The F1 teams and drivers running out of time to save their 2025 season

With six grands prix completed in 2025, we might only be a quarter of the way through the F1 season, but some drivers and teams already look close to declaring the year a complete write-off.

That moment may have already arrived for Jack Doohan, who is expected to be replaced before the next race at Imola, but he’s not the only one looking over his shoulder nervously.

While team bosses may be re-evaluating underperforming drivers, they also face the potentially tougher decision of when to halt development of their current cars.

The first races in Europe are usually where the upgrade race shifts into a higher gear, but teams are already focusing their efforts on next year, when a very different rules package will be introduced. Significant resources are needed for the clean-sheet designs and the rewards of getting a leap on competitors in 2026 could be reaped for multiple seasons.

For struggling teams, the temptation to gamble on success next year, at the price of a miserable 2025, could be overwhelming which means that time is running out for some of the strugglers as the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix approaches.

Ferrari

The fact that Charles Leclerc believed Ferrari is extracting the maximum from its car after what was a season-low effort in Miami suggests the Scuderia will need a magic upgrade to take the step forward it needs to be fighting for victories again.

While the entertaining radio exchanges in Miami made headlines, the biggest issue the team had was its lack of competitiveness, highlighted by its step backwards from the the previous race in Saudi Arabia. Losing out to Williams in a straightforward fight was not in Ferrari’s plans after Leclerc had grabbed a first podium of the year at Jeddah.

Given that its drivers finished a minute behind the race winner in Miami, the radio show may have been something of a blessing in disguise, as it diverted attention from the real problem: Ferrari is not reacting.

The radio squabble will probably be solved in a meeting with the drivers and some team bosses. The lack of pace from the car is a much bigger issue that doesn’t have an easy solution.

Ferrari could have made better decisions in Miami, which would have brought it closer to Mercedes or Red Bull, but the gap to those two teams was still too big to believe strategies or better radio calls would have made a major impact.

The Maranello squad is planning to introduce updates at Imola and Monaco that it hopes will allow it to unlock some of the potential it believes the SF-25 has. Then Barcelona will wrap up the second triple-header of 2025, a key moment at which Ferrari will need to decide whether it’s worth persevering in trying to rescue its 2025 season, or giving up so that it doesn’t compromise the development of its 2026 project.

Aston Martin

Aston Martin is in a similar situation to Ferrari, except in the Silverstone squad’s case, the situation is even more desperate.

Fernando Alonso‘s appearance in SQ3 didn’t do much to mask one of Aston’s weakest performances in recent times, and it’s pretty incredible to think the two-time champion is one of four drivers yet to score a point in 2025. It’s his worst start to a season since 2017.

Aston will also have some upgrades at Imola, but Alonso himself warned that they are unlikely to be bigger than those of its rivals.

In the current situation, the team is set to use 2025 as an experimental season to test as much as possible in the hope that the Adrian Newey-led project gets the biggest head start possible next year.

Given its current form, the team’s bosses will be crossing their fingers that the strategy pays off.

Yuki Tsunoda

It wouldn’t be too fair to judge Yuki Tsunoda‘s performances at Red Bull after just four races.

However, given that he had been pushing hard for promotion to the team he felt ready for, the gap to Max Verstappen in those four outings has inevitably left a bittersweet taste.

Tsunoda has so far been outqualified by Verstappen by 0.864sec on average, which is almost identical to Liam Lawson‘s shortfall in his three outings with the team (0.879sec).

The Japanese driver has however scored points, something that Lawson failed to do, but Tsunoda’s tally of six points falls very short of the 63 Verstappen has scored in the same period, and is of minimal assistance in Red Bull’s constructors’ championship fight.

Tsunoda may have greater potential to do well than Lawson, but so far he hasn’t shown enough to vindicate Red Bull’s decision to dump Sergio Perez.

Red Bull doesn’t have the easiest or most competitive car this year, and it’s clear that Verstappen is at the peak of his abilities, but Tsunoda’s contribution will need to be bigger unless he wants to face the same questions that his predecessors had to deal with.

Alpine

Alpine is in the unenviable position of being just one point away from the bottom of the world championship standings, some way from its pre-season target of finishing in the top five.

The team does appear to have more potential than its points tally suggests, at least based on Pierre Gasly‘s seventh-place finish in Bahrain after starting fourth on the grid, but it will soon face the decision of whether to give up on its 2025 goals in the hope of a bigger reward next year.

It’s a dilemma for Alpine, as the gamble won’t pay off for all teams. For Imola, at least the team looks likely to have the distraction of a new driver line-up, as Jack Doohan is expected to be replaced.

Liam Lawson

It was never going to be easy to bounce back from the massive heartbreak of losing his top-tier drive after just three races, and so far it appears as if Liam Lawson hasn’t been able to recover the confidence and form that secured him the promotion Red Bull in the first place.

Returning to the less tense atmosphere of Racing Bulls hasn’t helped Lawson much in terms of results, and he now has one of the most promising rookies alongside him in Isack Hadjar.

So far, Lawson is down 1-4 in qualifying against his new team-mate and has endured a mix of promising but messy races since being demoted from Red Bull.

Lawson is believed to have a contract until the end of the year, and with talents like Arvid Lindblad waiting in the wings, the New Zealander will need up his performances if he wants to secure his future in the ruthless environment of Red Bull’s F1 programme.