Everything You Need to Know About F1 in 2025

As of today, there are just three of 24 total races left in the 2025 Formula One World Championship, and the results are anything but decided. At times this season, it seemed clear how the chips would fall, but it's all to play for, with not one, not two, but three drivers still in contention for the title. Lando Norris and his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, currently lead the way, with 390 and 366 points, respectively. But anyone who counts out Max Verstappen, the four-time World Champion who has been roaring back to the front of the grid in the second half of the season, clearly hasn't watched enough F1. Only time will tell how things will pan out, but one thing is for sure: This weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix—a race that, in 2023, produced a whopping 82 total overtakes—will no doubt play a pivotal role in the outcome of the 2025 season. Whether that's good or bad news for your driver will come down to what happens when those famous five lights go out on Sunday Saturday night.

In an effort to stave off impatience, we're giving you all the information you need to know about this season so far, from on-track drama between teammates to off-track outfits debuted in the paddock, otherwise known as F1's unofficial runway. Ahead, find details on the five drivers at the top of the 2025 standings, the three rookies with the most potential, and the wives and girlfriends (WAGs) whose vintage Roberto Cavalli and viral Hermès bags have helped to make motorsport one of fashion's most talked-about topics. First, read up on the basics. Then, prepare to dive in headfirst (kind of like Charles Leclerc did after last year's emotional triumph in Monaco). Everything you need to know about F1 in 2025 is just a scroll away.

Though F1 was technically founded in 1950, grand prix racing began far earlier than the turn of the century. The term "grand prix," which is French for "big prize," was initially used to describe the race at Le Mans, a city in northwestern France that's famous for its 24-hour endurance race, back in the early 1900s. In the 1930s, discussions began about the formation of an F1 Championship, but they were halted due to the war. By 1946, the topic had been picked back up, and in 1950, the first world championship commenced in Silverstone, England, which remains the site of the British Grand Prix.

Since then, 34 total drivers have taken home a title, with the most in the sport's 75-year history going to Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher, who have both won seven times. The latter won a majority of his championships with F1's winningest team, Scuderia Ferrari, winning five titles with the Italian outfit and two with Benetton. Hamilton won his first championship with McLaren before heading to Mercedes, where he won his remaining six titles.

Today's F1 landscape is much different than the one Schumacher raced in from 1991 to 2006, and then again, from 2010 to 2012. The last few years alone have radically changed the sport, with new partnerships, new drivers, and even a new, 11th team in Cadillac coming next year. For the next three races at least, though, there will be 10 teams and 20 drivers, all fighting for every possible championship point.

Out of the grid's 20 drivers, five have outscored the rest, and those are the athletes that many see as the future of F1. They are Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen, George Russell, and Charles Leclerc. All five are under the age of 28, with Piastri being the youngest at just 24 years old. They're all at top teams—that is, McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes, and Scuderia Ferrari, respectively, and have time and again proven their ability to win, even in tricky conditions and even trickier machinery.

Twenty-five-year-old Lando Norris currently leads the 2025 F1 World Drivers' Championship, but not by a landslide—at least not yet. The Brit has been fighting for the top two positions on the grid with his McLaren teammate, Australian Oscar Piastri, since the start of the season, but after a few tough finishes for the Aussie and some impressive improvements from the Brit, Norris was able to recapture first place in the standings with back-to-back victories in Mexico City and São Paulo. Will he be able to achieve what he came so close to in 2024, losing out only to champion Max Verstappen? A win this weekend in Las Vegas would certainly help his odds. Then again, in a sport this fast, you never know what's around the corner.

Melbourne's Oscar Piastri is the youngest of the bunch and the newest to the F1 grid, having joined the sport in 2023 after a brief time spent as the third driver for Alpine. Before that, he essentially never lost, becoming the first driver to win Formula Renault, Formula 3, and Formula 2 consecutively. Though his streak of debut-season dominance didn't last in F1, that by no means meant his freshman year in the sport wasn't impressive. As a rookie, he became the first driver since Lewis Hamilton in 2007 (also driving for McLaren) to score multiple podiums in their first season, doing so in Japan and Qatar in 2023. He also won a Sprint during the latter race weekend, his first P1 in F1. Cut to 2025, and the wins just kept on coming. As it stands, he's won seven of the 21 completed races this season, putting him in second place in the Drivers' Championship. His cool, calm demeanor is his secret weapon—never showing weakness and always managing issues with grace—and if he ends up taking home his first championship trophy at the end of the year, those qualities will be what got him there.

Twenty-nine-year-old, four-time F1 World Champion Max Verstappen just drove one of, if not the best races of the season in São Paulo. No, he didn't win the Brazilian Grand Prix; however, he did start from the pit lane and end in third—and that's with a puncture on the sixth lap that forced him into an early pit stop. "Incredible," he called it on Instagram. "We never give up." This determination, both from the driver and Red Bull, his team, will be crucial if the Dutchman wants to take home his fifth title at the end of the 2025 run. He's currently 49 points adrift from Norris in the drivers' standings, but there are still 83 points up for grabs between this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix and the final two races of the season in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. After a drive like the one he just executed in Brazil, nothing's off the table for Verstappen until it is, and I, for one, look forward to watching the championship fight play out.

George Russell, the 27-year-old from King's Lynn, England, is the kind of driver you truly can never count out. As chaos happens around him, he's often someone who finds a way to benefit, popping up in the front of the pack to take home a trophy, sometimes even the biggest one. He's won five races in total, all with Mercedes, the team he joined in 2022 after starting his career at Williams. This season, he's one of just four drivers to pass the checkered flag first, with two victories under his belt in Singapore and Montréal. He currently sits fourth in the standings, and while he's no longer in contention for the Drivers' Championship, he isn't actually all that far behind the top three and is 62 points clear of fifth-place Charles Leclerc. He's also the driver on his team who's contributed most to Mercedes's 398 Constructors' Championship points. (Though Kimi Antonelli's second-place finish in São Paulo certainly helped them overtake Scuderia Ferrari for second place in the standings.)

Though many Scuderia Ferrari fans, especially those who have been loyally following Charles Leclerc's journey with the team from the beginning, had high hopes for the Monégasque's 2025 run, his season hasn't quite lived up to our—or, for that matter, his—preseason expectations. Rumors swirled during preseason tests, pushing us (yes, I am one such member of the Tifosi) to believe that 2025 could be the year Leclerc wins his first championship—Ferrari's first Drivers' Championship trophy since Kimi Räikkönen won in 2007. Alas, the team has struggled with overall car competitiveness, forcing Leclerc to do what he actually does best, which is to maximize every opportunity, even when he's not in the best position to succeed. His consistency has gotten him to seven podium finishes and one pole position in 2025, and his top-tier wheel-to-wheel racing has provided viewers with plenty of exciting on-track moments. Unfortunately, a DNF, as in did not finish, in São Paulo put him on the back foot going into Las Vegas.

As fun as the on-track action is in F1, what's often even more entertaining are all the storylines forming off the track. These are what die-hard fans tweet about (for Real Housewives–level drama, join f1twt, otherwise known as F1 Twitter, ahem, X) and creators like my personal favorite Mikaela Kostaras make Bridgerton-themed TikToks about. They're also what Netflix will likely base the next season of Drive to Survive on, which will be released ahead of the 2026 F1 season opener.

To understand how impressive McLaren's current streak of dominance is, you have to know where the team was in 2023. During the off-season before the 2023 championship began, the team was honest about its lack of progress. They'd signed one of the most exciting rookies since Max Verstappen in Oscar Piastri, and yet, he was knocked out in Q1 at the first qualifying session of the season in Bahrain. His teammate, Lando Norris, followed suit in Q2. The race was no better. After a handful of other not-so-great race weekends, major changes were made behind the scenes for the team from Woking, England, and with the help of significant upgrades that were made to both cars by the time the British Grand Prix came around in July, things started to turn around quickly. When the season ended, they found themselves in P4 in the Constructors' Championship, a victory given where they started the season.

The following year saw even more jumps in performance, leading them to win the Constructors' Championship for the first time in more than a decade—since 1998, to be exact, with Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard in the driver's seat.

That takes us to this season. From the very first race in Melbourne, McLaren was dominant. Norris took race one, and Piastri followed suit in Shanghai. Apart from them, only Max Verstappen and George Russell have been able to secure race wins all season, Verstappen with five victories and Russell with two. As it stands, McLaren—who won the Constructors' Championship for the second year in a row with six of 24 races still left to race—is 358 points ahead of second-place Mercedes in the team standings. No other team ever really stood a chance.

Though his team, Red Bull, was never going to take the Constructors' Championship in 2025, Max Verstappen is still doing everything in his power to make sure the same isn't true for the Drivers' Championship, a title he's taken for the last four seasons. He's the only non-McLaren driver who, mathematically, can still walk away from the 2025 season a champion, and if anyone can do it, it's the lion, who, in 2022, came back from 14th on the grid to win the Belgian Grand Prix and, in 2024, started in 12th position only to cut through the pack and take victory in Brazil. He's currently 49 points behind with three races left, but even if he isn't able to finish the season in P1, what he's done in the second half of the season—taking back-to-back wins in Monza and Baku, and then winning again in Austin, all the while being a brand-new dad and dealing with changes at the very top of his team—is proof that he's one of the most formidable drivers in F1 history.

Lewis Hamilton's career with Mercedes is one for the record books. Though he started in F1 with McLaren, at the time, the team raced with a Mercedes engine, meaning that all 105 of his victories in F1 came in a Mercedes-powered car (84 were won with the team). No driver has won more world titles with the same team than he has, claiming six of his seven Drivers’ Championships with the Brixworth-based collective. When, in 2013, Hamilton left McLaren, joining Nico Rosberg at Mercedes, he made history.

But all good things must come to an end, and on February 1, 2024, the winningest driver in F1 history shocked the world when he announced his departure from Mercedes and his forthcoming move to the winningest team in F1 history, Scuderia Ferrari. According to Autosport, the news resulted in Ferrari's market cap surging $7 billion, proving just how big Hamilton is in the world of F1 and beyond it—in fashion, music, pop culture, and film.

Unfortunately, it hasn't been the easiest of starts for Hamilton and the team from Maranello. The 40-year-old Brit currently sits sixth in the standings, but that doesn't do a great job of displaying his struggles at the beginning of the season. "It's been an emotional roller coaster," he told ESPN in Monza ahead of his first Italian Grand Prix as a Ferrari driver. "Did I expect it to be as volatile in terms of the feeling? No, but that's life." There has been progress, though, and no one can or has done what Hamilton has in his storied career, so writing him off simply isn't an option.

Exactly one decade after the last time there was an 11th team in F1, there will be one again, starting in 2026. In March, FIA and F1 Management announced that the Cadillac F1 Team would officially be joining the grid, teaming up with General Motors and TWG Motorsports. It wasn't easy, and the idea to add another team to the paddock wasn't exactly welcomed by the existing ones, and yet, Cadillac persevered. "Through the long and thorough application process, we never lost pace in planning or belief in our mission," said Graeme Lowdon, Cadillac's recently appointed team principal. "We can’t wait to go racing and give fans a new team to cheer for."

Soon after the announcement, the team shared the names of the two drivers who will lead its charge to the front of the field: Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas, two former winners in the sport who most recently drove for Red Bull and Kick Sauber, respectively. Both are currently out of a seat, with 2026 marking their highly anticipated return to the grid. The best part? When they enter the paddock at next year's first race in Melbourne, they'll almost assuredly be decked out in Tommy Hilfiger, the first official apparel sponsor of the team.

For years, the paddock was Lewis Hamilton's arena. He and he alone arrived to work in an outfit fit for the occasion. In the last five years of F1's post–Drive to Survive boom, though, times have changed, and many of Hamilton's fellow drivers have started to lean into style, showing up to races in outfits that match their personal tastes (and team clothing partners). Pierre Gasly's in Loewe jeans and Celine outerwear, while Charles Leclerc wears pieces from his design collaboration with Ferrari's luxury fashion brand. The paddock, like an NBA, WNBA, or NFL tunnel, has become akin to a runway, with Hamilton often wearing just-off-the-runway looks and his fellow drivers following suit in stylish 'fits of their own. And then there are the WAGs (wives and girlfriends), who are equally if not more well-dressed than their partners. Highlight sightings include JW Anderson's iconic pigeon clutch, Jacquemus dresses, Hermès Kelly bags, and Maison Margiela Tabis.

Speaking of WAGs, they're one of the most talked-about presences in the F1 paddock, especially when it comes to fashion and beauty, with many of the drivers' partners using race weekends to display their top-tier style and flawless skin (despite flying around the world on a daily basis—please, tell us your secrets!). There's Lily Muni He, a professional golfer and the longtime girlfriend of Williams driver Alex Albon, not to mention an avid vintage-clothing collector. If you spot vintage Prada, Miu Miu, or Chanel trackside, it's probably her. Then there's Alexandra Saint Mleux, who recently got engaged to Charles Leclerc and starred on the cover of Elle México wearing off-the-runway Saint Laurent and Gucci. Carlos Sainz's partner, Rebecca Donaldson, is a model from Scotland, and she's been spotted at runway shows in Milan and on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. She also worked with stylist Georgina Downe (known for styling Heaven Mayhem founder Pia Mance and model Kelsey Merritt), so naturally, her paddock 'fits are elite, often incorporating It brands like Sportmax, Beare Park, and Ruohan. Carmen Montero Mundt has been with George Russell for years now, with both often coordinating their looks. She has that kind of old-money style that many would kill for, cognac-colored Hermès mini Kelly and all. And finally, there's Francisca Cerqueira Gomes, otherwise known as Kika, who, during Paris Fashion Week, became the first Portuguese woman to walk in the L'Oréal Paris show, alongside Kendall Jenner and Jane Fonda.

This season, a new class of F1 drivers entered the sport, with six total rookies making their full-season debut in 2025. At the start of the year, there was Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), Jack Doohan (Alpine), Ollie Bearman (Haas), Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls), Gabriel Bortoleto (Kick Sauber), and Liam Lawson (Red Bull). Unfortunately, not all of them held on to their seats, with Doohan being replaced with another full-season rookie, Franco Colapinto, after two big crashes two months into the season, and Red Bull and Racing Bulls switching up their teams, sending Lawson to the latter and replacing him at the top team with Yuki Tsunoda. It's the pinnacle of motorsport, and with only 20 spots (22 starting in 2026), to call it competitive is an understatement of epic proportions. You often only get one season, or in some cases, a handful of races, to prove yourself worthy of a drive in F1, making these rookies' jobs some of the most difficult in the sport.

Going into Las Vegas, Kimi Antonelli, the 19-year-old prodigy from Bologna, Italy, is on the up and up. After a tough weekend in Austin at the U.S. Grand Prix, he jumped seven places in Mexico City, and then another four places in São Paulo, where he stood on the podium for his second-place finish. His success in Brazil marks the second time he's finished in the top three of drivers, his first being in Montréal, where he placed third. Though his season has had its ups and downs, with four DNFs and five instances where he couldn't crack the top 10, he's shown his raw talent and ability, including in his debut, when he finished fourth in Melbourne. Antonelli currently sits seventh in the drivers' standings, just behind the driver whose seat he took, Lewis Hamilton. Not bad for the third youngest driver in F1 history, who just finished his high school exams in July.

Twenty-year-old Oliver Bearman has shown signs of brilliant speed and overtaking ability during his rookie go at F1 with Haas. He joined the team this season after years in the Ferrari Driver Academy, where he was given the opportunity to drive for Scuderia Ferrari at the grand prix in Abu Dhabi in 2024 after then-Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz was diagnosed with appendicitis, requiring surgery. He finished seventh in that race, becoming Ferrari's youngest-ever driver and proving himself worthy of a full-time spot on the F1 grid the following season. In his first year with the team, he hasn't had the easiest time, with avoidable mistakes that have made his points tally less than ideal; however, his career-best fourth-place finish in Mexico City is a great sign, especially since he followed it up by placing sixth in São Paulo. Consistency is key in this sport, and regularly finishing in the points is something Haas needs out of their drivers if they want to continue moving up the Constructors' pack.

Twenty-one-year-old French and Algerian driver Isack Hadjar is the only rookie apart from Antonelli who has finished on the podium in 2025, getting third place in the Netherlands to practically every F1 fan's delight. The Racing Bulls driver has quickly become a fan favorite, and not just because he has an unbelievable knack for voice-overs. His debut race was not what he or his team would have wanted. In the wet weather of Melbourne, he spun into the wall on his warm-up lap, resulting in a DNS, or do not start. Upon his return to the paddock, he was consoled by none other than his racing hero's father, Anthony Hamilton, and videos of the exchange quickly went viral. Immediately, he had fans around the world cheering for him to come back and make up for the unfortunate beginning. Now, with just three races left, he's the second-highest rookie in the standings, sitting in 10th place and tied on points with Nico Hülkenberg, a 15-year F1 veteran.

Only three races remain in the 2025 season, but as we've seen before, until it's mathematically impossible, anything can happen in F1. The top three are in a tight fight, so every single point counts. But they're not the only ones in an intense battle. Every team on the grid is vying for positions as they try to move up the standings and, therefore, earn a higher percentage of the prize pot. Sure, the Drivers' Championship is the most high-profile of the two, but the Constructors' Championship is the one that determines three key components to success in the following season: prize money, pit-lane position, and wind-tunnel time. The higher you are in the standings, the higher your percentage of about 50% of F1's commercial profits, according to the BBC. The winning team also gets to choose which garage they want in the pit lane, often choosing the closest one to the pit-lane entry, allowing drivers to clearly spot their pit crew during mandatory tire changes and avoid messy collisions with their competitors, and increased testing time in the wind tunnel, which can make all the difference on track. That's all to say that, unlike other professional sports leagues, where "tanking" can often to positive results, all 20 of F1's teams will be fighting until the checkered flag waves in Abu Dhabi for even a single point. It is, after all, worth millions.