How many teams and drivers are in world championship contention? How will Lewis Hamilton fare in his first season at Ferrari? How difficult will it be for Max Verstappen to win five in a row? And what can we expect from the big rookie class of 2025?

A hugely-anticipated Formula 1 season begins in Melbourne this weekend with numerous fascinating talking points and intriguing questions at play ahead of the 24-race campaign. So to try and get to the need-to-know answers, we turned to Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle for his big season preview…

Is this going to be closest F1 season for years?

Martin Brundle: I saw nothing at the test in Bahrain to change my mind that it's going to be very close at the front of the field in Formula 1 this year.

Of course, that test took place on just one track, which has a necessarily aggressive surface given it's in the desert, with a layout which challenges the rear tyres hard, and conditions which were unseasonably cold, but I still think we saw a pecking order emerge. That will ebb and flow through the season depending on track layout, temperatures, and other challenges on any given weekend, but the top four teams appear close.

They've all had a big go at improving their cars for what's the final season of the current regulations. Ferrari have made quite dramatic changes to their front suspension, for example, as have McLaren too for aerodynamic benefit.

We couldn't imagine over the winter that a team would come up with a magical double diffuser-style solution this late into regulations which have been in place since 2022, and there indeed doesn't appear to have been one. I think what we witness in the first few races is what we're going to see for the whole season, as all teams will want to quickly focus resource and budget on the massive 2026 changes.

Williams and Alpine in the midfield look closely matched and I'm sure Aston Martin will join that group, maybe Racing Bulls too. We've got a great grid of drivers throughout the field and a very exciting intake of rookies, and while you learn over the years to be wary of predicting too much, all the ingredients are there for an all-time classic season.

Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari - what's your early verdict?

MB: As the old adage goes, a change is as good as a rest and the Ferrari move does seem to be working for Lewis. I've never seen him smile so much.

While we've seen in the past the likes of Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Michael Schumacher and Niki Lauda return after time out of the sport, Lewis has never had a break from F1 since he started in 2007, but I do think this Ferrari move is the equivalent for him.

We're seeing that just observing him and reading his words. He seems really energised and invigorated by this new opportunity.

Lewis has been very smart too. Obviously, he knows team boss Fred Vasseur very well from times of old, but he's had an advance party at Ferrari to integrate as quickly as he can into the team. Angela Cullen has returned, while Marc Hynes has been back in the fold for a year or two now already.

He's got a new race engineer, Riccardo Adami, and has got to understand how Ferrari works, which will be diametrically opposed to how Mercedes works in terms of culture I suspect, in terms of procedures. Lewis is going to have to find out where all the green buttons are and I expect it will take him a little bit of time to get used to that, along with speaking some Italian.

Charles Leclerc, meanwhile, is totally embedded after six years at the team and knows how to make things happen at Ferrari. He's extremely fast and experienced too, of course.

The championship fight - who's the favourite?

MB: Whoever wins this year's world championship will be taking a spectacular victory, of that I have no doubt.

Max Verstappen starts as the favourite in my book. He knows what to do. He's just so fast, he's so good whatever's happening out on track. He's confident, he's got all the tools you need in terms of speed, racecraft, race starts, strategy, and the ability to look after the tyres when he needs to.

He's also got an advantage for the Drivers' Championship because I think the two McLaren boys will take points off each other, and the two Ferrari drivers too. That's not a slight on Red Bull's Liam Lawson, I think he's got the head to have a chance to keep Max in view despite having the worst job in motorsport, but it's quite clear who's going to be the frontrunner this year at Red Bull.

The experience of winning one championship, let alone multiple championships, is something that Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc and George Russell don't yet possess. They haven't been in that intense spotlight in the final few races of a season, and we don't know how they'll cope.

We do know how Max and Lewis can cope with that. So, I feel that Max starts as the favourite assuming Red Bull can sort the car, but he's got so much hard work to do. If you look at the final 14 races of last year, Max wasn't going to win any championship on those results alone, so we'll see if post Newey the team has what it takes to improve. If they can't then my prediction will be wrong.

But in any event, if McLaren, Mercedes, or Ferrari have a dominant car, and if somebody does manage to regularly win races, then Max has got a problem.

How will Hamilton fare at Ferrari and can he win eighth title?

MB: We do see Lewis making a few more mistakes than he used to, in qualifying in particular, but if you look back to Silverstone last year - there was a race to be won, and he won it. He was also unbelievably fast coming back through the field in Las Vegas after his problems in qualifying.

Lewis has still got it, and if Ferrari have a race-winning car and a championship-winning car, then Lewis is still capable of achieving both, but he's got to beat some great teams and drivers along the way.

One thing we absolutely know is that Lewis will not be overawed by being a Ferrari driver. He's way past that and he will not be feeling under pressure. He's got nothing to prove.

The big question is, will it be an Alonso/Vettel nearly-but-not-quite experience for him at Ferrari, or will it be a Michael Schumacher-like experience?

Either way, I don't see Lewis has got anything to lose. He'll come out of all of that having driven for Ferrari and it's a huge story for him. It's a huge story for all of us in Formula 1.

What does Norris need to have learned from 2024 if he's to go one better?

MB: I look back to races in the second half of last season like Zandvoort, where he wasn't out front initially but didn't flap and eventually cruised up and past Max, and Singapore where he was simply in a class of one and think that Lando now knows he can go out front and keep the lead. He's sorted out his first-lap issues, but he also now knows that if he's not leading at the end of the first lap, that doesn't matter either, if he looks after his car, his tyres, racecraft and strategy.

Lando's got that knowledge now, he can lead from the front and win the races. Can he put that all together? Can he bring his A-game every single day, which is what the great champions do? I think he can, and he'll have to.

But then it comes down to racecraft, and Max is a street fighter, much more so than Lando, so that for me is the crux of it.

Lando has either got to disappear up the road and not have to fight Max - that'd be the easiest fix for him - or if they end up in a showdown, we know just how aggressive Max is in those combat situations.

Whether you admire the way he does it or not, it's quite effective. Max knows the regulations, the driving rules, he has more than enough talent to place his car very carefully at high speed, wheel to wheel, and he just works the system.

Lewis found it, Lando found it, Max is not going to change and the more intense a championship gets, the more aggressive Max gets. And so what will Lando, George, and others do about that? They'll have to get their elbows out and show Max they're not intimidated by him, which may cost some championship points and bodywork along the way.

What about George Russell as Mercedes' new era begins?

MB: George carries a confidence; the kind of confidence I wish I had when I was driving. A self-belief that's not uncomfortable, and I think he will relish his leading role at Mercedes this year, finally out of Lewis's shadow even if he has outperformed him on many occasions.

Unless McLaren and Ferrari really have got a performance advantage over Red Bull and Mercedes, then I think George is another one fully in the championship mix.

His new team-mate Kimi Antonelli is clearly very fast and already has thousands of F1 miles under his right foot. He's 18 and has a lot to learn so he'll make mistakes, a process George himself went through at Williams.

But Mercedes knows what they're looking for. In the last 10 years they have had Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg - champions and multiple race winners - George Russell and Valtteri Bottas - multiple race winners - so they're not going to compromise 50 per cent of their chances by putting in somebody on a whim. They've obviously seen something in Antonelli they believe in, decided to build for the future, and they've gone for gold.

He'll shine often, but you have to expect George is their main man for this season.

With six rookies and nine drivers aged 25 and younger, what does the grid's changing of the guard tell us?

MB: A lot of the drivers have been karting since they were barely more than toddlers, they're so well prepared. They've done hundreds and hundreds of races in karting and junior formula racing, some more than others in the latter, and teams have their simulator tools they believe in.

This latest generation are so unbelievably well prepared, mentally, physically, nutritionally and technically. They've got youth and fearlessness on their side and yet they've fast tracked the experience side, so I think it's a powerful combination.

It's a great grid in 2025, you've got everything you need.

There's the reference points of the great champions Hamilton and Alonso in their 40s, and then the age profile falls away very quickly. What's most unusual here is the age of those who are already very experienced, drivers in their mid-20s with a long way north of 100 F1 starts. That's really telling and, of course, that's where Antonelli and gang will be in a few short years too.

They're just so well prepared and teams can measure them so precisely that it's no surprise that they can just jump in the car and perform well. That's exactly what we saw with Oliver Bearman in the Ferrari in Saudi Arabia last year. He had Lando and Lewis chasing him down on fresh tyres on one of the trickiest tracks of the year, yet he had the confidence, experience and fitness to hold it all together and keep them behind.

Sky Sports F1's live Australian GP schedule

Thursday March 13

• 2.30am: Drivers' Press Conference
• 5am: The F1 Show: Lights Out 2025*
• 9.45pm: F3 Practice
• 10.55pm: F2 Practice

Friday March 14

• 1am: Australian GP Practice One (session begins at 1.30am)*
• 2.55am: F3 Qualifying*
• 3.40am: Team Principals' Press Conference
• 4.45am: Australian GP Practice Two (session begins at 5am)*
• 6.25am: F2 Qualifying*
• 7.15am: The F1 Show*

Saturday March 15

• 12.10am: F3 Sprint*
• 1.10am: Australian GP Practice Three (session begins at 1.30am)*
• 3.10am: F2 Sprint*
• 4.15am: Australian GP Qualifying build-up*
• 5am: AUSTRALIAN GP QUALIFYING*
• 7am: Ted's Qualifying Notebook*
• 9.55pm: F3 Feature Race*

Sunday March 16

• 12.25am: F2 Feature Race*
• 2.30am: Australian GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
• 4am: THE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX*
• 6am: Australian GP reaction: Chequered Flag*
• 7am: Ted's Notebook*
• 7.55am: Australian GP race replay
• 10am: Australian GP highlights
• Villeneuve Pironi - Racing's Untold Tragedy

*Also on Sky Sports Main Event

Watch all 24 race weekends from the 2025 Formula 1 season live on Sky Sports F1, starting with the Australian GP on March 14-16. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - No contract, cancel anytime

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