Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, 2023

Two teens and two 40-somethings: The striking stats of Formula 1’s 2025 grid

Formula 1

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For the first time in more than a decade, Formula 1 will have two drivers over 40 years of age on its grid when its new season begins in March.

Lewis Hamilton celebrated his 40th birthday earlier this month while fellow multiple champion Fernando Alonso turns 44 later this year. They are the first pair of forty-somethings to share the grid at the start of a season since Michael Schumacher and Pedro de la Rosa prior to their retirements at the end of 2012.

Despite that, F1 has a much more youthful grid on the whole than last year. The average age of the competitors in Australia for this year’s season-opener will be 27.2 years, down from 29.4 in Bahrain when the 2024 season began.

A changing of the guard has taken place during the off-season. Experienced race-winners such as Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas have departed (along with Daniel Ricciardo shortly before the end of last year) along with several others. In their place come six drivers embarking on their first full seasons.

Among them is Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who at 18 years and 203 days old when the new season begins will be F1’s youngest rookie since Lance Stroll in 2017. He will be joined by 19-year-old Oliver Bearman as F1 starts a season with two teenagers on the grid for the first time since 2017 (Stroll and Max Verstappen).

F1 now has an unusual spread of ages, with two drivers each in their teenage years, thirties and forties, and the rest in their twenties. The drivers will be the following ages when the new season begins:

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All bar one of the newcomers has chosen a career number previously picked by an F1 driver. Several recent champions’ numbers have returned: Bortoleto has taken five, as used by Sebastian Vettel, Jack Doohan has seven which previously belonged to Kimi Raikkonen and Isack Hadjar will be number six, which Nico Rosberg had when he won the title in 2016. However that number was more recently used by Nicholas Latifi in 2020-22.

Kimi Raikkonen, Sebastian Vettel, Hungaroring, 2020
Raikkonen and Vettel’s numbers are back
As when he returned last year, Lawson will use number 30, previously seen on Jolyon Palmer’s Renault in 2017. Andrea Kimi Antonelli will be number 12, which last appeared on Felipe Nasr’s Sauber in 2016.

Only Oliver Bearman has chosen a number no one has used since the FIA introduced the current career numbers system in 2014. In fact, his number 87 has only appeared on an F1 car once: Yves Girard-Cabantous’ Talbot at the 1951 German Grand Prix. The number was also used by various drivers who contested the Indianapolis 500 when it counted towards the world championship, though those were not F1 cars.

That leaves just two teams who have not changed their driver line-ups for the upcoming season. They are Aston Martin (Alonso and Stroll) and McLaren (Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri). Both are going into their third seasons as team mates.

Perez’s departure means there will be no Mexican driver on the grid for the first time since 2010, the season before he made his debut. This year’s Mexican Grand Prix is therefore set to be the first without a home driver since 1992.

Conversely, Isack Hadjar’s arrival will boost the grid’s French contingent to three, yet that country dropped off the calendar in 2022. Bearman boosts the British population to four, and the presence of London-born Thai racer Alexander Albon means a quarter of the grid can call the United Kingdom their home.

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In 2024, Brazil produced its second Formula 2 champion in three years. But while Aston Martin has not yet seen fit to give 2022 champion Felipe Drugovich a race seat, Gabriel Bortoleto will contest the season for Sauber. He is the first reigning F2 champion to step up directly to F1 since Mick Schumacher in 2021.

Felipe Massa, Ferrari, Interlagos, 2008
Interlagos should welcome its first home driver since Massa
Bortoleto is also the first Brazilian to have a full-time F1 drive since Felipe Massa in 2017. Miami-born Brazilian racer Pietro Fittipaldi also started two races as a substitute in 2020. Antonelli’s debut means Italy has a full-time driver for the first time since Antonio Giovinazzi lost his seat at the end of 2021.

Bortoleto joins Nico Hulkenberg, who is returning to Sauber, which he previously drove for in 2013. It’s the second time he’s gone back to an old team, having left and rejoined Force India in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

With new regulations due next year, the teams embark on this season knowing some big changes are coming. This is Sauber’s last year on the grid under its original identity – again, as it previously changed after 2005 (to BMW Sauber) and 2018 (to Alfa Romeo). It will become Audi next year.

It also looks highly likely this will be the last year with a grid of just 20 cars, as Cadillac has an agreement in principle to join next year, boosting the field to 22 competitors for the first time since 2016.

Over to you

Have any statistics about the 2025 field caught your eye? Share them in the comments.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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29 comments on “Two teens and two 40-somethings: The striking stats of Formula 1’s 2025 grid”

  1. Good luck running no.87 in Melbourne.

    1. I had to google that one

    2. I also Googled as I didn’t get the reference & it’s the following, which I copy-pasted from number 87’s Wikipedia article:

      ”In sports. Cricket in Australia holds 87 as a superstitiously unlucky score and is referred to as “the devil’s number”. This originates from the fact that 87 is 13 runs short of a century. 187, 287, and so on are also considered unlucky but are not as common as 87 on its own.”

      – I guess 87 is just one random number among many others with some unlucky status in a given country alongside, for example, 4 in East Asian countries.

      1. I also googled ‘Melbourne 1987’, but that is something completely different

        1. Yes, Hoddle & Queen Street massacres.

      2. Strange I thought 66 or 666 was the devilsnumber seems countries have different customs :)

  2. Unless Russell or Antonelli needs substitution or the latter flops, the upcoming season will be the first in its entirety without a single Finnish driver since 1988 (JJ Lehto started racing full-time from the 1989 Portuguese GP onwards) & more specifically, the season-opener will be the first GP without Finnish participation since the 1994 Hungarian GP from which Mika Häkkinen got banned.
    Such a long streak with at least one full-time driver is a remarkable stat, not to mention lucky, given quite a few countries with vastly greater populations have either only had one in the championship’s entire history (China) or only every now & then with lengthy intervals in between (Japan, USA, Canada, India, Australia, Argentina, Russia pre-war, etc.), & even Brazil has had a relatively long interval without a full-time driver as noted in the article.
    This streak is remarkable even compared to other Scandinavian countries + Baltia.
    Such a long, uninterrupted streak is mainly down to Kovalainen being lucky to receive any offer for 2010 after a lackluster second McLaren season.
    Excluding temporary or permanent Mercedes driver changes, Cadillac is Bottas’ only realistic option for a return, especially full-time.

    1. And with no Finnish drivers in F2, their hopes of joining F1 again in the future lies almost entirely on the shoulders of Tuukka Taponen who won Formula Regional Middle East in 2024, as well as finishing 3rd in Formula Regional Europe last year too. He is making his fulltime F3 debut this year, and is connected to the Ferrari Driving Academy.

      Arguably fighting to be second in line for the FDA behind Sweden’s Dino Beganovic in F2, with Rafael Camara of Brazil who is also in F3 this year, but with the reverse 2024 results of Tuukka by being 3rd in Formula Regional Middle East and 1st in Formula Regional Europe.

      1. He’s not only the closest to F1 but also the only one with a viable chance in the medium to long term, albeit that chance is mainly down to timing rather than performance level alongside fellow FDA members.
        Ultimately, easier said than done because unless he stops his Ferrari affiliation, Haas would be his only option (Cadillac doesn’t seem to be heading towards hiring Ferrari-affiliated drivers) & their drivers are on multi-year deals.
        Bearman is unlikely to perform badly or receive a Ferrari chance anytime soon with Leclerc & Hamilton on multi-year deals & unlikely to leave easily, while Ocon getting sacked would require something relatively drastic to happen, so barely space for any current FDA member within the remaining decade.
        Even if he eventually doesn’t reach F1, he could still make a career out of racing in Ferrari’s WEC, GT, or prototype program as an alternative.

        1. El Pollo Loco
          14th January 2025, 20:14

          FR is extremely junior. It’ll still be three more seasons minimum, even doing only a single season in the junior categories each, before joining. A lot can happen in that time. It’s unlikely Hamilton will be driving 4 years from now. And I’d be surprised if Ocon is still with Haas after that much time too. And, while you’re right that a Ferrari team would be his best chance, it’s far from impossible he could enter F1 with another team.

          Anyway, we’re getting ahead of ourselves either way. We need to see how he fares in more competitive series before we worry about seat availability being his main obstacle.

    2. Such a long streak with at least one full-time driver is a remarkable stat, not to mention lucky

      Finnish bias? :)

      1. El Pollo Loco
        14th January 2025, 20:17

        What makes it a truly remarkable stat is just what a tiny population Finland has and how their drivers typically need to make it to F1 with zero to modest sponsorship support to boot. Truly a nod to how well the Finnish character is suited to racing.

      2. SteveP
        No. Simply a matter of a fact when comparing populations & considering Kovalainen’s lackluster 2009 season.

  3. The 2025 season will see the fastest lap point removed, thus making 25 points the maximum score for a normal race weekend for the first time since 2018.

    With the same number of races as last year, 2025 will be the joint-longest F1 season in history with 24 races between March and December.

    This season will also mark the last season for Renault as an engine manufacturer, which will put an end to a streak going back at least to the early 1990s and maybe longer?

    1. It depends if you count it, but between 1998 and 2000 old Renault engines were used but re-badged as Mechachrome and Playlife if I remember correctly. So it would be the last season for Renault as a manufacturer since 2001 (which is still a quarter of a century!).

      1. 2001 (which is still a quarter of a century!).

        Ugh, not the reminder I needed.

        But anyway, yes – the Renault engines were used under that name in 1997 by Benetton and Williams. In 1998, the Renault engines were made by Mechachrome. Williams used them under that name, while Benetton renamed them Playlife. In 1999, Benetton, Williams and new team BAR used these engines, now prepared by Supertec (a Briatore company), with Benetton again renaming them Playlife. In 2000, the Supertec engines were used by Arrows and Benetton (as Playlife). Williams then went with BMW and BAR with Honda.

        In 2001, Renault returned as an engine supplier for Benetton (renamed to Renault a year later) and being the sole user of its engines. Arrows went with Asiatech, which had purchased much of Peugeot’s abandoned F1 project. This actually became a somewhat forgotten attempt to create a team, with Asiatech supplying engines – essentially free of charge – to first Arrows and then in 2002 Minardi. The project to turn that effort into a full team failed when the funding was stopped, although it was said they had started building a car of their own, too. Not sure if pictures of it exist anywhere.

      2. @f1hornet Mecachrome had been in a technical partnership with Renault since the early 1980s, when they first began assembling and preparing customer engine units for Renault’s customer teams, and by the late 1990s they were involved in designing and manufacturing some of the components as well.

        That is part of the reason why Mecachrome and Renault were able to come to a deal over manufacturing engines for F1 – Mecachrome was already integrated into Renault’s supply chain. The question would be whether Renault also handed over the intellectual property rights to Mecachrome as part of that deal, which I think may have been the case – if so, then technically it would have been Mecachrome that would have been classed as the manufacturer, rather than Renault.

    2. The 2025 season will see the fastest lap point removed, thus making 25 points the maximum score for a normal race weekend

      Except for sprint events!

      1. @keithcollantine Indeed. 33 is the new maximum score available for a single driver on sprint events.

  4. A bit off topic, but will the Sauber to Audi shift be similar to the BMW and Alfa Romeo ones, or is this more substantial? Like a buyout?

    1. Definitely a full buyout, which already happened twelve months ago, so a full Audi team without any Sauber presence left.

  5. El Pollo Loco
    14th January 2025, 20:00

    And Alonso started in F1 as a teenager himself. He’s also a prefect example of how amazingly car dependent this sport is and will always be to wins and titles. Guy has been in the sport for 20+ seasons and never once had the fastest car (the Renault was a perfect combination of reliable and fast but the McLaren was always faster during that time but horribly unreliable and then the Ferrari was faster much of the time in 2006).

  6. Bortoleto has taken five, as used by Sebastian Vettel

    I didn’t really notice Vettel using #5
    My mind brings up “Red 5” when car/driver numbers are bandied about, and S. Vettel was five when “our Nige” was using that tag

    1. El Pollo Loco
      14th January 2025, 20:57

      Too bad Lew-is isn’t Jewish. They could have a give him his own rhyming twist on our man Nige. As a member of the tribe myself, that would have been fun.

  7. I had no idea Alexander Albon was “so old”! (He’ll be 29 in March.)

    1. @shimks

      Apologies. I had the page open for a some time before I made a similar comment about Albon, and your post was made in the interim.

  8. I’m hadn’t really realised how close to the ‘elder’ end of the chart Albon was already. And the fact that more than half the field is now younger than Verstappen makes me feel positively ancient.

  9. Odd to see that Max Verstappen is the 8th oldest driver on the grid.
    In terms of experience he is the 4th most experienced driver with only Hulkenberg, Hamilton and Alonso more experienced.

    On average the drivers have 126.5 race starts when the weekend begins in Australia.
    If you exclude Lewis & Fernando that drops to 98.5
    * 3 with no race starts
    * 8 with less than 100 race starts
    * 7 with 101-200 race starts
    * 3 with 201-300 race starts
    * 2 with more than 300 race starts

    In the whole history of F1 there have only been 23 drivers with more than 200 race starts and only 6 with above 300 – them being Button (306), Schumacher (307), Barrichello (323), Raikkonen (349), Lewis (356) and Alonso (401).

    By the end of the 2025 season the top 3 most experienced drivers will have driven more races combined than there have been official F1 races.
    * F1 races so far 1,125 + 24 races in 2025 = 1,149
    * Alonso 401 + 24 = 425 + Lewis 356 + 24 = 380 + Raikkonen 349 = 1,154

  10. Interesting choice of units. No idea how many days old I am. I thought only wars and Big Brother were measured in days.

Comments are closed.