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Former US Open champion Emma Raducanu shared her prediction ahead of the 2025 F1 season. Raducanu, in a recent interview with Sky Sports, put her money on Max Verstappen for the 2025 championship despite McLaren's stunning early season form.
Formula 1 is currently in Australia for the opening race of the 2025 season. As per statistics, McLaren starts as favorites for the Constructors' Championship for now, and the team's drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, have an upper hand over their rivals.
Despite this, Raducanu decided to put her money on Verstappen, the defending F1 champion. The Red Bull star has consistently won the series since 2021, and according to the renowned tennis star, the Dutchman might just make it five in a row.
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"I'm Emma Raducanu, and these are my Formula 1 predictions. I think Max Verstappen will win," Raducanu told Sky Sports.
However, she immediately resorted to McLaren's support in the Constructors' Championship. Here's what she said,
"I want to say, McLaren. I want them to win, yeah."
As a Briton, it's not surprising that she went the McLaren way. The Papayas were the strongest team in the Free Practice sessions on Friday, with Norris topping the FP1 session and Piastri finishing closely in P4.
In FP2, Piastri and Norris wrapped up the session in P2 and P3, respectively. Compared to them, Raducanu's championship protagonist, Max Verstappen, managed P5 in FP1 and P7 in FP2. However, FP timings hardly matter as true pace comes out on Saturday, during qualifying.
Max Verstappen let his feelings known following Friday's FP sessions
Following Friday's FP1 and FP2 at the 2025 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, Max Verstappen made his feelings known about his car. The Red Bull driver, in the post-session interview, stated that he struggled with the grip of the RB21.
"To be honest, the balance wasn’t even completely out," Verstappen told the media. "No massive or major problems. But somehow, the grip was not coming alive. I was just struggling on all four tyres, really, in Sector 1 and the last sector. That means, of course, that were are not really up there at the moment.”
"The problem is that it’s not really like I have major balance problems. I think it will be a bit hard to fix. It’s also nothing that I didn’t expect when I arrived here. I’m not positively or negatively surprised with the pace we are showing," he added.
Max Verstappen will start the season as the defending champion after he held off Lando Norris last year. Red Bull were stronger than McLaren at the start of the season but coming into 2025, it's the other way around.
