03 - 2025 Season Review
- guffaluff
- Feb 24, 2025
- 8 min read
Hello, and welcome to my saga of Atlantic Racing, a small fish in a big pond, trying to make an impact in Formula 1! If you're new to the series, I urge you to take a look at the previous posts to be up to date on our story! :)
In this entry we'll be covering the 2025 season as a whole, in a similar manner as the last one for the 2024 season!
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
2025 Team Performance and Overview
Driver Signings
Staff Signings
2025 Season Final Standings
2025 F2 Final Standings
Rookie Report
2026 Driver Lineup
Driver Market Summary
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2025 TEAM PERFORMANCE AND OVERVIEW - SWAPPING DRIVERS
Atlantic Racing was fairly optimistic leading up to the start of the 2025 season. The car is improved from last season, and scoring some points this season could very well be a realistic goal. Preseason testing indicated that the car should be in the lower midfield. Mercedes would continue to provide the power unit, a decision made due to it being the most reliable of the lot.
A historic moment occurred in Round 6 in Miami, where the team scored it's first ever points in Formula 1! Ollie Bearman managed to finish P10 to score 1 point, also his first ever points. Surely a reason to celebrate, a big milestone for the small Icelandic owned outfit.
But Miami was not all happiness, as a decision was made to drop Mick Schumacher. In the first 6 races of the season, he had crashed out and DNF'ed twice, in addition to a couple of crashes in practice sessions. The 4 races he finished were not great either, with 2x P19 and 2x P20. The financial troubles he was causing with all the crashing, plus not delivering any notable results, was enough for the team to release Mick. In his place they signed Ayumu Iwasa, who was currently driving for Team Mugen in the Japanese Super Formula Championship. Iwasa signed a contract through 2027.
Iwasa performed well in the 18 races he took part in, actually beating Bearman 10-8 in the race finish head to head for the 18 races they raced together, and scored 3 points. The reason for the team not signing rookies in the 2024 season was to minimize damages due to crashes/driver errors, so it is a bit ironic that this season, run almost only by rookies, went much better then the 2024 season. Between the two rookie drivers, they only had 1 DNF (Iwasa in Canada). Total team DNF was 3x, two of which were Mick Schumacher. Clearly, the team had made the right decision and has a promising driver lineup secured through 2027.
All in all, the 2025 season was a decent step up for the team from 2024. 7 points total, finishing P8 in the constructors standings, ahead of Sauber, Haas and Alpine, beating the board's expectations of finishing P9. Bearman performed well, finishing all 24 races and scored 4 points, with a best result of P9.
Funds were funneled heavily into R&D for the 2026 car as a major technical regulation change was upon us, so it was of utmost importance to do the homework!
DRIVER SIGNINGS
Aside from picking up Iwasa as detailed above, Atlantic Racing signed two new affiliate drivers in early 2025.
Bianca Bustamante was brought on board on a contract through 2027, and Ludwig Jung, also on a contract through 2027. Ludwig was looking very promising, touted to have a very high development rate. This could be the team's new star affiliate driver.
But then, Maranello struck again. Jung was poached by Ferrari, who seem to have similar taste in affiliate drivers as team Atlantic, having signed Seok from us the year before! A rivalry perhaps forming.
Nothing else to report on the driver front for Atlantic Racing in 2025, so we move on to staff signings, where the team made a big splash!
STAFF SIGNINGS
Atlantic's Technical Chief was on a expiring contract and was considered likely to be renewed, but then a opportunity presented itself. Red Bull's former Technical Chief, the very highly rated Pierre Waché, was a free agent and to the team's surprise, open for negotiation! Could this be the piece to mark a serious step up in the team? He would be a valuable addition and could start helping out with the development of the 2026 car. Following lengthy negotiations, both parties came to an agreement on a contract through 2028, effective immediately, with the team's previous Technical Chief bought out of his expiring contract.
Hayat Tannous was on the last year of her contract as the team's head of aero, and was re-signed on a new contract through 2028.
2025 SEASON FINAL STANDINGS
Red Bull took Ferrari's double win in 2024 personally and returned to 2025 with a beast of a car. The car absolutely dominated and won the constructors title by almost 460 points, winning all but 3 races. Max Verstappen won his 4th Formula 1 Championship, leading his teammate Carlos Sainz by almost 100 points. Red Bull is back with a vengeance! Clearly the team to beat in 2026.
Leclerc, the 2024 champ, had to settle for 3rd place behind the two Red Bulls, beating his 7 time champion teammate Lewis Hamilton, who ended in 4th place.
Mercedes improved their form from 2024 by quite a margin, taking P3 in constructors where Bottas outclassed Alonso himself. It'll be interesting to see if they can continue this momentum into 2026.
Williams is looking like a much improved team, finishing P7 with 31 points. Albon and Ocon both performed well and were pretty much dead even in their head to head, with Albon finishing 1 point ahead of Ocon in the WDC. Very nice to see this storied racing team on a upwards trajectory.
Below are a few things to note from the 2025 season:
Only 3 race winners this season: Max (14x), Sainz (8x) and Leclerc (2x)
Red Bull won 22 out of 24 races, with Ferrari winning the season opener in Bahrain and again in Singapore.
Max set a new Formula 1 record, with a insane 12 race winning streak! The streak started with a win in Australia and ended with a win in Spa.
Red Bull, Mercedes and Aston Martin all finished the season without a single DNF.
No new race winners this year.
2025 FORMULA 2 SEASON FINAL STANDINGS (TOP 5)
As explained in the 2024 season review post, neither the game or the data editor has the option of looking at previous season stats of F2 or F3. I´ve managed to manually dig up the Top 5 of the 2025 F2 season:
Zane Maloney
Ti Seok
Paul Aron
Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Gabriele Miní
Seuk, Atlantic's former affiliate driver, is doing well in Ferrari's affiliate program. It seems likely that he might become a F1 driver at some point down the line. He's progressing quickly.
Starting with 2026, I'll post the full F2 and F3 standings, since I can screenshot them when I finish the season.
ROOKIE REPORT
A total of 4 rookies took to the grid in 2025, and below you can see how they performed.
Dino Beganovic - HAAS
Races: 24
Best QF: 14 (2x)
Best Race: 15 (2x)
DNF: 6x
Points: 0
Theo Pourchaire - Stake Sauber
Races: 24
Best QF: 12 (1x)
Best Race: 11 (2x)
DNF: 2x
Points: 0
Oliver Bearman - Atlantic Racing
Races: 24
Best QF: 12 (2x)
Best Race: 9 (1x)
DNF: 0
Points: 4
Ayumu Iwasa - Atlantic Racing
Races: 18
Best QF: 11 (1x)
Best Race: 10 (3x)
DNF: 1x
Points: 3
The data speaks for itself, and surely it has to be the young Brit, Oliver Bearman, who takes the honor of being the 2025 Rookie of the Year!
2026 DRIVER LINEUP
The final contract year is now listed behind each driver.
RED BULL
Max Verstappen (2028) & Carlos Sainz (2027)
If it works, why mess it up? The winning formula from 2025 returns for 2026!
FERRARI
Charles Leclerc (Final Year) & Lewis Hamilton (Final Year)
Ferrari also brings the same driver lineup with two former champions. Both drivers are on the last year of their contract, so Ferrari will need to bring their A game to try and retain them.
MCLAREN
Lando Norris (Final Year) & Oscar Piastri (Final Year)
No changes here, but just like Ferrari, both drivers entering their final year of their contracts. I think it's safe to say that teams will be interested to secure the services of either one of them!
MERCEDES
Fernando Alonso (Final Year) & Valtteri Bottas (2027)
It's a theme this year, yet another team bringing the same driver linup. Last season was good for them, so to keep consistency is important.
ASTON MARTIN
Pierre Gasly (2028) & Lance Stroll (2027)
Aston keeps the status quo, bringing Gasly and Stroll for another year.
ALPINE
George Russell (2027) & Guanyu Zhou (2027)
Unchanged lineup, and both drivers have another year on their contracts. Alpine hopes to improve on a horrible 2025 season where they finished last.
WILLIAMS
Alexander Albon (2029) & Esteban Ocon (2028)
Both drivers on long term contracts, with the team hoping to continue their good form from 2025.
VCARB
Yuki Tsunoda (2028) and Antonio Giovinazzi (2028)
VCARB has both their drivers secured for two more seasons following 2026, so no changes in sights at the moment.
STAKE SAUBER
Theo Pourchaire (2028) & Kevin Magnussen (2028)
Pourchaire returns for his 2nd year, along with veteran KMag. Both are in it for the long haul with Sauber, with contracts through 2028.
HAAS
Logan Sargeant (2028) & Pietro Fittipaldi (2026)
Logan is on a long term contract, so it's looking good for the American. Beganovic did not get a extension on his rookie contract and is out of Formula 1, at least for now. In his place Haas has brought in another rookie, the only rookie on the grid in 2026: Pietro Fittipaldi. He is on a 1 year contract, so it remains to be seen if he will be extended past 2026.
ATLANTIC RACING
Oliver Bearman (2027) & Ayumu Iwasa (2027)
Team Atlantic returns with Iwasa and Bearman. It was a close contest between the two in 2025, so it will be interesting to see how they compare in 2026.
DRIVER MARKET SUMMARY
The only change to the driver lineup in 2026 is Fittipaldi in for Beganovic at Haas. Everything else remains the same.
Drivers on their final year of contract are Leclerc, Hamilton, Gasly, Norris, Piastri and Alonso, so we might see a juicy silly season for 2027. Will Alonso retire? Will either of the young duo of Piastri and Norris be tempted to leave McLaren, who failed to improve between 2024-2025?
Alot to ponder about, but only time will tell!
This will be all for this entry. My next entry to this series will be a roundup of the 2026 season so far. When posting this, I've finished the first 6 rounds of the season, and as I'm not expecting to continue until after the whole contracts system is overhauled (is being worked on by Frontier), I expect my next entry to be on the 2026 season up to that point, bringing my up to date on my playthrough!
Hope you guys enjoy these as much as I enjoy to put this together!
Until next time, ciao!
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