Australian GP: F1 2025 kicks off with high anticipation, different title favourite and Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari | F1 News happymamay

Formula 1 is preparing to start what can be one of the most competitive and open seasons in the years of the Australian Grand Prix this week.

While sports regulations may be largely unchanged for the new campaign, there was a winter of change across the network with 10 out of twenty variable seats – a driver modified by Lewis Hamilton’s arrival in Ferrari.

“We expect one of the classic Formula 1 seasons at all and there is nothing we saw in the pre -season test in Bahrain changed our opinion,” he said. Sky SPORTS F1’s Martin Brundel before flying to Melbourne.

“The first four teams – McLaren, Ferrari, Red Ball and Mercedes – incredibly close.”

The 2025 season represents the fourth and last year of the current organization, and comes hot from the back from the second half of the 2024 campaign, which witnessed seven different drivers winning the last 12 race.

24 other weekends in the race in 21 countries are waiting now for the next nine months, all of which live on Sky SPORTS F1 and Sky Sports appWith Albert Park in Melbourne often, the opening match of the season for the first time since 2019.

The work begins overnight on Friday before qualifying at 5 am on Saturday and 58 rpm at 4 am on Sunday.

Norris is the favorite title for the first time?

While MAX Verstapen enters its fourth consecutive season as the ruling world champion and aims to match Michael Schumacher’s record for five titles in a row, book makers – and many critics – installed his opponent in McLaren Lando Norris as a favorite preferred before the season.

“Abroad and what we saw in the test, I think Lando is the preferred for the championship for the first time in his career,” Lando said for the first time in his career. Sky SPORTS F1’s Caron Chandoc.

Norris, 25, enjoyed the best season in his career in 2024, won the first four Grands Prix and finished second in the world championship to Verstapen.

However, Verstapen still ended the year 63 comfortable points from the British in the ranking, although Red Bull was raped from the middle of the season as the fastest car in the network and McLaren coming to win the title of their first establishment in 26 years.

But the important basis for the crown of the fourth Dutch drivers was really laid in the first months of the last season, when he won seven of the ten opening events. So, after one year of that early raid, and with Red Paul’s domination for one time it is certain that it has not yet been restored, Norris’s opportunity and teammate in the McLaren Oscar Pasri and their title -leg colleagues in Ferrari and Mercedes to try to change the narration in their preferences with everyone returns to the zero point.

According to compressed competitors, it is the new McLaren’s husband in the new McL39 who seems to be with the car that must be overcome early.

“I think McLaren will be very strong,” said George Russell, whose team has enjoyed the pre -season.

“Lando says they have found a lot during the winter season and it seems completely confident.”

In response, McLaren drivers and team heads reduced the MCL39 offer for the competition three days after unreasonable mixed weather in Bahrain, but Norris also admitted, with the team that is established in the forefront at the forefront.

“After last year, I think we have no excuses,” Norris said in F1 75 Live. “In the past, we had our fair share, but sincere and real excuses. I think this year we have nothing to hide.

How will the Hamilton Ferrari profession start?

For the first time in 13 years, Lewis Hamilton will line up in the first network for Sunday morning that does not drive the Mercedes Winz, after the most successful F1 driver joined.

Since his arrival at the Ferrari headquarters for the first time on January 20 – a moment that has always been historical but quickly got a distinctive position thanks to the godfather -like image of the hero who was taken seven times outside his new home on his path and reward.

After testing some of the old Ferrari cars in Firano and Barcelona before the new SF-25 placed during its steps in the Bahrain test, the Hamilton process of integration in its new surroundings and its Italian culture in a demonstration in the street in Milan alongside his new teammate Charles Licerk last week, where the 40-year-old announced the Tifosi crowd: “I think everything is on everything To share it. “

If this already proves that it is true immediately this year, and if this is the case whether Hamilton or Leclerc – the driver was the one who scored the largest number of points in the second half of 2024 – which provides the strongest challenge, is a question that will be answered only in time in the stalking in the last chase.

For Hillton, the wide magic is the extent of the speed he will wake up with the first Ferrari on the path. After a difficult final season in Mercedes, during which he finished the dryness of victory for two and a half years, but he made some unusual mistakes and was divided into an account of his teammate, and the 40-year-old said that he was “slowly connected” with SF-25 and that “this is the most positive feeling that she suffers from in a long time.”

It is sufficient to fight for a platform, or even win, in his first race in Melbourne where Ferrari took two last year? In the face of a new challenge at home at Leclerc, this is one of the most wonderful weekend questions.

Red Bull begins on the back foot?

Verstapen spent the last 63 race dating back to May 2022 sitting at the Driver Championship table, but this standard running is still far from making sure of the continuation after Sunday in Melbourne.

Three days appeared from the three -day Red Bull test with the new RB21 away from the terrible, but at the same time it was not near the convincing, and certainly compared to last year anywhere near the dominant, around the Bahrain International Circle for their three competitors.

Although it does not seem to have any concerns related to the main reliability with the new car as well, Red Bull has completed the least number of any team rolls with the Milton Keennes -based uniform apparently trying a variety of preparations, and in parts of the last day, to try to get the best balance and performance of the car.

“While a whole” was not bad “there was” little work to do. “

But it may be the most news disclosure about the place where Red Ball found themselves from the artistic director Pierre Wash, who admitted: “I am not happy as much as I can be because the car did not respond to how we want sometimes, but it is going in the right direction, and perhaps the size of the direction was not as much as we expected, which is something we need to work on for the first and future race.”

Even without the fastest, or even sometimes, a second or even third package, in the second half of last year, Verstapen still attends regularly the big results – including two wins for admiration in the end of the season – this means in the end that Norris will not pick him up on the title everything he did McLaren.

So it seems that the early part of the new season may prove a challenge similar to the same, although this time without the convenience of the temporary store of useful points. However, as his competitors know well, no one will count.

Sky SPORTS F1’s Live Australian GP

Thursday 13 March

• 2.30 in the morning: Press conference for drivers
• 5 in the morning: F1 offer: lights Out 2025*
• 9.45 pm: F3 Practice
• 10.55 pm: F2 practice

Friday 14 March

• 1 in the morning: Australian GP practice (the session begins at 1.30) **
• 2.55 in the morning: F3 qualifiers*
• 3.40 in the morning: The press conference of managers
• 4.45 in the morning: Australian practice GP Two (the session begins at 5 am)*
• 6.25 a.m.: F2 qualifiers*
• 7.15 in the morning: F1 show*

Saturday 15 March

• 12.10 AM: F3 Sprint*
• 1.10 am: Australian practice GP Three (the session begins at 1.30) **
• 3.10 AM: F2 SPRINT*
• 4.15 in the morning: Australian rehabilitation accumulation GP*
• 5 am: Australian GP qualification*
• 7 in the morning: TED booklet*
• 9.55 pm: F3 Features*

Sunday March 16

• 12.25 in the morning: F2* Features Race
• 2.30 AM: Australian GP accumulation: Grand Prix Sunday*
• 4 am: Australian Grand Prix*
• 6 am: Australian GP reaction: the volatile flag*
• 7 in the morning: Ted Book*
• 7.55 in the morning: Restart the Australian GP race
• 10 am: The most prominent Australia GP
• Villeneuve pryoni – the indescribable Racing tragedy

*Also at the main sky sports event

See all 24 weekends of the 2025 Formula 1 season on the air Sky SPORTS F1Starting from the Australian GP on 14-16 March. Stream Sky SPORTS at now – no contract, cancellation at any time