The 10 stories you devoured in 2025: Norris’s crowning, Hamilton’s grind, and Verstappen on the brink
If 2025 felt loud, it’s because it was. Lando Norris finally got his hands on a world title, Lewis Hamilton wore Ferrari red and discovered just how heavy that shirt can be, and Max Verstappen went to war in Barcelona and nearly benched himself for a race. It was peak F1—spiky, political, and endlessly watchable.
Here’s what you clicked on the most this year.
10) Clarkson vs. “Lewis Clarkilton”
Hamilton lit up Instagram on his first official day at Maranello with the most-liked F1-related post ever, posing outside Enzo’s old office like a man who’d just been handed the keys to the kingdom. Cue the parodies. The one that won the internet? Jeremy Clarkson, deadpan on his farm, rebranding himself “Lewis Clarkilton.” Peak British mischief, peak January.
9) McLaren’s double life: WEC in, Formula E out
McLaren announced a big future play: a hypercar programme in the World Endurance Championship from 2027. That ambition came with a cost. The team followed up by confirming it would exit Formula E at the end of 2024/25. Zak Brown’s message was clear—back the projects that map onto McLaren’s racing DNA and brand power. The paddock took notice.
8) Spain blew up: conclusions from a feverish Barcelona
Our Barcelona debrief flew because the race did. Verstappen’s clash with George Russell triggered a post-race penalty that wiped nine points and dropped him from fifth to 10th. Those points mattered—he’d ultimately miss the 2025 crown by two. There was more intrigue: whispers about what McLaren found in the setup window, and a fresh argument for Yuki Tsunoda as the wildcard answer to a few team bosses’ headaches. Spain was chaos. Spain was costly.
7) Scheckter’s licence saga
You don’t expect a world champion to be beaten by bureaucracy, yet Jody Scheckter, 1979 title winner, revealed he’d lost his driving licence after moving to Italy and wrangling with the test—his “very poor Italian” proving as tricky as a wet Monza. Ferrari were called for a little assistance. Charming, human, and a reminder that even the greats have admin days.
6) Hamilton’s Ferrari plea—and the retirement cloud that gathered, then drifted
By April, it was clear Hamilton’s Ferrari debut season wasn’t going to be romantic. Appearing at a fan event between Jeddah and Miami, he doubled down: he wasn’t quitting. The seven-time champion pressed for patience and support as the SF-25 refused to give him a Sunday platform. The stat that stung: 2025 became the first season of his F1 career without a podium. Tough medicine in scarlet.
5) The paddock mourns Ulises Panizza
The sport lost a familiar face in March when long-serving cameraman Ulises Panizza died suddenly, days before he was due to travel to Suzuka. Tributes poured in from all corners, notably from Alpine’s Franco Colapinto and Sergio Pérez—who, with Cadillac arriving in 2026, was living his own chapter change. A gentle reminder that F1’s heartbeat isn’t just drivers and team principals—it’s the crew who tell the story.
4) More pain for Max: FIA adds points after Spain
As if the Barcelona penalty wasn’t enough, the FIA added three penalty points to Verstappen’s superlicence for the Russell incident, leaving him one point shy of a race ban. Like a tightrope walker over the St. Lawrence in Montreal, he had to tiptoe through Canada and Austria before his tally began to fall again. He’ll start 2026 with three points; Haas’s Oliver Bearman, meanwhile, finished the year under the hottest glare with 12.
3) Steve Rider steps away, and the grid tips its cap
Veteran broadcaster Steve Rider retired after the Oulton Park BTCC round in June, bringing a measured voice and decades of race-day cadence to a close. Diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2023, Rider chose his exit with the same calm he brought to air. Lando Norris was among those paying tribute—another cross-generational nod in a season he owned on track.
2) Ferrari’s flexi-wing fiasco at Le Mans
Weeks after F1 introduced a tightened technical directive on flexi-wings, Ferrari’s 499P was disqualified from the Le Mans 24 Hours in the hypercar class. The culprit: four missing bolts from the rear-wing support mechanism, which meant the car failed deflection tests. A brutal, immediate DQ for the factory crew of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen—and a stark lesson in the margins that define modern endurance racing.
1) Brundle’s OBE—and a royal gridwalk tease
Martin Brundle received an OBE in the New Year’s Honours and collected it at Windsor from the Prince of Wales. Naturally, that sparked one question around Sky’s trucks: would Prince William join Brundle for a Silverstone gridwalk cameo? Karun Chandhok threw kindling on the fire with a cheeky nudge. The idea of royalty weaving between tyre blankets and brake ducts? Very 2025.
And the season that framed it all?
Norris was the story that mattered most, the first-time world champion with McLaren’s star on his helmet and a paddock nodding in approval. Verstappen, a four-time champion, found out how thin the margins can be when the points police come knocking. Hamilton discovered the long road back with Ferrari is exactly that: long. And Red Bull navigated a year of turbulence off track as much as on it.
If 2026 needs a template, it’s this: keep the edges sharp, keep the gloves off, and don’t forget to tighten the bolts.
