F1 pundit predictions: World champion? First race winner? Hamilton's hopes?

“Anything can happen in Formula 1, and it usually does.”

That is one of legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker’s most famous sayings and one which feels particularly apt ahead of a 2025 season which sparkles with promise and appears set to be one of the most closely-fought and unpredictable in years.

So, as the countdown to this weekend’s opening round in Australia continues, various members of the Sky Sports F1 team have been asked to gaze into their respective crystal balls to make some predictions for the year ahead, as well as explaining their hopes and expectations for the 24-race campaign ahead…

Who will win the Drivers’ Championship?

Martin Brundle: Max Verstappen

Nico Rosberg: Lando Norris

Simon Lazenby: Lando Norris

Natalie Pinkham: Lando Norris

David Croft: Lando Norris, but only just – I think it’s going to be a terrific battle

Naomi Schiff: Lando Norris

Karun Chandhok: Lando is my pick, but the one I want to win the Drivers’ Championship is actually Lewis Hamilton because I think that would be an amazing story to go to Ferrari and become world champion

Ted Kravitz: Max Verstappen

Rachel Brookes: Lando Norris, but with Oscar Piastri very close

Bernie Collins: Lando Norris

Anthony Davidson: Lando Norris

Who will win the Constructors’ Championship?

Martin: McLaren

Simon: Ferrari

Nico: McLaren

Natalie: McLaren

Crofty: McLaren again

Bernie: McLaren

Naomi: McLaren

Rachel: McLaren

Anthony: McLaren

Finishing 1-2-3 order on Australian GP podium?

Ted: Norris, Piastri, Russell

Natalie: Two McLarens and Lewis

Simon: Hamilton, Norris, Leclerc

Rachel: Norris, Piastri, Hamilton

Naomi: Norris, Leclerc, Verstappen

Martin: Don’t have a clue!

How many drivers will win a race this season?

Natalie: Eight

Martin: Six

Naomi: Eight

Simon: Six

Rachel: Six

Bernie: Eight

Ted: Seven

Which rookie will make the biggest relative impact at their team?

Ted: Kimi Antonelli. I think once he figures out how to work the tyres he will be one of the stars of the season. And you won’t see it, but Gabriel Bortoleto too!

Bernie: Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman

Rachel: Oliver Bearman. Him up against Esteban Ocon will be fascinating

Simon: Oliver Bearman. He was good when he came in last year

Naomi: Liam Lawson. He’s had effectively half a season in what was the RB, showing clear potential in those cars. I think he’s a quick, young driver, so given the fact that he’s in a Red Bull, he will be able to make obvious impressions whereas others like Gabriel Bortoleto, or Isack Hadjar, due to their machinery not being as quick, it might be harder for them to prove their talent

Karun: Kimi Antonelli

Natalie: Oliver Bearman has already made an impression, that super-sub performance off the bench in Saudi Arabia was just incredible. I think the most pressure is probably on Antonelli because he’s stepping into a seven-time world champion’s shoes and those laps in Monza practice sum it up for a rookie – blisteringly fast, then a mistake

It’s inevitable that there will be mistakes because you only iron those out with experience. But I think he is just coming across as such a lovely young man who is interesting. I remember at F1 75 he’s going around shaking everyone’s hand in conversations, just utterly well-mannered, polite, lovely guy and so far, so good in terms of handling the pressure, but the real test will come in Australia

Anthony: I think Lawson is going to run Verstappen pretty hard.

Martin: Oliver Bearman.

First driver outside of a big-four team to stand on the podium?

Bernie: Sainz

Ted: Sainz

Natalie: Oliver Bearman

Martin: Carlos Sainz

Rachel: Pierre Gasly

Naomi: Carlos Sainz or Pierre Gasly

Which team will finish FIFTH in the Constructors’ Championship?

Rachel: Alpine

Ted: Williams

Bernie: Williams

Simon: Alpine

Martin: Williams

Naomi: Williams

Natalie: Williams

Which 2025 car livery will sparkle most on Sky F1 screens from Melbourne?

Martin: The McLaren will ‘pop’ on screen but the one I liked most at The O2 was the Racing Bulls

Naomi: Racing Bulls

Ted: Racing Bulls

Bernie: Racing Bulls

Rachel: Racing Bulls

Simon: The Sauber stands out!

Natalie: Racing Bulls

If you were a team boss, which of the 10 teams’ existing driver line-ups would you sign?

Rachel: Ferrari. Lewis’ experience counts for a huge amount in terms of developing the car and performing well. I think he still has it. Charles is brilliant in qualifying and if you get the race pace to match that, they are unbeatable. The others all have more areas of weakness.

Ted: Williams – Sainz and Albon

Naomi: McLaren

Bernie: McLaren. Both drivers are fast in qualifying. They have experience and are not new anymore, so their pairing is strong going forward.

Simon: Ferrari. As a combination that’s almost unbeatable if everyone’s in the same machinery.

Natalie: It’s between McLaren and Ferrari. McLaren were lacking experience and I’m talking for Oscar, his rookie year in 2023 we saw mistakes, we saw issues with tyre management, coming to terms with new tracks, which I think he’s done brilliantly at ironing those out since.

With Lando and the team, it was experience in terms of winning, I think they knew what it was to feel like winning and once you get that winning feeling, it’s a kind of muscle memory thing. I think both of them will be incredibly competitive this year.

In terms of what I’m most intrigued by, will be Charles and Lewis because I think they’re both exceptionally talented and I think for Lewis to feel this reinvigorated, I feel like he just looks like a really natural fit with Ferrari. But to see him go up against a single-lap wizard in Charles, who obviously knows the team incredibly well, it will be so interesting to see who comes out on top of that. If I have to choose a driver line-up, I’m going to say McLaren in terms of potential collectively.

What are you most excited by on the eve of F1 2025?

Bernie: It’s the last year of the regulations and how tight we think the top four teams will be and the uncertainty of who will be quick where.

Ted: I want to see whether McLaren really are the quickest or whether it’s fourth-time lucky with these rules for Ferrari and where Ferrari sits in with that.

Natalie: I think the influx of new talent is the most exciting thing about this year because not only do they come in full of confidence and determination, but I think they keep the other drivers on their toes and they’re just disruptive.

Also I just think it’s good for any sport, any community, any business to bring in new blood and it should be exciting.

Rachel: Everything excites me! Australia is the best place to start the season, it just feels right. The teams all look very close from testing. Mercedes and McLaren perhaps showed more of their hand than Ferrari and Red Bull, but it looks very close.

Six drivers in their full rookie season would excite me normally anyway but, because it’s such a close field, they will have even more of a role to play. It will be one of the best years we have had in a long time.

Martin: 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.

We’ve got a great grid of drivers throughout the field and a very exciting intake of rookies, and whilst you learn over the years to be wary of predicting too much, all the ingredients are there for an all-time classic season.

Simon: Everything! I can’t remember a year that I felt was this tight going into it and had so many teams potentially winning. You get these kind of seasons once every five, maybe 10 years.

I feel this will be as tight as 2021 and potentially with three or four teams in it.

Naomi: There’s just so many new storylines. Eighty per cent of the teams have a different driver line-up, so that in itself is super exciting, just to see how people are going to adapt to new teams.

Then we have new rookies and the most exciting storyline is Lewis to Ferrari, how he’s going to fit in there, what he can do results-wise. Even Carlos Sainz to Williams, it seems the car is going to perform well and just to see him adapt to a new environment. I think it’s going to be big year.

What race weekend are you looking forward to most?

Naomi: From the racing perspective, I really do love Brazil. We seem to just always have sensational races out in Brazil. Monaco is one that I look forward to mostly for the atmosphere, I would say.

Ted: Monaco Grand Prix. It’s at the end of May, we have a picture of who is competitive and who is not but there’s a separate set of demands for Monaco.

Bernie: My first race is China, which I haven’t been to since pre-Covid-19. It will be interesting to see how different it is. I love Baku. I like it as a race weekend and it can be chaotic. For the young drivers, that’s an interesting one.

Simon: Australia because it’s the next one, and Suzuka because I’ve not been there for a while!

How will Lewis Hamilton fare in year one at Ferrari?

Simon: Lewis has already said it won’t take months to get on top of the car. We all rate different drivers differently and I have always rated some drivers a bit more than Charles. He’s a brilliant qualifier but sometimes in the race he’s not the same driver and I wonder if Lewis can put some early pressure on him, how will he cope with that?

You don’t know how a driver will respond until they are in a championship situation. Those will be answered for Leclerc this year but I think Lewis will prevail.

Bernie: It’s brilliant to see this Lewis 2.0. He’s totally revitalised. We will get a much better version of him this year compared to his last couple years at Mercedes.

If they give him a car that can fight for wins, it will be exciting to see. His big thing against Leclerc will be qualifying. He needs to be close in qualifying and that will be his biggest challenge.

Naomi: Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari is probably the most interesting storyline this year. It’s going to be a very interesting dynamic between him and Charles, who is obviously a very quick, talented young driver. It’s his stomping ground.

It’s going to be a challenge for Lewis to just walk in there and make it his home. At the same time, Lewis walks in as an incredibly decorated driver with many accolades, seven-time world champion versus Leclerc, who’s not won a world championship yet, so I think he comes in with a lot of gravitas, a lot of weight.

He will do well within the team. It seems like he really enjoyed the car in testing, which is already a great sign. We haven’t heard him be as positive about a car in too long.

Martin: 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.

So, 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.

Will Russell step up again as Mercedes team leader?

Natalie: George has been very patient with his career. He waited a long time to go from Williams to Mercedes. But I think at each stage he was able to learn a huge amount and grow as a driver. We still see him make the odd mistake that as a race winner, you can’t make.

I think stepping up now to be the leader of that team will do wonders for his confidence and hopefully iron out those mistakes.

Martin: 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 that he will relish his leading role at Mercedes this year, finally out of Lewis’ 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.

Bernie: They need to get the ground effect right because that will start to affect cars going forward. I can envisage this being a build year for Mercedes.

I think the new regulations for 2026, they will have a good engine so they may switch development from this car to next year.

That’s tricky because you still need to understand what’s gone wrong with this year’s car, you need to keep your drivers happy, you want the money from the championship, you want position for the pit lane, you can’t just throw it away. But I see this as a building year and next year is their year.

Will Norris vs Piastri at McLaren become more challenging to manage?

Rachel: I’ve said Lando for the championship but I think Oscar will push him so hard and there may be points when he’s ahead in the standings.

With Oscar, he learned an awful lot last year. He’s got Mark Webber behind him and he will not let Oscar become a number two driver. There’s a ruthlessness in the Oscar camp and if you get that in the Norris camp as well, Andrea Stella will have a really big season ahead of him to manage that.

Simon: If McLaren come out of the blocks fast, there will be early decisions to be made.

Naomi: Last year, they didn’t seem to want to make a decision on which driver they were going to back, which I do think cost them points.

McLaren have got the luxury problem of having one of the best driver line-ups in Formula 1. They’ve got two incredible drivers in the team. Lando obviously throughout the second half of last season proved to be the quicker of the two and Oscar was maybe not as good in qualifying, so there’s some areas where Oscar needs to do some work.

Let’s see going into his third season how much he’s bridged that gap. But it’s going to be a challenge for the team to really make a choice from one driver to the other. But I think it would be worth doing so early on, so it doesn’t cost them any drivers’ championship points.

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
• 7pm: 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