To celebrate its 75th anniversary, F1 held a never-before-done season launch. In the O2 London, in front of 25,000 fans, all teams launched their liveries for this season.
This is new for F1 doing an awards-show like launch with Jack Whitehall presenting it and performers such as MGK, Take That and many others taking the stage. There was also a preview of the new F1 movie set to be released this year.
Each team had seven minutes, a stage, a door, and a platform that could raise a car. Teams took different approaches with McLaren displaying different cars such as Hamilton’s 2008 car and Mika Hakkinen’s car from 1998, Mercedes’ new Adidas partnership, Aston Martin doubling down on the James Bond theme and Haas using country music artist Kane Brown to show their roots of an American team.
Some liveries and presentations of them were liked more than others with the general theme being the same cars as last year with a bit of paint. Racing Bulls, formally known as Alpha Tauri, was seen as one of the nicest cars in a while with a white background and the Red Bull advertising. Red Bull, Christian Horner and the FIA itself were met with a chorus of boos.
However, for most fans it was Lewis Hamilton in a Ferrari racing suit that stole the show. That was the first time publicly that he was seen in the racing suit, as a Scuderia Ferrari driver.
After 12 years at Mercedes, it was strange for anyone to see Hamilton in the Prancing Horses’ iconic red racing suit. The day after the F1 launch, Hamilton was in the SF-25 on the Fiorano racecourse. This is his first time in the car he will drive for the 2025 season.
It has not been all smooth sailing for Hamilton driving Ferrari’s machinery. At the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for Scuderia’s second winter testing of the previous car (TPC), Hamilton suffered a major setback as he crashed heavily causing severe damage. This had a knock-on effect which caused his teammate Charles Leclerc to not be able to race that day.
Official pre-season testing will take place in Bahrain 26 to 28 February, with the first race of the season being the Australian Grand Prix, 14 to 16 March.
