I love it, Cadillac!

From Formula 1 Fans Group

A rundown of the key rule changes for the upcoming 2025 F1 season.

1. No point for fastest lap
Drivers who finish inside the top 10 and set the fastest lap will no longer be awarded an additional championship point. The decision to remove it likely stems from Daniel Ricciardo’s last-ditch effort to steal it off Lando Norris at the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix. 

2. Flexi-wing clampdown
Flexible front and rear wings have been a major talking point since the middle of last season. McLaren’s flexi-rear wing, highlighted at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, attracted the attention of the whole F1 paddock.  From round nine (Spain), stricter tests are being imposed on front wings, which could shake up the competitive order.

3. Cooling measures for drivers
The sweltering conditions experienced by drivers at the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix forced the FIA to introduce a specialist cooling vest. A ‘heat hazard’ warning will be used when temperatures reach 31 degrees Celsius, giving drivers the option of wearing the new cooling vest. In 2025, this remains optional, though, with it likely to become mandatory next year.

4. More track time for rookies
Rookies will be given more track time during official F1 practice sessions in 2025. Before this year, all 10 teams were required to run a rookie driver twice throughout the season. This has been doubled for 2025, with teams permitted to run rookies twice per car. For Alpine, Mercedes, Sauber, and Racing Bulls, running rookie drivers with two or fewer starts fulfils half of the required quota.

5. Monaco GP shake-up
One of the biggest changes for this year is for the Monaco Grand Prix. All 20 drivers must make two pit stops during the 78-lap race around the principality. This has been introduced to potentially spice up the show due to fears that the race in Monte Carlo is too much of a precession.

6. Harsher penalties for swearing 
Language. This applies to all FIA racing series. Rally driver Adrien Fourmaux was fined for using the [redacted] during a TV interview.

7. Unlimited gearboxes
The FIA has removed the restrictions on the number of gearbox components teams can use. It means there are no penalties for exceeding gearbox components.  Previously, drivers would be given five-place grid penalties for going outside their “pool” of gearboxes.

8. Qualifying classification
After treacherous conditions at the 2024 Sao Paulo Grand Prix which threatened whether qualifying could even take place, the FIA have decided that if qualifying can’t take place, the grid for the race will be determined by the drivers’ championship standings. This new rule applies to sprint races as well.

9. TPC test tweak
Less TPC (testing of previous cars) is available to all 10 teams in 2025. Current drivers are allowed to drive just 2,000 across four days this year.  Teams can only schedule a maximum of 20 TPC runs in 2025.

10. Post-season test details
The end-of-season Abu Dhabi test has been tweaked slightly to pre-empt the new rules in 2026. Teams can run ‘mule’ cars - modified cars to replicate the 2026 regulations. The young driver element of the test will continue as normal. 

The Australian Grand Prix weekend is upon us!

A couple things:

1. You can keep up with alot of F1 things on their great website:

F1 - The Official Home of Formula 1® Racing

That includes the entire Grand Prix weekend schedule.  The results from each event and articles for insights into what is going on.  The schedule this weekend is particularly important as the time zones in Australian hit the US in the middle of the night.  So set your DVRs to pick it up.  It will also be shown LIVE at midnight (checkered or race over is scheduled for 2 am Sunday) early Sunday Morning and be re-aired on ESPN3 at 3pm and also 9pm on Sunday.

2.  The first and second practice sessions have already taken place with Ferrari and McLaren at the top of the time charts as expected.  Also midfield teams including Williams and Racing Bulls showed surprising pace and are ones to watch after the Big 4 teams of MCL, FER, Mercedes and Red Bull.

3.  Qualifying is set for early Saturday morning at 1 am on ESPNU.  I'd DVR it and go to bed, but up to you!  This session is CRITICAL as it "sets the grid" or determines which drivers start the race in what positions with the fastest qualifying driver on pole position and the slowest driver in spot #20.

4.  There are already some "antics" going on and I provided a link to one of them.  Enjoy: 

(1) Formula 1 on X- -A little bit of tension between McLaren and Red Bull- We've seen this one before... ? #F1 #AusGP https-.url

With such a closely competitive season this year, getting a good start from Race 1 is on every teams list I'd say.  

OH, and the weather forecast should cause some fireworks.  Rain is forecast for Race Day.  This ALWAYS throws a wrench into the mix and should to start the season as well.

GREAT Time to watch the new Netflix Drive To Survive Season 7.  I haven't watched it all, but its really a good series!  And Great Time to start watching F1.  If your interested in F1 Fantasy League let me know.  I'm in a league with friends who like F1 too.  It's a fun way to make watching more fun I think.

The Australian Grand Prix is getting ready to start, it is on ESPN.  I think it is going to be a rain race and those can be very entertaining. 

Just a WILD Race in Melbourne Australia to open what should be a memorable F1 Season.

Practice sessions and the Qualifying Rounds were all held in pretty hot and dry weather conditions.  That changed on race day to wet and very windy conditions.

Practice sessions and qualifying saw McLaren lead the field with the Red Bull of Max Verstappen close behind followed by the Ferrari's and Mercedes cars.  Williams and Racing Bulls also showed great promise from the top of the midfield teams.

Lando Norris earned pole position with his teammate and hometown driver Oscar Piastri in second.  Max Verstappen earned 3rd with George Russell in 4th.  Ferreri with Charles LeClerc and Lewis Hamilton were disappointing down in 7 and 8th, respectively.

Race day was WILD!  When the rains come all the rubber laid down on the track prevents the rain from flowing away normally and causes pooling and/or "greasy" conditions on-track and the painted lines do the same thing.  Before the warm-up lap was over Rookie Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) who qualified a great 11th place simply lost control of his car and hit the wall and was out of the race before he even got around the track once.

A GREAT moment for me was when they showed Lewis Hamilton's Dad seek Hadjar out on his LONG walk back to his garage and console the young rookie after a moment he had to be extremely low.  SUCH a CLASS ACT!  

McLaren clearly had the faster cars today and are likely to continue that way for a minute.  But Verstappen passed Piastri at the first turn and held him off for several laps.  But the Dutch World Champion would lock his left front tire up going into a tough turn and Piastri slipped around.  The weather was off and on rain, mostly steady to light though.  But this caused mass difficulties for the teams as you had to adjust which tyres to use.  On a typical race day, you typically only deal with 3 tyres to choose from (soft, medium, and hard), but on rain races you also have the Intermediate and the Wet tyres too. and those (well at least the intermediate) came into play today.

Six (6) drivers would end up in the wall today and not finish the race (a pretty high number).  A key moment in the race, when several of these drivers went out of the race, was when rain restarted on the south end of the track and when the leaders went through there they all had trouble, but Norris regained control, but Piastri slid off the track and was stuck for a moment (if he couldn't get his car moving again he would be out of the race, but to his credit and skill he did get it restarted but it put him at the back of the pack a lap down).  He would recover and finish in the points in P9 but a terrible turn of events for the Australian.

Verstappen passed Norris in this chaotic time, but McLaren pitted for Intermediate tyres while Verstappen stayed out and babied his car around and by the time Verstappen came into pit for those same tyres, Norris passed Verstappen.  The final 2 laps were a little more tense than Norris would have liked as Verstappen pulled to within a half second of Norris and it was tight those last laps, but Norris prevails with Verstappen 2nd and George Russell who did well to earn a podium finish in 3rd.  

ANY driver that finished this race did an incredible job as it was such a tough race to navigate!

Was really impressed with Niko Hulkenburg (Alex Albon and Lance Stroll too really) with Kick Sauber who are not expected to be at the front at all this year who ended up in 7th place ahead of both Ferraris!   Well done!  Back to the drawing board for Ferrari!

Turnaround is in 1 week to China at a track known to rain some this time of year, so could we see this again?  Maybe....   Check it out!

The whole race was wild from Hadjar wrecking on the formation lap and then Doohan wrecking and Sainz wrecking under safety car, all basically before the race got started.  I agree 88 on Hamilton's dad comforting Hadjar, that was super classy and one of the things I love about F1.

And the safety car driver earned his money, the race had several laps under safety car and that safety car/driver was flat out flying on a wet track, wow.

As a group the "rookies" had a horrible day wrecking and not finishing but Kimi Antonelli started P16 and finished 4th for Mercedes, that was a great result for Kimi/MB.

This race had so much go on with the wrecks, cautions, rain, rooks, etc. that I may watch it again. 

Here are all the 2025 drivers on the grid when they were little guys.

From Bayla Sports F1 on Facebook.

Ferrari in last and a shock frontrunner: F1 team rankings after Australian GP

This is a great article talking about how this author from The Telegraph ranked all 10 teams based on where they were the last 6 races of last year and now including last Sundays race in Australia.  I think they nailed it!  Insightful too!

Looks like no rain for the Chinese Grand Prix!  I'm glad of that honestly.  I like a rain race every once in a while, but these cars are meant to run on warm dry conditions.  Should be a great race!

The first Sprint Qualifying event of the year saw the unpredictability of the field play out as Lewis Hamilton stuns the field and grabs pole for the 19 Lap Sprint race at 11 pm tonight Eastern Time.  Here are highlights below:

HIGHLIGHTS: Lewis Hamilton bags surprise Sprint Qualifying pole ahead of Max Verstappen | Formula 1®

With the field so close at the top, many of the top drivers took chances that did not pay off for them pushing them down the grid.

Qualifying for the race comes after the Sprint Race Saturday at 3 in the morning our time, so set your DVR.

The Race is Sunday at 3 am and be carried live on ESPN, but I couldn't track down when the replay will be so you might want to set your DVR up now.

Hamilton on Pole, Verstappen 2nd and Piastri 3rd in the Sprint Qualifying.

After watching Practice 1 I am very surprised by those results and can only say great job Lewis!