Five major F1 decisions that have already aged like milk: Hamilton, Sainz, Red Bull and more

Formula 1 can be a tricky sport and sometimes even the best-laid plans do not always come to fruition on track.

From driver transfers to FIA choices, we’ve had a look back at some of the major decisions in the past year and picked out some of the stinkers.

Replacing Carlos Sainz with Lewis Hamilton

We will kick things off with the biggest move of the F1 2025 season: Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari.

Sadly for the seven-time World Champion, his time in red looks a lot like his final years in black.

Many thought Hamilton’s underwhelming last few years at Mercedes suggested he needed a new environment but even moving to Maranello has not unlocked some suppressed performance.

Taking the fact that all drivers need time to get used to a new car, the reality is that Hamilton is being firmly beaten by team-mate Charles Leclerc, trailing him by 30 points but crucially having yet to reach the podium.

To make matters worse, Ferrari had a perfectly capable driver in the peak of his abilities and one already familiar with the car that they threw away.

You can argue that Carlos Sainz would have struggled just as much as Hamilton but F1’s biggest transfer for decades is already looking like an expensive mistake.

Red Bull not going after Carlos Sainz

Speaking of Sainz, he features twice on this list as Red Bull made the mistake of not going after him once they had a vacancy at their team.

With everyone agreeing that Sergio Perez’s time was at an end, Red Bull had a choice to make for their driver lineup: hire an experienced veteran who could help improve the team or promote one of their young rookies and hope that Max Verstappen can do it all by himself again.

In the end, they opted for Liam Lawson who was replaced after two races, which only serves to further the question of why not opt for Sainz?

It is rare a driver of that quality is a free agent and if we cannot say whether he would have done better than Hamilton in the Ferrari, we can with some certainty suggest he would have scored more than the seven points Yuki Tsunoda has managed.

Alpine’s second driver dilemma

Another driver decision came at Alpine where they opted to stick with Jack Doohan for the F1 2025 season only to dump him six races in.

Fair enough, Doohan did not show a huge amount to warrant a longer stay of execution but his replacement has hardly been much better.

Alpine reportedly paid £8.4million to secure Franco Colapinto from Williams and the Argentine has repaid that with the same amount of points Doohan scored – zero.

It comes at a time when Alpine finally seem to be making progress and if they had another driver in the seat next to Pierre Gasly, they may not be rock bottom of the Championship.

The FIA’s swearing ban

You did not have to be a psychic to predict that the FIA’s clampdown on swearing was not going to go well.

Considering the athletes are strapped to the front of 200mph rockets, swearing seems as much a part of Formula 1 as the likes of accelerating or tyres are but the FIA, led by president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, was determined to cut it out entirely.

Ignoring the fact that we are not sure there are many children watching a Thursday press conference, Ben Sulayem was convinced it was a bad look and after Verstappen was made to do community service, the FIA brought in more extreme measures that could have allowed drivers to be fined up to €40,000 for a slip of the tongue.

Naturally, this did not go down well with the drivers and caused an open revolt with the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association.

After calls for the drivers to be treated like “adults” and an FIA presidential election looming, Ben Sulayem backed down.

The fines were lowered to €5,000 and a distinction was made between things said in press conferences and things said in the heat of the action.

More on the F1 2025 season so far

F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

Formula 1’s calendar decisions

Say it quietly but the F1 2025 season has not been a classic has it?

While we at least have more winners than we did in 2023, the majority of the races have been rather dull and needing weather or an unexpected safety car for any kind of action.

It is not helped by the increasing number of circuits that look outdated for the modern Formula 1 car.

Monaco, we know, is always a procession but Spa was another race of little drama.

There is also clearly an issue with cars following one another and while that is the FIA’s remit, not FOM’s, that combined with difficulty to pass circuits has left some to be reaching for the remote.

Read next: Did the FIA make the wrong decision delaying the Belgian Grand Prix?