114 replies to this topic

[Red5ive]

Verstappen - WDC for the final time.

Norris and Piastri spend the year taking points off each other due to "Papaya Rules"

McLaren win the WCC again

Ferrari do a Ferrari and manage to not win either championship whilst having the fastest, most consistent car.

Leclerc beats Hamilton easily

Hamilton retires at the end of the season

Alonso retires at the end of the season

Russell beats Antonelli and everyone decide KImi wasnt the special one after all.

Doohan dropped pretty quickly in favour of Colapinto - who also does badly.

Lawson destroyed by Verstappen and exits F1 never to be seen again.

Bearman and Bortoleto do okay - nothing spectacular but enough to retain their seats.

Sainz beats Albon but scores only a single figure of points.

[cyclist]

- Mclaren overplay their hand with the new car, which is a bit of a diva much like the RB20 – occasionally very fast, but often troublesome to get into the window.

- Despite this, Piastri wins the opening race with Lando only 4th, already putting pressure on Norris, who has a disappointing campaign.

- Ferrari has the best car in qualifying, with Charles clearly beating Lewis and getting the most poles

- The Ferrari is a bit of a nightmare on it's tires though, which Lewis handles much better than Charles, which leads to painful situations in the races with Lewis having to overtake Leclerc

- The 2 Ferrari drivers take quite a few points off eachother and the atmosphere gets quite tense. This benefits the Mclaren and Red Bull teams

- The Red Bull car is more docile than the RB20, but not the fastest car, again only 3rd in the order.

- Max makes the most of the situation again and consistently scores podiums and some wins

- Mercedes is the 4th team again, with occasional highlights.

- Antonelli proves to be fast, but makes a lot of mistakes. He lucks into a podium in the 2nd race, only for him to have crashes in the following three races.

- Russell feels the pressure of a potential Verstappen move as well as Antonellis pace and decides to shop around for a seat mid season, ending up at Alpine.

- The WDC fight goes to the last race between Verstappen, Lewis, Piastri and Leclerc. Verstappen wins and leaves for Aston Martin.

- Wolff needs a new driver next to Antonelli now that Verstappen is moving to AM and Russell leaving, and end up buying out Bortoletos contract.

- Sainz can pick between Red Bull or Mercedes, and decides to go to Red Bull for fear of Antonelli

- Aston Martin make a jump in the order with Alonso, getting an occasional podium and a win.

- Stroll otoh is disappointing again, and to make room for Verstappen, he is "promoted" to the Hypercar team at the end of the season.

- Alpine fight with AM for 5th in the WDC with Gasly. The 2nd seat changes at least 2 times in the season.

- Williams build a decent car, and are in a consistent midfield fight with Sauber and Haas. All of these 3 teams get a podium once in the season.

- Sainz gets some highlight results and benfits from the chaotic driver market to go to Red Bull.

- The VCARB is the slowest car. Hadjar is decent, but Tsunoda starts making lots of errors again and is replaced before the end of the season by Lindblad.

- Best rookies are Antonelli and Bortoleto, both getting on the podium at least once.

 

So all in all a bit of a 2024 part 2 with some added flavors

Edited by cyclist, 03 January 2025 - 15:08.

[IrvTheSwerve]

I'm going to be really boring, in a good way - and say that I have absolutely no idea how this season is going to pan out.

 

McLaren may carry on in the same vein and win both WDC and WCC...they may have a poor start again and we see a repeat of 2024.

 

Ferrari may absolutely dominate with their new driver pairing, they may disappoint with their drivers languishing in the mid-points places, with Lewis getting frustrated at the move.

 

RedBull - no idea - they may once again produce a great car over the winter, with Max gunning for a title again...or he may be struggling to scrap for wins here or there.

 

Mercedes - totally unknown how Antonelli will do, he may be the second coming as many have mooted, or may crumble under the pressure. George may or may not get the better of him, who knows.

 

I'm expecting Sainz to perform well in the Williams and have the measure of Albon. I feel all of the other teams will be a bit 'meh', being fairly close as they were last year. Alonso may well get fed up at AM if he's uncompetitive again.

 

I don't think I've been so clueless/excited about an upcoming season - I hope that I'm not setting myself up to fail if the season ends up being total boredom!

[jonklug]

1. Verstappen to win more races in 2025 than he did in 2024.
2. Carlos Sainz to score a podium in a Williams.
3. Antonelli will start super slow but match or even be faster than Russell in the 2nd part of the season.
4. McLaren to have another part banned/removed and fall down the order.
5. Ferrari winning a single race - with Lewis Hamilton.

[juicy sushi]

1. Hamilton gets straight up beat by Leclerc.

2. Piastri and Norris have some clash which is turned into a major thing by a media desperate for another Senna/Prost feud.

3. Porsche wins the WEC Manufacturers title and Le Mans, but Ferrari win the Driver's title and the most races.

4. McLaughlin wins the Indycar title in a tight battle with Palou.  

5. Pato wins the 500.  Indycar fumbles the moment.

[markpenske]

Going out on a limb here but here is my 2025 prediction:

Max gets angry at team, teammate, media and competitors.

[Risil]

5. Pato wins the 500.  Indycar fumbles the moment.

 

Nailed on

[IrvTheSwerve]

Lewis wins his 8th WDC for Ferrari...at Abu Dhabi

 

Title fight goes down to the wire between Lewis and Max - Max currently leading Abu Dhabi when the race director is taken ill...a couple of laps later a safety car comes out and a song blasts through the PA system around the circuit:

 

 

Michael Masi enters race control smashing all the assistants over the head with steel chairs and furiously starts to type 'all lapped cars may overtake' into the message system, putting Lewis behind Max with a couple of laps to go.

 

Lewis wins the race and title and unexpectedly belts out the Italian national anthem in perfect Italian, much to the crowd's disbelief. 

[PlatenGlass]

Charles Leclerc confirms his position as the greatest qualifier for a generation with a couple of impressive pole positions out of the 24-race season, only one of which was the result of a red flag. He might even be marginally up in the head-to-head against Hamilton if anyone looked at that as well. But they don't need to.

Lawson struggles against Verstappen, and like Perez, Albon and Gasly, it's because he was a terrible driver all along. When news drops that he might be sacked, Tsunoda and Hadjar, level on points, collide on track, and each demands a 10-second stop/go penalty, for himself...

Antonelli finishes an impressive 6th in his debut year, within 50 points of Russell, meaning that he's clearly too good for F1 now, and an even better championship is invented to promote him into for 2026 where he will be the only contender. Meanwhile Bortoleto fights it out for the championship, but no-one notices.

Hulkenberg finally takes his first podium but he's told in no uncertain terms that fixtures and fittings are not to be removed.

Newey starts to work his magic at Aston Martin, and Alonso scores a late win, ready for a title bid next year at the age of 57. But the residual effects of Newey from previous seasons are still clearly being felt at his old team, allowing the title to go to Carlos Sainz at Williams.

However, McLaren comfortably take the constructors' title again, with its drivers 9th and 10th in the standings. Mathematicians spend years working out how that was actually possible.

Edited by PlatenGlass, 03 January 2025 - 23:14.

[flymo]

1. Deluge conditions at Suzuka convince schedule makers that the spring date was a dumb idea.

2. Deluge conditions induce unprecedented number of overtakes during the Monaco Grand Prix (4) as Ocon punts off Bearman.

3. Deluge conditions at Spa surprise nobody.

4. Deluge conditions at Bahrain bring shock all-rookie podium. 

5. Max Verstappen announces team move for 2026.

6. Audi pulls out citing lack of BOP concessions.

7. Fernando re-discovers six tenths and blitzes WDC before announcing retirement.

8. Lewis enjoys life in Italia, retires and opens fashion studio.

[BRG]

In a shock development, Sir Lewis Hamilton, having been fired by Ferrari for daring to go faster than degenerational talent Leclerc, moves to Croydon to open a vegan pasta restaurant in partnership with William Storey, the Rich Energy CEO, who invests enough cans of energy drink to last nearly a whole hour. 

 

In a surprise move, Croydon Council offer Sir Lewis the newly created post of Lord Mayor of Croydon entitling him to drive a flock of goats over the A23 flyover.

[Frood]

All the rookies, even Doohan, are close to their team-mates. Antonelli is on Russell’s pace almost immediately, and gets a string of good results straight away. Bortoleto is also right on Hülkenberg’s case, who is found to have been coasting against Magnussen and has a much tougher time in 2025.

Also defying expectations, Albon consistently stays level with Sainz.

Lawson isn’t particularly close to Verstappen, but still looks better than Pérez did in 2024, despite the Red Bull being worse. Gets sacked anyway.

Tsunoda gets a podium and tells Horner and Marko to **** off in his parc fermé interview. Gets sacked.

Lewis forgets he’s at Ferrari and tries to stop in the Mercedes box a couple of times early on. Also puts out an early decree that “we are checking” is banned from the team radio. Ferrari is fast, but Leclerc loses the championship because Ferrari forget he exists in a late-season race and go radio silent.

Max hits his penalty points limit and gets a one-race ban. Tells MBS to **** off in parc fermé interview. Gets sent to Antarctica for his community service.

Hadjar is the only Red Bull driver left by this point. He can’t carry both teams single-handedly and spontaneously combusts through anger. Gets sacked.

Red Bull try to get special dispensation to run Lindblad, but are denied. With nowhere to turn, they have to bring back Vergne, Buemi, Kvyat, and Hartley. Iwasa leaves Red Bull because they forgot about him.

[PayasYouRace]

Threads merged. Please use the forum search prior to starting a new thread, just in case the topic is already being discussed.

[CPR]

It might be worth keeping this thread as a season long WCC and WDC discussion thread - predictions and analysis of pecking order and final victors, turning points in the championships and general discussions of the main protagonists in the fights. I think it would be hard to separate the two championships so one thread seems better to me.

 

Thoughts?

Edited by CPR, 18 January 2025 - 19:19.

[sladealonso]

It might be worth keeping this thread as a season long WCC and WDC discussion thread - predictions and analysis of pecking order and final victors, turning points in the championships and general discussions of the main protagonists in the fights. I think it would be hard to separate the two championships so one thread seems better to me.

 

Thoughts?

I think it sounds like a good idea. Always potential to spiral out of control with tangents and mud-slinging if I was to play Devil's advocate.