Australian GP: F1 2025 kicks off with high anticipation, different title favourite and Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari

Formula 1 prepares to embark on what could be one of the most competitive and open seasons in years at the Australian Grand Prix this weekend.

While the sport's regulations may be largely unchanged for the new campaign, there has been a winter of change across the grid with 10 of the 20 seats changing hands - a driver reshuffle headlined by Lewis Hamilton's blockbuster arrival at Ferrari.

"We're expecting one of the all-time classic Formula 1 seasons and there's nothing that we saw in the pre-season test in Bahrain that changed our minds," said Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle before flying out to Melbourne.

"The top four teams - McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes - are incredibly close."

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The 2025 season represents the fourth and final year of the current regulation era and comes hot off the back of the second half of a 2024 campaign which saw seven different drivers win the final 12 races.

Another 24 race weekends across 21 countries now lie ahead over the next nine months, all live on Sky Sports F1 and the Sky Sports App, with Melbourne's often-dramatic Albert Park hosting the season-opener for the first time since 2019.

Track action starts with practice overnight on Friday before qualifying at 5am on Saturday and the 58-lap race under way at 4am on Sunday.

Norris the title favourite for first time?

While the formidable Max Verstappen enters his fourth successive season as the reigning world champion and is aiming to match Michael Schumacher's record of five titles in succession, the bookmakers - and many pundits - have installed his McLaren rival Lando Norris as the pre-season favourite.

"Off the back of last year and what we have seen at testing, I think Lando is the favourite for the championship for the first time in his career going into the season," said Sky Sports F1's Karun Chandhok.

Norris, 25, enjoyed the best season of his career in 2024, winning his first four grands prix and finishing runner-up in the world championship to Verstappen.

However, Verstappen still finished the year a comfortable 63 points clear of the Briton in the standings despite Red Bull being usurped from mid-season as the grid's quickest car and McLaren coming through to win their first constructors' title in 26 years.

But the significant groundwork for the Dutchman's fourth drivers' crown was truly laid back in last season's early months, when he won seven of the opening 10 events. So one year on from that early blitz, and with Red Bull's one-time dominance certainly not yet restored, the opportunity for Norris, McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri and their fellow title protagonists at Ferrari and Mercedes to try and change the narrative in their respective favours with everyone back starting on zero points is clear.

And according to impressed rivals, it is the McLaren pair in their new MCL39 who appear to be the ones with the car to beat early on.

"I think McLaren are going to be pretty strong," said Mercedes' George Russell, whose own team enjoyed encouraging pre-season running.

"Lando says they've found a lot over the winter and he's looking pretty confident."

In response, McLaren's drivers and team chiefs have played down the MCL39's showing relative to the competition after three days of unseasonably mixed weather in Bahrain, but Norris has also acknowledged that, with the team now firmly re-established back at the front of the field, he and Piastri have to go into the season with the mindset that they are genuine title contenders.

"After last year I think we kind of have no excuses," said Norris at F1 75 Live. "In the past we've had our fair share, but honest and true excuses. I think this year we have nothing to hide behind. We proved last year we have everything we need and everything it takes to fight at the top and be the best."

How is Hamilton's Ferrari career going to start?

For the first time in 13 years, Lewis Hamilton will line up on a season's first grid on Sunday morning not driving a Mercedes works car after F1's most successful-ever driver joined its most successful-ever team.

Since arriving at Ferrari headquarters for the first time on January 20 - a moment that was always going to be historical but quickly earned absolute iconic status thanks to the Godfather-like photo of the seven-time champion taken outside team founder Enzo Ferrari's old office - Hamilton has embarked on an extensive acclimatation process to his new home on and off the track.

After initially testing some older Ferrari cars at Fiorano and Barcelona before putting their new SF-25 through its paces in Bahrain testing, Hamilton's process of integrating into his new surroundings and Italian culture continued at a street demonstration in Milan alongside new team-mate Charles Leclerc last week, where the 40-year-old declared to the Tifosi-packed crowd: "I think the team has everything to fight for a championship."

Whether that indeed proves to be immediately true this year, and if so whether it is Hamilton or Leclerc - the driver who scored the most points of all in the second half of 2024 - who delivers the stronger challenge, is a question that will only be answered in time but Ferrari do certainly appear optimistic of continuing their momentum after finishing only 14 points adrift of McLaren in the constructors' chase at the end of last year.

For Hamilton, the widespread fascination is just how quickly he will get up to speed with his first Ferrari on the track. After a difficult final season at Mercedes, during which he ended a two-and-half-year victory drought but made some uncharacteristic mistakes and was trounced in the team-mate qualifying head-to-head by Russell, the now 40-year-old has said he is "slowly bonding" with the SF-25 and that "this is the most positive feeling that I've had in a long time".

Enough to be battling for a podium, or even a win, on his race debut in Melbourne where Ferrari took a one-two last year? Up against a new fierce in-house challenge in Leclerc, that's one of the opening weekend's most fascinating questions.

Red Bull starting on the back foot?

Verstappen has spent the last 63 races dating back to May 2022 sitting atop the Drivers' Championship table but that record run appears far from certain to continue beyond Sunday in Melbourne.

Red Bull's three days of pre-season testing with their new RB21 appeared far from terrible yet at the same time was also nowhere near as convincing, and certainly compared to last year anywhere near as dominant, around the Bahrain International Circuit relative to their three chief rivals.

While there did not seem to be any major reliability concerns with the new car either, Red Bull did complete the fewest laps of any team with the Milton Keynes-based outfit seemingly experimenting with a variety of set-ups, and on the final day parts, to try and get the best balance and performance out of the car.

Verstappen, who like new team-mate Liam Lawson had a spin during the test, said after finishing the final day with the second-fastest time to Mercedes' Russell that while the week as a whole "wasn't bad" there was "still a bit of work to do".

But perhaps the most telling disclosure about where Red Bull find themselves came from technical director Pierre Wache, who admitted: "I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it's something we need to work on for the first race and future development."

Even without the fastest, or even at times the second or even third-fastest, package in the second half of last year, Verstappen still regularly brought home the big results - including two impressive late-season wins - that ultimately meant Norris was never going to catch him for the title whatever McLaren did.

It therefore seems that the early portion of the new season may prove a similarly hard-fought challenge, albeit this time without the comfort of a handy points buffer. Yet, as his rivals know too well, no one will be counting Max out.

Sky Sports F1's live Australian GP schedule

Thursday March 13

• 2.30am: Drivers' Press Conference
• 5am: The F1 Show: Lights Out 2025*
• 9.45pm: F3 Practice
• 10.55pm: F2 Practice

Friday March 14

• 1am: Australian GP Practice One (session begins at 1.30am)*
• 2.55am: F3 Qualifying*
• 3.40am: Team Principals' Press Conference
• 4.45am: Australian GP Practice Two (session begins at 5am)*
• 6.25am: F2 Qualifying*
• 7.15am: The F1 Show*

Saturday March 15

• 12.10am: F3 Sprint*
• 1.10am: Australian GP Practice Three (session begins at 1.30am)*
• 3.10am: F2 Sprint*
• 4.15am: Australian GP Qualifying build-up*
• 5am: AUSTRALIAN GP QUALIFYING*
• 7am: Ted's Qualifying Notebook*
• 9.55pm: F3 Feature Race*

Sunday March 16

• 12.25am: F2 Feature Race*
• 2.30am: Australian GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
• 4am: THE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX*
• 6am: Australian GP reaction: Chequered Flag*
• 7am: Ted's Notebook*
• 7.55am: Australian GP race replay
• 10am: Australian GP highlights
• Villeneuve Pironi - Racing's Untold Tragedy

*Also on Sky Sports Main Event

Watch all 24 race weekends from the 2025 Formula 1 season live on Sky Sports F1, starting with the Australian GP on March 14-16. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - No contract, cancel anytime

(c) Sky Sports 2025: Australian GP: F1 2025 kicks off with high anticipation, different title favourite and Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari