Motorsport’s musical chairs: All F1 driver changes for 2025

The 2025 Formula 1 season is just a matter of months away, but 2024 has seen a flurry of activity on the driver market.

From Lewis Hamilton switching Mercedes silver for Ferrari red, to Jack Doohan finally getting a full-time racing seat, this year’s bout of ‘F1 Musical Chairs’ had everyone on edge. With most of the 2025 driver line-ups (at the time of writing) confirmed, here’s how the changes played out.

First and foremost, Hamilton shocked the F1 world when he announced that he’d be leaving Mercedes for Ferrari at the end of the current season. This announcement came on 1 February, long before pre-season testing got underway.

Although it came as a surprise to some, the seven-time F1 champion will turn 40 in January 2025, leaving him with limited time to race for the Scarlet Red team and win that elusive eighth title.

While Ferrari’s performance throughout 2024 has been hot and cold, Hamilton is under no illusions of the challenges that await him at the Italian outfit. 2025 may not yield the championship he is pursuing, but the tide may well change in 2026 when the new technical regulations come into effect.

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The Brit will partner with Ferrari’s golden boy, Charles Leclerc. With a new contract, rumoured to run until 2029 under his belt, Leclerc will not shy away from challenging his new teammate.

It will be interesting to see how the Ferrari F1 team manages these two personalities because both drivers are championship material and neither will give an inch if the new cars can challenge for race wins, and the championship.

If the union between Hamilton and Ferrari does yield the desired results, Hamilton will become the team’s first Drivers’ Champion since Kimi Räikkönen in 2007; a feat Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel failed to achieve.

In 2025 Carlos Sainz will celebrate 10 years in F1, having made his debut with Toro Rosso, alongside Max Verstappen, in 2015.

The Spaniard has raced for many teams over the years and will vacate his Ferrari seat for one at Williams next year.

2024 has been a year of mixed emotions for the three-time race winner: learning of his impending departure early in the year and winning the Australian Grand Prix (Round 3) two weeks after having his appendix removed.

The 30-year-old had been associated with a move to Audi (joining his father as an official Audi driver), but the move never materialised as he looked for seats at more established teams; most notably Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG.

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Partnering Alex Albon at the British team in 2025, Sainz will be the de facto team leader, putting his experience to good use as Williams looks to continue its climb out of F1’s doldrums. With little choice but to settle for mid-field Williams, like Hamilton, he is bargaining on 2026 for an improved showing.

Often referred to as the champion that never was, Nico Hulkenberg, will join Kick Sauber Ferrari and continue as one of the team’s drivers as the team transitions to Audi in 2026.

Having raced for seven teams since his 2010 debut, Hulkenberg also had a single-season stint with Sauber in 2013. Now returning to this struggling outfit, the German is hopeful that his next tenure will yield greater success and put them in a competitive position as the sport readies for the new technical regulations.

The German driver’s latest run saw him return to F1 with Haas in 2023 after two years on the sidelines. Although the American team has been doing its utmost to elevate its performances, Hulkenberg’s on-track antics caught Audi’s attention, with Andreas Seidl, CEO of both Sauber Motorsport AG, which runs Kick Sauber, and the future Audi F1 factory team, signing him earlier in the year.

At the time of writing, Kick Sauber/Audi has confirmed that its current driver lineup including Valtteri Bottas, has been axed for the second seat, in favour of a Brazilian youth named Gabriel Bortoleto.

Esteban Ocon has had a very peculiar stint in F1, often receiving flak from fellow drivers for his questionable on-track antics. With his Alpine tenure at an end, the Frenchman will join Haas in 2025.

Ocon’s time at Alpine has been marred by many scuffles with his teammates; former teammate Alonso, who switched to Aston Martin in 2023, blasting the Frenchman as ‘still very immature’.

Ocon and his current teammate, Pierre Gasly, have been at loggerheads since their karting days, with the niggle continuing into F1 and current postings as Alpine drivers. But with Ocon often in the wrong – the final straw was when he drove into Gasly at the 2024 Monaco Grand Prix – the team opted not to renew his contract.

This all came before a heroic double podium for the all-French outfit after a drenched Brazilian Grand Prix which saw Max Verstappen reaffirm his title domination in light of a superlative drive above the rest of the field.

The 27-year-old now joins Haas as the lead driver in an all-new lineup. He will be tasked with not only elevating the team’s performance but also guiding his rookie teammate through the demands of F1.

Following the news of Hamilton’s departure, Mercedes-AMG F1 team boss, Toto Wolff, began a search for the illustrious driver’s replacement in earnest.

Wolff made no secret of wanting Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, but when talks fell flat, he looked to the next-best signing: Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The 18-year-old Italian has been on Mercedes’ books since 2019, when he was signed to the team’s junior programme at just 12-years-old.

He has been setting the racing world alight with his skills and talents, winning the FIA Karting European Championship and WSK Euro series titles, both the ADAC and Italian Formula 4 titles in 2022, and the 2023 Formula Regional European Championship.

In 2024, Wolff and co. fast-tracked his F1 preparations by signing him to Formula 2 with the Prema Racing team. Although the year didn’t start too well for the young Italian, two F2 victories (at the time of writing) were enough to convince Wolff of his readiness for F1, and Antonelli made his FP1 debut at the Italian Grand Prix.

Despite binning the 2024 Mercedes F1 car on just his second push lap, the decision had already been made for him to replace Hamilton in 2025. The announcement came later in the same weekend, with Wolff confirming that his new signee’s talent and speed convinced them he is ready for F1.

For Wolff, though, he does not want a repeat of 2014 when he lost out on signing a young Max Verstappen because of his age; hence him pulling the trigger on Antonelli.

Ferrari-backed Oliver Bearman will race alongside Ocon at Haas in 2025. The young Brit, who turns 20 next year, is no stranger to F1, having stood in for Sainz at Ferrari in Saudi Arabia (Round 2) when the Ferrari driver had his appendix removed.

Bearman’s sudden call-up yielded the desired results, with him finishing the race in P7 and becoming the 68th driver in the sport’s history to score points on his debut. He is also the first British driver to do so since Paul di Resta in 2011.

Bearman has long since been expected to make his F1 debut with Haas; a team with very close ties to Ferrari.

Unfortunately, following two underwhelming seasons with Nikita Mazepin (2021) and Mick Schumacher (2021, 2022) at the helm, the team was reluctant to field another rookie, hence its decision to field an experienced line-up in Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen.

But with Hulkenberg departing and Magnussen’s poor performances leaving him in no-man’s land over a 2025 driver seat, it is up to Ocon and Bearman to lead the team into a new era.

Though Bearman’s F1 arrival may be met with question because of his family’s wealth (think Mazepin, Nicholas Latifi, Lance Stroll), the driver has shown his racing ability by winning both the German and Italian Formula 4 championships in previous years, becoming the first driver to win two F4 titles in a single year.

If the name Jack Doohan sounds familiar, it’s probably because of his father, Mick Doohan: a five-time 500cc/MotoGP champion. As for the younger Doohan, he has finally been handed a racing seat at Alpine, following a year on the sidelines as the team’s official reserve driver.

The Australian is no stranger to competitive racing, either, having won the Australian Karting Championship in 2015 and 2016, and finishing third and sixth in the CIK-FIA Karting European Championships and the World Championships, respectively.

His time in Formula 4 and Formula 3 were not memorable, though, but he finished his first full Formula 2 season in 2022 P6 in the championship, and P3 in 2023. Taking up the role of Alpine’s reserve driver in 2024, Doohan shifted all his focus to his new tasks, stepping away from competitive racing in the hope of securing a 2025 racing seat.

The driver, who turns 21 in January, will team with Pierre Gasly. With the team struggling massively – both on track and in the boardrooms – Doohan will undergo a baptism of fire as he looks to make an impression on the pinnacle of motorsport.

Over at Racing Bulls, Red Bull’s B-team, Yuki Tsunoda is the only confirmed driver for 2025.

Daniel Ricciardo’s performances throughout 2024 have been forgettable and the team has given the 35-year-old Australian the boot before the close of the season.

Waiting in the wings was Liam Lawson, the 22-year-old New Zealander who stood in for Ricciardo after he broke his wrist in Zandvoort in 2023. Lawson has proved his worth in five races last year, with the Red Bull decision-makers contemplating his future.

Should Lawson get the nod to team with Max Verstappen at the A-team, Perez could find himself left in the cold. However, Red Bull has built its F1 empire around Verstappen, and Lawson’s arrival may unsettle the already volatile environment further. Lawson wants to go racing and made no secret that he’ll pursue other seats in F1 if Red Bull does not meet its end of the contract.

Find the full feature in the November issue of CAR Magazine.

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