Our Christmas wish list for the F1 2025 season

Sam Cooper 25 Dec 2024 6:00 AM

Here are some of the things we want to see in 2025.

Christmas time is a time of giving and here are the presents we would love to see over the course of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

From stewards to rookies, there are plenty of things we are hoping to see when the action gets going again in the new year.

Our Christmas wish list for the new F1 2025 season

More close action (but with a Drivers’ title battle too please!)

2024 was an unexpected gift in that pre-season predictions of another dominant Verstappen/Red Bull year turned out to be wide of the mark.

In the end, we saw seven different drivers on the top step of the podium with superiority swinging from one team to another many times throughout the year.

The only thing we didn’t get is a proper title fight. Verstappen’s early season dominance coupled with his ability meant Lando Norris’ challenge was always one of hope than expectation.

We would love to see more of this next year, but is it too much to ask for a genuine title fight?

Consistency (and quicker) stewarding

You will be tough-pressed to find any other sport that so often has the final result dictated hours after the event itself is over.

Formula 1 is one of the harder competitions to govern given there are 20 cars flying around a circuit, but too often have we been left waiting hours upon hours to see if the person who crossed the finish line first is actually the winner.

That process could do with being sped up but perhaps even more importantly, we need some consistency.

It does not look like permanent stewards are coming any time soon so perhaps the rules could be tightened up to leave less to interpretation.

Different human beings are always going to come to different conclusions, that’s life, but in a sport as big as this and one that can be decided by the smallest margins, it is only fair that one incident at one race carries the same punishment as the same incident at another race.

For the FIA to be seen and not heard

Speaking of the FIA, our big hope is that we get less meddling from those upstairs.

2024 was a chaotic year for the sport’s governing body and the run-in saw senior figures sacked at the drop of a hat.

As we mentioned before, some consistency would be nice but that is not going to happen if the staff change from one race to another.

The FIA should be seen and not heard as they are not the reason millions of people tune in every weekend.

Also, can we have a bit of common sense please? Max Verstappen swearing in a press conference is exactly the kind of trivial issue the FIA should not be focusing on.

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F1’s new faces to hit the ground running

After a season with no new drivers, 2025 is going to be a big reset for a number of teams and drivers.

We have five rookies on the grid in the form of Kimi Antonelli, Jack Doohan, Isack Hadjar, Gabriel Bortoleto and Oliver Bearman and it would be great to see at least a few of them hit the ground running.

There are also plenty of new team pairings we can’t wait to see including Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari as well as Liam Lawson at Red Bull.

No dead-last backmarker

This may be a hopeful wish but we would love to not see a dead-last contender like Stake was in 2024.

It is not fun for anyone to know who will finish last every weekend and, yes, Sauber may be turning into Audi for 2026, but that is not an excuse to throw away another season like they did in 2024.

Four points over 24 races and six sprints is unacceptable given how close the rest of the field was and while it seems unlikely it will come true, we would love to see Sauber able to compete with the rest of the grid.

Fewer boring races

While 2024 was a great year for action, it was not without some dull affairs.

Singapore, Zandvoort and of course Monaco were not races that will live long in the memory and this is not a quick fix but F1 should put a greater focus on tracks where overtaking is possible.

There is nothing worse for a fan than to hear “this track is not great for overtaking” or “Sunday will be a difficult task” and with the same circuits this year, we just hope closer racing makes it for better grands prix.