The 2025 Formula One season is over, with a new world champion crowned in Lando Norris.
Norris is the 35th driver to win the F1 title and McLaren’s first championship-winning driver since Lewis Hamilton, who won back in 2008. The 26-year-old has joined the likes of Emerson Fittipaldi, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Mika Häkkinen, and Hamilton as McLaren world champions, while also being the 11th driver from the UK to win the World Drivers’ Championship.
While the season went down to the wire with a three-way battle to decide the winner in the last race, it also marked the final chapter for teams and drivers, with new regulations set to be introduced from next year, which will see a host of changes on the grid as well.
Here are some reasons why the 2025 F1 season was one for the history books:
- Along with the regulation changes and power unit configurations, the 2026 F1 season will also see new active aerodynamics. This means the end of the drag reduction system (DRS), which is set to be replaced by a manual override engine mode.
- Starting next season, the cooling vests will become mandatory and are expected to be redesigned as well. They had been optional until now.
- The 2025 F1 season was also the final season since 2017 with ten teams on the grid. From next season, 11 teams are set to compete, with Cadillac joining the grid.
- Renault, an iconic French name in the sport, will leave the grid, ending their stint as the engine supplier to Alpine, who will move to Mercedes power units. The 2026 season will be the first one since 2000 without a Renault engine on the grid. Renault leave on the back of a disappointing end to their Formula One chapter, having finished bottom of the 2025 Constructors’ standings.
- The 2025 F1 season was the final time we saw the Sauber name on the grid. Audi, who acquired Sauber, will make their debut on the grid next year as a works team with their own power unit.
- Red Bull, who have used Honda power units for the last couple of seasons, will be partnering with Ford through Red Bull Powertrains to have their own engine. Ford is set to return to the F1 grid for the first time since 2004, having previously supplied engines to Jaguar, Jordan, and Minardi.
- Aston Martin, meanwhile, will use Honda engines from next year, replacing Mercedes.
- Lando Norris will enter next season as the reigning world champion. This means that, for the first time since the completion of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Formula One will have a new reigning world champion, with Max Verstappen having held that spot until now.
- The 2026 Formula One season will have four world champions on the grid in Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, and Lando Norris.
- Max Verstappen’s hopes of emulating Michael Schumacher’s five world titles in a row were thwarted by Norris. Schumacher thus remains the only driver to have won five consecutive titles, with Verstappen, Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton, and Juan Manuel Fangio each having won four consecutive world titles.
- The 2025 Formula One season was also the final time the Spanish Grand Prix took place at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The race will move to a new street circuit in Madrid. The Barcelona circuit will still stay on the grid, however, and host the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.
- The 2025 season was also the first time in his illustrious 19-year career that seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton failed to finish on the podium even once. It was also his third season in which he went winless, with his P4 finishes in Imola, Austria, Silverstone, and Azerbaijan being his best finishes of the year.
The 2026 Formula One season will kick off on March 8 with the Australian Grand Prix and conclude on December 6 with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.