2025 is F1’s most polite title battle ever – Up/Down in Austria

“After you.” “No, I insist, after you,” said never Senna, Prost; Alonso, Hamilton; Hunt, Lauda; Mansell, Piquet.

Those were F1’s greatest title battles, racing gods trading blow after blow on track – with a decent bit of needle to match.

2025 isn’t any of this. After Lando Norris was so quick to apologise for rear-ending McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri in Canada, the most gentlemanly overtaking exchange possibly ever seen in grand prix racing followed between the pair in Austria.

Much like this much-over-hyped current season overall, the Austrian Macca battle promised much, and delivered relatively little in terms of excitment.

“We’re both at McLaren for a very long time after this year, and we want to fight for the championship every single year,” explained Piastri recently.

“I think we both understand it’s pretty unwise to try and win one championship and bring the house down with it.”

So wise Oscar, so professional. And so boring for us fans.

Damon Hill, in promoting his new biographical documentary, commented that F1’s current era lacks the same “gravitas” as those gone by when the “tough old boots” of Jones, Reutemann et al used to duke it out. He’s not wrong.

Expect “After you etc” for years to come.

Going Up – Quote of the year

“He’s basically making love to his ****ing exhaust pipe for lap after lap after lap, and the tyres are not dying.”

Christian Horner succinctly explains how McLaren has cracked the current design regs.

Going Down – Simply Awful

Meanwhile, Horner’s own Milton Keynes concern failed to score a point for the first time in 77 races. Verstappen being torpedoed by Kimi Antonelli on lap one meant this year’s championship fight now sadly looks like a very orange, two-horse race.

Going Up – About Swiss time

Sauber snared its first double-points finish in nearly two years, with young star Gabriel Bortoleto leading the line.

The Hinwil folks better enjoy it, as many are forecasting its 2026 performance levels to be off-the-radar terrible due to that finickity new engine formula. Eek.

Going Down – These wheels on fire

As temperatures soared in the Austrian mountains, Carlos Sainz found his Williams too hot to handle at the start of race – the FW47 spontaneously combusted.

While his team-mate Alex Albon also retired, the poor Spaniard appears to have had almost all the bad luck this year at Grove.

Going Up – Player/manager

Fernando Alonso was clearly loving the fact that the car he was racing was driven the lead protégé of his A14 management stable, Bortoleto.

Probably also delighted that he still beat him though. It still matters to ‘Nando.

Going Down – Mountain to climb

Despite Pierre Gasly putting in another Q3 appearance, he and team-mate Franco Colapinto laboured once more in the race, the Frenchman saying he felt like he was “going to spin” in every corner.

When will things get better soon for the grand old Enstone team?

Going Up – Ocon rising

Despite it looking like a bit of a mediocre move at the time, Esteban Ocon has now scored as many points this season at Haas as he did last year at Alpine – and we’re not even halfway through the season.

One of the sleeper successes of 2025 so far.

Going Down – Hard day’s grifting

PRs were recently contacting hacks about former Formula 1 grin Daniel Ricciardo’s next exciting career move, which turned out to be his endorsement of a ‘youth-orientated’ gambling site.

We know these guys have to keep the pool(s) heated, but couldn’t they do something a little less, err, sleazy?