2025 F1 Australian GP: Top 5 Bold Predictions

The 2025 F1 Australian GP kicks off arguably one of the more anticipated seasons in recent times. The last four years have seen Max Verstappen's dominance at the top, with the Dutch driver winning every year since 2021.

This season the Dutchman is starting once again on the backfoot, and the preseason tests have given a clear advantage to McLaren. Making judgments alone on preseason tests is maybe a bit premature. There are plenty of variables of which we are not aware during those runs.

Things do become clear when the teams unleash their respective cars in qualifying for the very first race of the season. Hence, as has become a ritual for us in the last few years, here we are, putting on our "F1 Pundit" hat and sharing our bold predictions for the Australian GP this weekend. So, without further ado, let's get to it.

#5 The fieldspread is going to reduce significantly

2024 was a pretty good season overall, but if there was one gripe for anyone, then that was the fact that the grid was divided into 2 groups. The top 4 were battling amongst themselves while the bottom 6 were in a different group.

By the end of the season, things started to change a bit as we had both Haas and Alpine mixing things up in qualifying. While it would be a stretch to expect the bottom 6 teams mixing things up with the top 4, we should expect a few of the Williams/Alpine/Haas drivers to make it into Q3 and disrupt things a bit.

#4 Haas emerges as the leader of the midfield pack

There are some tracks where Haas tends to do well in general, and Albert Park is certainly one of them. The pre-season test was maybe not the best as the car was maybe struggling a little with the issues around the engine cover.

With that being said, it's also safe to say that the conditions on the track were maybe not the best to jump to conclusions. The temperatures were just too low to replicate how the cars would behave in more normalized conditions that the season would be run on.

With that being said, Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu was very confident after the preseason test and felt that the team had made decent progress over the last year. Heading into the 2025 F1 Australian GP, we're backing the duo of Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman to shine and score points.

#3 Max Verstappen will be in contention for a podium

Max Verstappen has already proclaimed that Red Bull would not be fighting for the win in the F1 Australian GP. While that is a bit of a downer for a lot of his fans, the race is where the true picture reveals itself. The reality is that these regulations are very restrictive, and unless McLaren has made a massive jump, the gap between the frontrunners is not going to be much.

Hence, a lot would come down to how consistent the driver is and how impeccable the operations unit is for the team. Maybe a win would be a step too far this early in the season, but a podium? You cannot count Max Verstappen out of a podium fight in the F1 Australian GP.

#2 Lewis Hamilton will struggle on his first weekend with Ferrari

Probably a driver with the most eyes on him during the F1 Australian GP is going to be Lewis Hamilton. The 7x world champion will be taking part in his first race as a Ferrari driver, and it is going to garner a lot of attention. The attention is often both a good thing and a bad one.

If he does well, everything is rosy, but if he doesn't, then that's where things become a bit tougher. For his first weekend with Ferrari, it's hard to expect Lewis Hamilton to shine through. One of the reasons behind that is the fact that his teammate is Charles Leclerc.

Leclerc is quite easily one of the best on the grid right now, and Hamilton would take some time to get to the level of comfort in a Ferrari that his younger teammate has. In his first weekend with the team, the 7x F1 champion might struggle to keep up with his teammate and have an underwhelming weekend.

#1 Charles Leclerc wins the 2025 F1 Australian GP

For most of the pundits, all eyes point to Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri as the drivers that should be the favorites at the F1 Australian GP. There's certainly merit to that claim, as McLaren was, in essence, the benchmark at Bahrain.

There's a problem here, however, where we maybe have not taken into account the fact that Ferrari has, in essence, struggled when the temperatures have fallen drastically. This has been a weakness of the car and was evident in the 2024 F1 season as well.

At the same time, lest we forget, Ferrari won the 2024 F1 Australian GP. The same team dominated the 2022 edition as well. The car tends to work well around the track, and unless in the last 12 or so months, McLaren has just leapfrogged the Italian team in terms of development by a huge margin, we can't rule them out.

To add to this, Charles Leclerc is arguably one of the most motivated drivers in F1 right now. The attention that he's garnered over the years being a Ferrari driver was maybe not there this time around as Lewis Hamilton has been in the spotlight. The young driver knows that there is only one way to get back that attention, and it is by winning. For the F1 Australian GP, we're backing the young driver to kick the 2025 season off with a bang.