Miami Grand Prix 2025, Winners & Losers - Formula 1 (Part 2)

Well, I suppose we have to start with the news of the day at Alpine. Ladies and gentlemen, the Losers from Miami....

Losers:

Alpine. Well, that axe has finally fallen, however Oli Oakes made himself the first cut. After what could only be a tumultuous not even year long time frame at being at the helm as team principal, Oli has bid adieux. From an outside view, bringing in Flavio Briatore caused more chaos then it did help. Pressure on Oli, pressure on the drivers, pressure on the engineers, they may as well be producing diamonds instead of a race car. Being at the top of the team with Flavio hanging over your every move proved to be just too much for Oli, and his resignation was submitted shortly after the dust settled in Miami. Unfortunately for Jack Doohan, Oli was still one of his biggest supporters, and with him gone, Alpine announced today a 5 race rotation out for Doohan, and in for Colapinto. Odd as it may seem, I suppose it is just enough good news for Doohan as he may eventually get to drive again, but for the next 5 races, Colapinto is the #2 driver with Gasly. The writing on this change has been on the wall for quite a number of races. Colapinto hopefully will slide right into the form he had the latter half of last season at Williams after they parted ways with Logan Sargeant. He showed really good pace, got some points, and definitely helped Williams out. Will it be the same for Alpine? Imola is a week and a half off, so he better get up to speed and comfort quick!

Ferrari. Might as well get this one over with quick too. As I delved into in yesterdays post about Hamilton actually being considered a winner in my book, Ferrari certainly is not. The car is not up to snuff, the answers are not yet apparent on how to get it there, and their race strategy continues to boggle the minds of many. Especially the drivers. 2025 has not been a good season thus far, and far from the mid to end of year form they had in 2024. How could it have changed so much??? Also not helping is that for some reason, they are only bringing 'minor upgrades' to Imola. Why? Why not give her the full beans and see what she does? Imola would be a great track to test out your wares. It has plenty of everything, high speed long runs, slow and fast corners, elevations. Ok, maybe that is too much variety? Who knows, but still, give Charles and Lewis some help and some hope! Whatever they bring, I hope it helps with the pace. I hope even more they get their heads out of their a$$es and make better decisions for the drivers during the race.

The Rookies. Lawson DNF, Bortorello DNF, Bearman DNF, Doohan DNF. Hadjar and Antonelli are THE class of this seasons large crop of rookies, and once again they proved it. Hadjar narrowly missing out on the points behind Tsunoda in an 11th place finish. For Lawson, yet another destructive race out of his own reckless abandon driving style. Seriously, someone needs to sit Liam down and talk some sense into him. Did he not watch last season with what happened to Logan Sargeant? Or previous seasons with Mick Schumacher, or Nikita Mazepin? Destroying cars is NOT the way to keep your seat in F1, and certainly not a way to impress other teams by smashing their cars along with it. As for the two B's, Bearman and Bortorello, they need to find something, anything to get their seasons on the right track or it's going to be 1 and done for them as well.

Aston Martin. Not much more to say here. They are still going the wrong direction in performance, even with a momentary blip of top ten times during practice sessions and qualifying sessions. It just isn't enough, and it's not a good look for a team that showed so much promise of good things to come only 2 seasons prior. At this point, they might as well funnel all the research money into the 2026 car.

Ah well, only a week and a half till Imola, it still can't get here soon enough!