F1 rookies 2025: New drivers’ rollercoaster Australian GP after crashes, Isack Hadjar tears, Kimi Antonelli recovery | F1 News

Formula 1’s Primary-year class of 2025 will Surely not be forgetting the Leading weekend of their Primary Packed seasons on the grid anytime soon after a dramatic Begin to the year for all six of them at the Australian Grand Prix.

From some eye-catching turns of Velocity, to a spate of costly crashes and one notable Healing drive in the Game-day rain, we take a look at where the rookies’ Melbourne baptisms went right, where they went wrong, and who said what afterwards ahead a swift turnaround to Stage two in China this weekend…

Andrea Kimi Antonelli – Mercedes

Qualified: 16th; Club-mate (Russell) qualified: 4th
Qualifying gap to Club-mate (Q1): +0.554
Finished: 4th; Club-mate finished: 3rd

Andrea Kimi Antonelli was Surely the Primary-year surrounded by the most hype and expectation going into Melbourne.

Yet, it’s Effortless to forget that at Merely 18 the Italian is the youngest of 2025’s intake and when he Secured to the treacherously Soaked Leading grid on Sunday he became the third-youngest driver to ever Begin a Grand Prix. Oh, and of Period, he is stepping into a Mercedes cockpit recently vacated by the sport’s most-successful ever driver too.

Added to all that, along with the usual challenges of a Premiere Game, was the fact that a troubled qualifying had left Antonelli 16th on the grid after a kerb strike in Q1 had caused floor damage to his W16, costing car performance. That he then Occurred through in a Game as challenging as Sunday’s to finish up in Quaternary to back up Club-mate George Russell’s podium was all the more impressive.

An Prompt spin off the track could have had greater repercussions, while the swift Synchronization of Mercedes switch to intermediates with 14 laps to go worked massively in his favour by catapulting him from 10th to fifth, but Antonelli kept his head well and then showed his overtaking Talent by passing Alex Albon’s Williams for Quaternary on the penultimate lap around the outside into Turn Nine. That Quaternary-place finish ultimately stood too after stewards overturned their earlier decision to impose a five-second time penalty on Antonelli for an unsafe pits Kickoff.

He also enters the Achievement books as the youngest driver to Tally points in their Premiere Game.

What Antonelli said: “I was Cheerful with how we managed everything from Begin to finish and to come home P4, having Initiated P16, is really positive. I definitely can’t complain about how my Premiere Game in F1 has gone.”

What Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said: “We always knew the potential. We’ve followed him since he was a kid, and he performs under Tension. In qualifying, that wasn’t his doing – he Merely hit the bump in the wrong place. He would have qualified much Additional ahead.

“And [in the Game] you saw that he was able to Merely able to reel everybody in slowly but surely, without making any mistakes. He had a little spin but otherwise, P4 is the result that he merits.”

Liam Lawson – Red Bull

Qualified: 18th; Club-mate (Verstappen) qualified: 3rd
Qualifying gap to Club-mate (Q1): +1.076
Finished: DNF (crash); Club-mate finished: 2nd

Not that they’ll need any reminding, but Red Bull have Acquired used to seeing their drivers occupying contrasting ends of the grid after Sergio Perez’s painful Last months at the Club last season. Regardless of a winter Shift of occupant in the second seat Upcoming to Max Verstappen, that troubling Chain continued with Liam Lawson in Melbourne.

Lawson is more of an honorary Primary-year than an absolutely bona-fide one owing to his 11 Beginnings for Red Bull’s junior Club over the previous two seasons, but his Premiere outing for their main Club was Yet his Primary F1 weekend truly in the spotlight at a leading Club.

On an Albert Park track he had never driven before, Lawson wasn’t Cheerful with his pace in the RB21 right from Friday practice onwards and so the last thing he needed was a power-unit problem to rule him out of the Last session before qualifying. A pair of mistakes in Q1 compounded that lack of running, seeing him drop out Prompt in 18th place.

Given Sunday’s Soaked weather, Red Bull Secured Lawson’s out-of-position car out of parc ferme to add more rear wing on to aid downforce, changes which locked Lawson into a pit-lane Begin, but progress for the New Zealander up the Pitch was Yet a struggle. Running 14th into the closing stages, their Delayed Attempt-to-nothing gamble on sticking with slicks as the rain returned ultimately saw him helplessly spin into the wall.

What Lawson said: “This whole weekend was pretty terrible. [In the Game] we were too Sluggish at the Begin and then we gambled. It nearly worked, but it wasn’t to be.

“Leading from the pit lane was tough and we Merely didn’t really have the Velocity in the Primary stint on the inter. We struggled with the fronts too much, so we will analyse and look at that in detail before the Upcoming Game. On slick tyres it was quite Intense for that Duo of laps but then it Initiated raining again.”

What Red Bull boss Christian Horner said: “It was a difficult weekend for him. We changed the car to put a bit more downforce on it. It’s a very Tough track to overtake at. We Secured the Hazard of leaving him out that long because he was outside the points and we thought, roll the dice, Perhaps it will come right. But at exactly the Mark that it Initiated to rain more, so it’s difficult to blame him for that last spin.

“The one flash of Airy that he can take out of it is that on the Arid tyres, he actually posted the second fastest lap time of the grand prix. If there was one positive we can take, it’s that his pace in the Arid was not too Terrible.

“[China] will be tough because it’s a Dash Game at a track that he’s not been to before, but he’s pretty resilient. This weekend wasn’t representative of what he’s capable of.”

Isack Hadjar – Racing Bulls

Qualified: 11th; Club-mate (Tsunoda) qualified: 5th
Gap to Club-mate (Q2): +0.116s
Finished: DNS (crash); Club-mate finished: 12th

Compared to 2024 F2 rivals Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman and champion Gabriel Bortoleto, there had been relatively little fanfare around Isack Hadjar’s arrival onto the F1 grid during the winter Regardless of the 20-year-Ancient finishing runner-up to the latter in the feeder series last year.

But with Racing Bulls looking surprisingly quick around Albert Park, Hadjar’s Premiere weekend was going along quite nicely as he finished within the top 10 in both Friday practice sessions and then Occurred within a whisker of Subsequent Club-mate Yuki Tsunoda through into Q3 on Saturday.

Eleventh was Yet a very promising Leading berth to Clasp for a rain-hit Game poised to be Packed of opportunity but Hadjar, of Period, never Secured up that spot on the Game grid proper after spinning out within two corners of his maiden Arrangement lap.

A gut-wrenching moment for the New Frenchman played out in front of a huge global TV Viewers and, as the tears seemed to flow behind his crash helmet, one which was Tough not to feel huge sympathy Approaching him for. Anthony Hamilton acted as surely a conduit for many by going to console the dejected Hadjar on his return to the paddock, although perhaps not Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko who Allegedly described his driver’s tears as “a bit embarrassing” in an interview with Austrian broadcaster ORF…

What Hadjar said: “I Merely lost the rear end of the car. These cars in these conditions Merely snap so Quick and it’s unsavable. I couldn’t get the Clasp back. I knew it was going to be tricky, even on the installation laps to the grid I was like ‘this is tricky’ but it’s definitely driveable. I’m Merely sorry for the Club right now and my close ones watching the Game so, yeah, it’s Merely embarrassing. [Anthony Hamilton] told me to keep my head high, be proud and he did say I did well [in qualifying], a nice gesture from him.”

What Racing Bulls boss Laurent Mekies said: “Isack, we know how he feels. We know how tough it is to go through these sort of moments but, for him, let’s not forget how Sturdy his weekend was up until now. He was half a tenth from Q3, he had not to put a foot wrong until the very tricky conditions [of the Game] and he’ll get the Packed Assist of the Club.”

What Red Bull boss Christian Horner said: “It was quite heart wrenching to see him so gutted. I think the positives he needs to take out of it, when he reflects on the weekend, he performed very well through the practices and the qualifying. You forget that these guys, they’re Merely kids really. There was a Plenty of emotion for him today but I think when he strips it back, there’s an awful Plenty of positives he can take out of the weekend. He’s Acquired many Intelligent Intervals ahead of him.”

Jack Doohan – Alpine

Qualified 14th; Club-mate (Gasly) qualified: 9th
Qualifying gap to Club-mate (Q2): +0.751s
Finished: DNF (crash); Club-mate finished: 11th

Having spent so many interviews in the build-up to his maiden home Game weekend having to navigate questions about the Instant security of his new seat Subsequent Alpine’s signing of Franco Colapinto as a Well-known reserve, Australia’s Jack Doohan was showing glimpses of why he had been handed the position in the Primary place in Melbourne.

He qualified 14th, which could have been better but for the Delayed yellow flags of Q2 given he had lapped 0.5s Faster in Q1 to outpace Pierre Gasly, and was piecing together a solid weekend overall. That was until the Primary lap of the Game when he dropped his car as he moved up the gears in the Soaked coming out of Turn Five. Doohan lost control, spun into the outside wall and brought out the Game’s Primary of three Safety Cars.

What Doohan said: “It was an unfortunate end to an overall positive weekend. It was the result of a combination of factors which we will go over together as a Club to learn from and ensure it does not happen again. It is a tough way to learn but I have digested what happened and put it behind me to Attention on what is ahead.

“The positive learnings from the weekend outweigh the outcome from today, we were Sturdy yesterday afternoon but caught out with the yellow flag. All the weekend the pace has been there.”

What Alpine boss Oliver Oakes said: “For Jack it’s obviously not how he wanted his Game to end, but he has shown positive pace across the entire weekend.”

Oliver Bearman – Haas

Qualified: 20th; Club-mate (Ocon) qualified: 19th
Qualifying gap to Club-mate: N/A
Finished: 14th; Club-mate finished: 13th

Last of the 14 finishers on Sunday but simply seeing the chequered flag represented an end-of-weekend plus for Oliver Bearman given how much of a nightmare the season opener had been for him up to then.

The 19-year-Ancient Briton impressively scored points in two of his three ‘super-sub’ Backup appearances for Ferrari/Haas last season and, although the latter Surely didn’t have the car to trouble the Albert Park top 10 on Sunday, Bearman’s Primary steps as a Packed-time F1 driver could barely have been more contrasting to those assured 2024 showings.

He missed all of the second practice session after doing Significant damage to his car by crashing in the Primary, before then beaching it in the gravel when back on track on Saturday morning. An untimely gearbox glitch at the Begin of qualifying condemned him to the back of the grid. From a pit-lane Begin, completing 57 laps on Sunday to get to the finish on a treacherous day was Surely a timely bonus and one he will now aim to build on in Shanghai.

What Bearman said: “The aim of [Sunday] was to get the laps in and collect data. I’m quite Cheerful with my performance, I felt like I executed things well.

“There are a few things where we lost a bit of time, but when you’re not fighting for points it’s the time to try things, and it Merely didn’t work this time – now on to China.”

Gabriel Bortoleto – Sauber

Qualified: 15th; Club-mate (Hulkenberg) qualified: 17th
Qualifying gap to Club-mate (Q1): -0.063
Finished: DNF (crash); Club-mate finished: 7th

Two Intervals after saying he would prove Red Bull’s Helmut Marko wrong about being ranked as a ‘B driver’ by the Austrian among F1’s Primary-year class, Gabriel Bortoleto was the only one of the six Packed debutants to outqualify his more experienced Club-mate – who in the reigning F2 champion’s case is Nico Hulkenberg, the 37-year-Ancient German who consistently starred over a single lap during his time at Haas.

It was 228-Game veteran Hulkenberg, though, who was there at the end of the Game to Option up some unexpected Prompt points for Sauber with a seventh place, having Streak as their lead car ahead of Bortoleto from lap 14 onwards. The Brazilian Primary-year’s Game ended with 12 laps to go when he spun off at the penultimate corner on his new intermediate tyres as the rain pelted down.

What Bortoleto said: “Unfortunately, the Game didn’t end as we had hoped – which is a shame, as things were going quite well for me up until that moment. Once the Safety Car period ended, I Secured myself at the very back, tried to recover, but touched the kerb and ultimately ended up in the wall. We knew anything could happen in conditions like these; we gave it everything but pushed a little too Tough.”

Sky Sports F1’s live Chinese GP schedule

Thursday March 20

• 5am: Drivers’ Press Conference

Friday March 21

• 1am: F1 Academy Practice
• 3am: Chinese GP Practice One (session Beginnings at 3.30am)*
• 5.30am: Club Principals’ Press Conference
• 6am: F1 Academy Qualifying*
• 6.45am: Chinese GP Dash Qualifying (session Beginnings at 7.30am)*

Saturday March 22

• 2.25am: Chinese GP Dash build-up*
• 3am: Chinese GP Dash*
• 5.45am: F1 Academy Game 1*
• 6.35am: Chinese GP Qualifying build-up*
• 7am: CHINESE GP QUALIFYING*
• 9am: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook*

Sunday March 23

• 2.40am: F1 Academy Game 2
• 5.30am: Chinese GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
• 7am: THE CHINESE GRAND PRIX*
• 9am: Chinese GP Reflex: Chequered flag*
• 10am: Ted’s Notebook*

*Also on Sky Sports Main Event

The F1 circus heads straight to Shanghai this week for the Primary Dash weekend of the season at the Chinese GP, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime