The 2025 Formula 1 season may not have featured the most mind-blowing scenarios ever, but some of its events still raised eyebrows – and rightfully so.
Here are those we identified as the biggest surprises of the year.
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Red Bull sacks Christian Horner – Jake Boxall-Legge
Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
Christian Horner’s sacking and Red Bull’s subsequent revolution. That Horner had managed to cling on to his control over Red Bull following 2024’s scandal – in which he was accused of inappropriate behaviour towards a female colleague – suggested he had weathered the storm, especially after he was cleared of wrongdoing by an internal investigation.
Red Bull’s decline over the course of 2024 and into the early part of 2025 hadn’t necessarily raised any external alarm bells over Horner’s future; in fact, there were more questions over Max Verstappen’s movements following an inconsistent opening to the season. As it happened, Horner was disposed of following the British Grand Prix – much to the surprise of everyone at Red Bull, let alone those outside of the team.
Now under Laurent Mekies, Red Bull is undergoing its most significant metamorphosis since it entered the championship in 2005. The architects of its previous successes – Horner, Adrian Newey, Jonathan Wheatley, and now Helmut Marko – are all gone, and Mekies is empowering those within to step up into the key positions. Never change a winning team, they say, but there’s always a point where a winning team becomes stale.
Isack Hadjar shines as a rookie – Ed Hardy
Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls
Photo by: Piotr Zajac / NurPhoto via Getty Images
At the start of the year I remember thinking that Isack Hadjar was just there to keep the Racing Bulls seat warm for Arvid Lindblad in 2026. The Frenchman was the unexpected promotion, the man who failed to win a title at junior level and finished 14th in his rookie F2 campaign with his only win being the Zandvoort sprint.
None of that screamed a person who was cut out to compete at the highest level and more than hold his own in Formula 1. That feeling strengthened at the Australian Grand Prix when Hadjar crashed out on the formation lap and was subsequently on the receiving end of some harsh words from Helmut Marko for the way he cried in reaction to the retirement.
But the 21-year-old’s response by producing a stellar campaign showed I was as wrong as I could have been about him. There were the five points finishes in eight after Melbourne, obviously the podium at Zandvoort, while dominating team-mate Liam Lawson with a 21-6 record against him in qualifying.
Hadjar has naturally received a Red Bull promotion for 2026, thus doing more with his F1 career than I ever thought he would. So fair play to him, most definitely the surprise of the 2025 campaign.
Oscar Piastri misses out on the title – Owen Bellwood
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images
After just a handful of races, it seemed clear that McLaren had one hand on the constructors’ title for 2025 and its reach of the drivers’ crown grew shorter after each passing grand prix. By the end of the Dutch Grand Prix, it seemed ridiculous to suggest that anyone other than Oscar Piastri could clinch the crown after he won seven out of 15 grands prix up to that point.
By then, his lead over team-mate Lando Norris had swollen to more than 30 points, and he was over 100 points clear of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen – who was all but counted out by the chequered flag in Zandvoort. Piastri didn’t win another race after that, however, and his drop-off in form was seismic.
Crashes in Baku, Singapore and the Austin sprint saw his grip on the top of the standings falter and he fell behind Norris after the Briton won the Mexican Grand Prix. The unthinkable happened in Las Vegas, when Verstappen also passed the Australian after both McLarens were disqualified over excessive plank wear.
That wasn’t the only issue for Piastri, however, as his confidence in his McLaren car fell off in the second half of the season. And while he managed to clamour it back in the final few races, it proved to be too little, too late.
The fact that Piastri didn’t hold on to the championship lead to take the win was surprising. The fact that he fell back to third by the time the chequered flag fell in Abu Dhabi was shocking.
Williams finishes fifth in the constructors’ championship – Filip Cleeren
Carlos Sainz, Williams
Photo by: Erik Junius
There was little doubt Williams was at least not going to go backwards this year after a woeful 2024 that started with a late and overweight car, which then led to a spare parts shortage as the damage bills mounted.
That’s all in the past, and there was a lot of other low-hanging fruit that would pay dividends for the Grove-based team, like its trackside operations. But with Williams overtly being focused on 2026 and barely giving its 2025 car wind-tunnel time this year, I wasn’t expecting Williams to secure fifth so emphatically.
Of course that is in part due to some of its peers not delivering, especially Aston Martin, but Williams really managed to use its resources efficiently to make its 2025 launch car solid enough to lay the groundwork for a successful campaign. Add the speed and expertise of Carlos Sainz to match Alex Albon, and you have an outstanding driver pairing to take the team into the future. There may have been some luck involved in Sainz’s two podiums, but he and the team were good value for them too.
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