BURSTThere’s always next year in sports, and the grid for the 2025 Formula One season is almost set amid a flurry of activity.
Nineteen spots have been filled now that Red Bull has announced Liam Lawson will replace Sergio Perez. That leaves a place on the sibling squad Racing Bulls to complete the field.
Here’s how the grid looks for next season with the latest news and reports.
Updated: Thursday, Dec. 19.
ALPINE
2024: Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon
2025: Pierre Gasly, Jack Doohan
Before Alpine even announced either of its drivers for next year, it already let it be known Esteban Ocon wouldn’t be back. That news came in early June, just over a week after an embarrassing incident during the Monaco Grand Prix when Ocon crashed into teammate Pierre Gasly. It wasn’t the first incident between the two French drivers who have been frenemies since childhood.
The team signed Gasly to a multi-year extension in late June and announced after the summer break in August that Jack Doohan would replace Ocon. The 21-year-old Australian driver finished third in the Formula 2 championship last year and has served as its reserve driver.
Alpine even poked fun at the 2022 Oscar Piastri fiasco (aka the Piasco) when it prematurely announced it had promoted him to the F1 team.
Doohan actually got a headstart making his F1 debut at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, finishing 15th, after Alpine released Ocon from his contract early. Ocon is now with Haas.
ASTON MARTIN
2024: Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll
2025: Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll
The ageless Fernando Alonso signed a contract extension with Aston Martin in April. Alonso, who will be 43 years old when the 2025 season begins, has had a bit of a career renaissance since joining the team, earning eight podiums and finishing fourth in the championship during the 2023 season. The two-time world champion also scored points through the first six grands prix this year but had finished ended the year ninth overall.
No surprise, Canada’s Lance Stroll re-signed with Aston Martin as well. His father, Lawrence Stroll, owns the team after all.
“The consistency and stability of both Lance and Fernando remaining with our team is a great platform to continue to realize our ambitions,” team principal Mike Krack said, when Stroll’s extension was announced. “We look forward to creating some incredible memories and achieving further success together.”
FERRARI
2024: Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz
2025: Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton
Ferrari announced it had signed Charles Leclerc to an extension on Jan. 25, only to shift silly season into top gear (before the season even began) with a blockbuster announcement just days later by signing Lewis Hamilton to a multi-year contract beginning in 2025. Hamilton turns 40 in January, but he’s still driven (pardon the pun) to win a record-breaking eighth world championship.
That left Carlos Sainz as the odd man out, and the highly coveted free agent who was linked to just about every team on the grid has taken his talents to Williams. Sainz has earned three wins with Ferrari, including this year’s Australian Grand Prix.
HAAS
2024: Nico Hulkenberg, Kevin Magnussen
2025: Oliver Bearman, Esteban Ocon
Things had been quiet at Haas, a little too quiet, as it was the last team to make any driver announcements.
That all changed on July 4 with the news that Oliver Bearman had signed a multi-year contract. The 19-year-old competed in F2 and served as a reserve driver for both Ferrari and Haas. He made his F1 debut during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, filling in for Sainz, who missed the race while recovering from emergency appendix surgery. Bearman also subbed for Kevin Magnussen twice and finished 18th in the standings with seven points.
As it turned out, it’ll be a complete overhaul for Haas as the team confirmed Ocon for the second seat on July 25. Ocon will become the first grand prix winner to race for Haas in team history.
Nico Hulkenberg is off to Sauber while Magnussen departs F1 to join BMW as a works driver.
McLAREN
2024: Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri
2025: Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri
No changes are coming to McLaren and for good reason. McLaren has returned to top form with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri helping the team win its first constructors’ championship since 1998. Both drivers earned their first GP victories with Norris scoring four wins and Piastri taking two.
Piastri earned his extension through to the end of 2026 during his rookie campaign last year while Norris inked a multi-year contract in January.
MERCEDES
2024: Lewis Hamilton, George Russell
2025: George Russell, Kimi Antonelli
George Russell re-signed with Mercedes on Aug. 31, 2023 — the same day the team announced it had extended Hamilton for two years. Yeah, about that. As it turned out, Hamilton had an option for the second year and decided to join Ferrari instead. Oops.
Mercedes has a strong junior program (of which Russell was a graduate) and turned to top prospect Kimi Antonelli for the second seat. The 18-year-old Italian fast-tracked through the ladder system, skipping F3 to race in F2 this season.
“I made up my mind five minutes after Lewis Hamilton told me that he’s going to Ferrari,” Wolff said to reporters at Monza. “Obviously, we were discussing with other options and also kept the Max idea, didn’t discount it completely with looking at what happened at Red Bull.
“But instinctively, that is the lineup with these two that I always wanted.”
RB
2024: Yuki Tsunoda, Daniel Ricciardo/Liam Lawson
2025: Yuki Tsunoda, TBD
Both seats were open for next season until RB announced just ahead of qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix in June that it had picked up the one-year option on Yuki Tsunoda’s contract.
RB announced on Sept. 26 that Ricciardo had been released and Liam Lawson took over at the United States Grand Prix. Lawson, 22, was waiting in the wings as the reserve driver for both Red Bull and sibling team RB and did an admirable job filling in for five grands prix last season when Ricciardo was recovering from a hand injury.
Is this the end of Ricciardo’s F1 career? The 35-year-old has won eight races but only scored points four times in 25 races with RB.
The team’s second seat for next season still has to be determined.
RED BULL
2024: Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez
2025: Max Verstappen, Liam Lawson
Three-time reigning world champion Max Verstappen is in it for the long haul, saying he will honour his contract with Red Bull to 2028.
Sergio Perez was the big question mark as a pending free agent, but Red Bull answered that by signing him to a two-year contract extension on June 4. Yeah, that aged like milk. The team announced Dec. 18 it had parted ways with Perez.
The 34-year-old Mexican driver aided Red Bull in capturing back-to-back constructors’ championships in 2022 and 2023, but he went winless this year and finished eighth in the standings with just four podium finishes and none since China in April.
A day after moving on from Perez, the team promoted Liam Lawson from RB.
SAUBER
2024: Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu
2025: Nico Hulkenberg, Gabriel Bortoleto
Veteran journeyman Nico Hulkenberg, who drove for Sauber in 2013, announced in April he will be rejoining the team next season. The lone German driver on the grid will arrive a year ahead of Audi’s rebranding of the team in 2026.
While it looked like it would come down to Valtteri Bottas or Zhou Guanyu for the second seat, it was neither as Sauber cleaned house with a new challenger. Sauber signed Gabriel Bortoleto to a multi-year deal on Nov. 6. The 20-year-old won the Formula 3 championship in 2023 and the Formula 2 title this year. Bortoleto, who was part of the McLaren driver development program, will become the first full-time Brazilian driver in F1 since Felipe Massa in 2017.
Bottas, who helped Mercedes capture five consecutive constructors’ championships, is heading back to the team as a reserve driver.
WILLIAMS
2024: Alex Albon, Logan Sargeant/Franco Colapinto
2025: Alex Albon, Carlos Sainz
Alex Albon was already under contract for next season and signed (you guessed it) a multi-year contract extension in May.
Williams won the Carlos Sainz sweepstakes as the Ferrari driver was left without a ride when the team inked Charles Leclerc to an extension and signed Lewis Hamilton for next season. The veteran Sainz, who is a four-time grand prix winner, has driven 10 seasons in F1, and Williams will mark his fifth different team.
Sainz replaces Logan Sargeant, who didn’t even make it to the end of the season as Franco Colapinto was named as his replacement on Aug. 27. Colapinto actually earned more points by his second race than Sargeant scored during his entire year-and-a-half tenure.
