Prix this year. They just have to be there when Red Bull fails.

The rest is decorated

The rest of the teams will face their own challenges and problems.

Alpine he has to deal with those intimate enemies that they are Pierre Gasly AND Esteban Oconborn in two towns in Normandy separated by just 57 kilometers. There is nothing left of the friendship they had when they were rivals as children in karting. If the first driver he wants to win an F1 race against is his teammate, the war is very hot in the French team after a disappointing season.

Williams hopes to improve with that engineer’s help nerd what is it James Vowles, who grew up under Wolff’s wing at Mercedes and is more of a fan of data than engines. But since Formula 1 lives on “data”, he fits like a glove. This is the drama Alex Albon drive with solvency but Logan Sargeant scored points in a single Grand Prix in 2023.

The second Red Bull team is talked about more for its sponsorship than for its improvement. Visa has entered into a global sponsorship in sport for the first time in 15 years and that is why the former Toro Rosso and former AlphaTauri is now called RB F1 Team Visa Cash App. Take it, buddy. Zero opportunities with the nice and histrionic Australian Daniele Ricciardo and the impulsive Japanese Yuki Tsunoda.

The legendary Alfa Romeo brand came out this year and Sauber kicks He is most striking with his neon green and Finnish mustache. Valtteri Bottascompanion of the Chinese Guanyu Zhou.

In haasthe team that last year only scored points in four Grands Prix, follows its two capricious drivers: the Dane Kevin Magnussen and German Nico Hulkenberg. Gene Haas has chosen that new character that is the Italian Günther Steinerbut the former team leader took advantage of the fame of being a Netflix star, the book wrote “Survive to lead”which immediately became “Best seller” and there is little left without work: he will be a special commentator on German television. More Formula 1, impossible.

Welcome and welcome to the show.