F1. Part 2.

I must do better. I started the year so well on here writing roughly two columns a week. Since then I’ve been sidetracked with F1 and Wimbledon - the very things that I should have been writing about! Add in the fact that I’m working on another book and it has made doing this column a little tricky. “Excuses, excuses” I hear you say. Point taken. I’m back and thank you for sticking with me!

In fact, never mind me. The important news is that after a three-week break, Formula One is back. Over the next 15 weeks, there are ten Grand Prix in Europe, Asia, the United States of America, Central America, South America and the Middle East. During that time, unless something drastic happens, a new Formula One World Champion will be crowned.

Just nine points separate McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, who sit at the top of the championship. In third, 97 points off the lead is four-time world champion Max Verstappen. It takes a brave person to count him out, even if he’s done so himself.

I’ve always loved the second half of the season. Until the last couple of years, F1 used to return in Belgium at the magnificent Spa circuit. A place where it always feels like autumn, regardless of what month it is. This week, though, we head to the Netherlands and the sandy banks of Zandvoort. After that comes Monza, which despite being one of my favourites, is always tinged with a little sadness. It signals the end of summer and the culmination of the European leg of the season. But what a place to go out. Even the route from the car park to the paddock is special. There’s always a slight chill in the air and fallen leaves crunch underfoot as you walk through the beautiful park that surrounds one of the greatest race tracks in the world. Add in the colour and passion of the tifosi, and we are reaching sporting bucket list heights.

Then we have two street tracks back to back. Azerbaijan is all about risk and reward on the lightning-quick roads around Baku. By Singapore, things are getting tense. We have seen that temperatures and tempers can reach boiling point at the original night race. You just have to think back to previous races to remember that tensions run high: 2011 between Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton springs to mind. After a coming together during the race, it almost happened again in the interview pen. Massa took Lewis’s arm saying sarcastically “good job, Bro.” Lewis replied “Don’t touch me again, man.” That’s just one example. In the 15 times that F1 has been going to Singapore, we’ve seen that the relentless heat can do strange things to people.

Two fun tracks and places come in the form of Austin and Mexico City. We enjoy a week off for laundry and life admin, and then it’s back west to Brazil. A brilliant race track and partisan fans create a cauldron of intensity and noise. Last year was one of the toughest weekends that I remember in Formula One. By this stage of the season teams, drivers and members of F1’s travelling circus are getting tired and unwell. The medical centre is often the busiest place at the track by the end of October. Last year, many team personnel were ailing and what they really didn’t need was a sprint race, followed by a cancelled qualifying due to torrential rain, and then a 4 a.m. alarm call on the Sunday for a 7:30 a.m. qualifying and race on the same day. There were five red flags during qualy, with many of the cars requiring a rebuild before the race started. It was an unforgettably brilliant but bonkers weekend.

And then, to finish off the season (and team personnel once and for all), it’s a triple header between the far-flung tracks of Las Vegas and the Middle East. New tracks and new money talk. Las Vegas is not really an F1 highlight in my humble opinion. Qatar can provide a little drama. And then it’s the season finale in Abu Dhabi, which admittedly is far from a new track. Can you believe this year will be the 17th time there? It will always be remembered for 2021 and arguably the biggest drama that the the sport has ever seen. Verstappen clinched his first title from what looked like a surefire victory and eighth championship for Hamilton. But the Yas Marina circuit has seen plenty of other championship deciders too. In 2010 Sebastian Vettel took his first title. In 2016 Nico Rosberg did the same and what about the double points debacle of 2014? Hamilton won both the race and the championship.

As well as the ten Grand Prix still to come, we also have three sprint races at the Circuit of the Americas, Brazil and Qatar. In a season where every point matters, it puts huge importance on these.

Last year, both McLaren drivers won races in second half of the year but it wasn’t enough to stop Verstappen. Piastri won in Azerbaijan whilst Norris won in the Netherlands, Singapore and Abu Dhabi.

That’s the thing about Formula One. It’s never over until it’s over. Yes, it’s a cliché, but it’s also true. 2025 strikes me as one of those seasons that will go down to the wire. And I, for one, cannot wait.