Source: Alamy Stock Photo
The F1 expert previews the upcoming F1 season, which starts in Melbourne this weekend.
Mark Gallagher analyses the chances of Lewis Hamilton winning a record-breaking eighth world title – where he is 5/1 in the latest F1 betting markets – and discusses Max Verstappen being linked to a move to Aston Martin and George Russell’s rivalry with the four-time world champion.
What you have you made of Ferrari during testing?
They look to have a package which they’ve aimed to develop from the last year’s car which was a quick car, slightly circuit dependent but what we’ve been seeing from pre-season testing. They’ve got a little bit of work to extract a performance from it. Some people feel there is a potential issue with that car which may need ironing out. I do not know enough about what that issue is to comment on it. I don’t think they were anything as competitive as the front-runners which we know to be McLaren and Red Bull probably just behind. Ferrari haven’t had much opportunity like any of the other teams. They don’t have enough opportunity to do pre-season testing so you can be pretty sure that any issues that arouse in testing, they will have sufficient data to start looking at how they can close that gap. But one thing is, there is a gap and Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri of McLaren start the season as favourites.
Lewis Hamilton claims himself and Charles LeClark are the strongest pairing in F1 history – what do you make of that?
It’s certainly up there. But as ever, there is a tendency to talk about teams and drivers as if there hasn’t been a history in the sport. We all know that Alain Frost and Ayrton Senna were a truly formidable line-up. Niki Lauda and Alain Frost were a phenomenal line-up, and we have seen other very strong line-ups including Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso when they were together at McLaren.
We have seen some really formidable line-ups in F1 over the years. The thing which is intriguing is if you look at Lewis Hamilton’s partnership with Fernando Alonso at McLaren, and Ayrton Senna and Alain Frost line-up at McLaren, those partnerships didn’t work out in a happy way because essentially you have two bulls in the field, and it becomes very difficult to manage that. You only have to look at what happened with Lewis and Nico Roseberg. Nico was pushing to become more competitive at Mercedes and the management will all happily confirm that it was a difficult period for the team and borderline destructive to have two drivers fighting each other. Sometimes, even crashing into each other.
That raises the prospect that while it is a formidable driver combination, one of them has to come out on top and that is usually not a problem at the beginning but as time goes on, if one driver becomes clearly more dominant than the other, it will cause problems.
Can Lewis win an eighth world title this year?
Of course, he has a shot at it if Ferrari has a car which has the beating of McLaren on a consistent basis. Ferrari haven’t produced a car like that in a very long time, and you have to go all the way back to the Michael Schumacher era to find a Ferrari that was dominant. I think there is a gap in performance. Ferrari had a fabulous season last year but to win a world championship, you have to put a car together that can get victories across the season.
Ferrari haven’t won the Drivers’ Championship in 18 years since Kimi Raikkonen did and arguably, Kimi did it because Lewis and Fernando had a battle going on at McLaren which distracted McLaren to some extent from the Drivers’ Championship. You have to have one driver going for the championship. If Lewis was to win a few races in the first half of the season, then you can be absolutely sure that Charles will be winning a few races in the first half of the season. It begs the question, which one will surge their position in the team? If I was a betting man, given that we don’t have big regulation changes this season, it’s going to be a tall order for Ferrari and Mercedes to overwhelm McLaren and Red Bull, so it is going to be a titanic battle.
How much of a blow is it for Aston Martin ahead of 2026 that their next technical director can’t start until July?
I don’t think it is a major blow. It’s a fairly standard procedure that you fight to stop your senior technical people from leaving and going elsewhere. Aston Martin have Adrian Newey onboard, and his overall direction will be critical for next year’s car in particular because he knows Honda very well and they will be their new partner next year. So, with it being delayed, it is an irritation, but I don’t think it is catastrophic.
How big of a season could it be for McLaren?
I think it’s a general recognition that they didn’t make the most of all of their opportunities they had last year. They slightly hesitated at times and a little bit uncertain on strategy calls, certainly with their team orders. You have to have a clear view of who your lead driver is if you want to go for the Drivers’ World Championship. They did a marvellous job winning the Constructor’s Championship.
They will want to repeat that but also the title and hopefully they would have had enough time to reflect on those hesitations and operational issues that got in their way. I think they surprised themselves last year at how competitive they were last year in where they were but this year they won’t be surprised to be going into this championship as favourites. There will be more confidence and hopefully we will see that from the start in Melbourne.
What is your opinion on the ongoing tension between George Russell vs Max Verstappen?
I think the rivalry is slightly concerning because we need all of the drivers to respect each other definitely on track but preferably also off track. They don’t have to be best mates, but it is good if the rivalry is a respectful one.
When there is a fallout, we have seen over the years, it is not a generally good thing because people drive with their heart rather than their head. Hopefully, on track they will give each other the space and the respect to race because otherwise if they are driving and there are fireworks then that is dangerous and will get in the way of what the teams want them to do. I think it has slightly been blown out of proportion by George, and he feels aggrieved, I understand that but it is important to put it into perspective that Max is a four times world champion and George is just as deserving of respect from Max.
In terms of George, it is a big year for him. Lewis has left and George is the number one driver in the team. He has a very young and experienced driver alongside him in Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George needs to stamp his authority on the team now he has that number one status. You would expect George to beat him over the season in terms of race results but maybe there’ll be occasions where Kimi shows incredible speed that his team have been talking about.
It would be catastrophic if Kimi is matching him in qualifying and results but over the course of the season, you would think George will stamp his authority and be number one. It seems unlikely because Kimi is a rookie but that’ll be the thing we will all be watching. Whether Mercedes is competitive or not, the internal performance of drivers is always worth watching.
