P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reacting to our 2025 F1 season predictions!

Episode Date: December 13, 2025

Transport yourselves back to the beginning of the year, before even pre-season testing... We have, and so we're reacting to our season predictions we made back then! Stay tuned for a few generational selections and some absolutely awful picks...Please vote for us in the Autosport Awards 2026! https://www.autosport.com/awards-voting/Sign up to our Patreon! You'll get access to every P1 episode ad-free, extended versions of every 2026 race review, early access to tickets & merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with us and other F1 fans! Click here to sign up now: http://patreon.com/mattp1tommyFollow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. We are officially into reacting to predictions territory, which honestly is one of my favorite times of the year to see just how generationally washed or accurate we are. Because sometimes, just sometimes, well, in fact, the phrase is a broken clock. is right twice a day and if we do enough predictions Tommy one of them will at least look good I'm excited for this one exactly we've done so many predictions this year and may I add one point separated in the predictions over the entire season one point separated in our

entire championship table one as well it's crazy how we've we've managed to have epic title battles even through all the predictions and maybe it's another one we're about to We are about to find out who will come out on top of this one. Who cares unless I win? Now, before we dive into reflecting on all of these predictions, which it's kind of similar, I guess, to our predictions pre-race for a lot of them, like in terms of good surprise, big flop, etc. And we made these before testing, just so that a wheel had been turned. Yeah, yeah. So it's mainly on vibes and probably more so on 2024 in the end of that and perhaps where we saw Formula One going. So, yes, we knew nothing in terms of testing and data from that. So please don't shout at us if we are really wrong.

So let's do it. Good surprise for the season. My good surprise for the season was Oliver Berman. Now, halfway through the season, I didn't even have a shout, didn't even have a remote bit of possibility that this would come in. However, look at the run of form he had at the end. As a rookie, he had a spell from Singapore to Las Vegas of points finishes, five consecutive points finishes as a rookie, ninth, ninth, fourth, sixth and tenth.

Most of any hast driver ever, as well, that is, by the way. Which is mad. He ended up beating Esteban Okon over the season as well, which I backed Tommy. Tommy didn't think so. And I think that absolutely is a point, Tommy. I agree. I'd love to disagree, but Ollie Bearman's been absolutely fantastic. You look at the start of the season. Yeah, he scored a few points, but Ockon got a fifth and eighth and a seventh, and it kind of looked like, wow, it's going to take a lot for Bearman to catch. But second half of the season, like you say, that points run. He was very, very impressive and really did put himself in the debate for rookie of the year. And also, you know, he started the season quite well. He scored three points. had three points finishes in the first four and then just went on a run of a bit of a disappointment for the next five and then four elevenths after that and he was just slowly steadily just building up

a bit of experience and then went on a wonderful run of form as as we mentioned so there we go locked in so i also went for a rookie i went for kimmy antonelli i would love to argue this one of course I think he surprised a lot of people a lot of people were like oh you know he's had some good results but I think the consistency over the season can't you know I can't back this one that he's finished more than half of the points that George Russell sorry less than half of the points that George Russell achieved yes it would have been a surprise if he'd have you know beating Lewis Hamilton in the championship but he was so far off George's tally he didn't have the consistency over the season and Of course, the highs were the podiums and things. But I'd love to argue it, but it's not enough, is it? No, I mean, I think it was close, but the form that he had from Imola to Spa was retired 18th, retired, podium. Retired, retired 16th. And it just, yeah, it's that consistency, right?

With Ollie Bearman, he scored, you know, a decent amount of points. He's beating his teammate, but he's in a hast, whereas Kimmy is in a car that, some of the time was the second fastest car, third fastest car, and George has obviously shown that there was a lot of potential in that car. George is an unbelievable teammate as well. So even if he'd got close to George, I could have been like, well, George is like one of the best drivers in Formula One, but he was nowhere near at the end of the day.

If it'd been like 75 points back, I would have allowed something, but he was 169 points back. And if only titanium dioxide was available at every race of the season, Do you want to hear the finished standings because someone actually worked out? Because this is crazy right. So Antonelli's when it was permitted

basically finished 4th 6, 611th 6.6 3rd, DnF, 4th, 5th, 13th, 6th, 6th 2nd 3rd with an average qualified, sorry, an average position that's in qualifying 6.8 race

average, sorry, that was the race, I'm tripping, I'm reading. Tommy and numbers. everyone. No, it's because someone wrote Quali next to it. Okay, 6.8 in the race average position, so basically about 7th.

When it was banned, he had DNF, 18th, DNF, DnF, 16th, 16th, 9th, 5th, 15th, which is an average race position of 15th. It's like, it's crazy how different it is.

I think also as well, the P5 needs to be investigated. I feel like you know, Kimmy might have just snuck a bit into his yeah, he must have done. Yeah, yeah. Put it in his bag and got got through airport security with it. I'm sure he'll share it on a podcast at some point.

He's known for sharing his silly stories. But alas, no point. So, one-nil. One-nil. So let's see if that continues this way. We go to Big Flop. Tommy, who did you go for? I went for Ferrari.

I think they had a great season. This was a generationally good prediction like you say a broken clock is right twice a day and this was one of the best predictions I've ever done because my thinking here was

why... I'm trying not to pass in the glory too much there mate. Well I can't too much because I needed Sherlock Clow in that last race look Ferrari were joint constructors championship favourites as you to look back on now and go this wasn't crazy they'd just

missed out on the Constructors' Championship by the smallest margin that signed Lewis Hamilton to their team. They were not maybe as favourites as McLaren, but very, very close to the Constructors' Championship favourites going into the season before testing. Of course, after testing, we knew something wasn't quite right, maybe not as good as we thought, still not this bad, you know, to not get a single win all season. They had a sprint win, indeed. But yeah, to not get a win all season to finish comfortably fourth in the constructors yeah not

good for Ferrari a really really poor season and that's two points as well by the way because it's a team it's a team so fair enough all right well when we get to Constructors champions that's not two points just so we no no I know that but this one

as it's a flop yeah it's a team it's I'll allow it and my big flop was the cheapest point going but I'll take it Jack Dewin. Yeah, can I just say it's also two points because there's no way I'm scoring the same as you for going for Jack doing. Yeah, yeah, that's fair enough. Look, Jack coming into the season even before testing, we knew where the odds were stacked against him. You know, could have been

a part where he made it to halfway or three quarters throughout the season. We didn't know fully exactly where the cutoff was going to be and it didn't go particularly well. He bookended his rookie season with retirements. I had a 13th, 15th, 14th and 17th. Didn't manage any points. sadly had quite a few crashes and then lost his seat. So I will be taking the point. I'm sorry, Jack. It didn't go even remotely well, did it? It's an easy point, but also at the same time,

like he could have done really well and made Alpine look quite embarrassed about replacing him. And we thought Alpine before testing were going to be good. We're going to be good. And you know, had he scored like some points at the start of the season, I'd be there going, well, Franco Colopinto scored zero and checked it. But alas, he of course finished last in the, in the whole championship.

Sorry there, Jack, but I will be taking the point. Thank you very much. We go to Loses race seat, the prediction of whether we thought someone was going to lose a seat or not. I went for Jack Dewan, which was correct, and the only driver to lose a race seat, kind of, although there was a swap.

If that kind of, you could have scored extra points, I guess, if you'd have gone for Lawson losing his race seat, because technically he did in Red Bull. But yes, I went for doing, which is a singular point. And I also went for Dewin, Again, like, it was so obvious it was going to happen, sadly, for doing. You know, people will say that that's a lot of the reason for his form as well.

The odds were always stacked against him. And yeah, that's why we both went for doing. It was a no-brainer, really sadly, for Jack. Absolutely. We now go to a new race winner. I went for Kimmy Antonelli. And he, of course, did not win. He got a second place, which was his best result, at Brazil, was his best result of the year.

Another couple of podiums, but yeah, a win was a stretch. His best race, you know, even after Brazil, he was also, you know, great in Canada, quite close. And maybe I thought, oh, Vegas, maybe, you never know. He might have a result there. of course he finished third, which was an inherited podium after the disqualifications, but he qualified too far back. So no rookie win for Antonelli because, of course, there's kind of a bit of a double whammy because had he won a race, I'd have been arguing good surprise as well.

Yeah, yeah, you really put your eggs in Antonelli's basket. For me, I went for no new race winner, which was correct. Indeed. It was, yes. You're looking at the gridlight. Did Hadja win? I don't remember this. But it's been a very long season.

Yeah, no, no, for sure. No, I was more scrambling my brain of when Oscar's first race win was. Oh, he won late. Yeah, he's won plenty last year, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I just doubted myself for a second. Yeah, yeah, of course. We're all good.

Okay, I get a point for that. We are level, I think? No, you're one ahead. No, am I one ahead? Yeah, you're one ahead. I scored one for Bearman. I scored one for Dewan, which is two. I've scored two for Ferrari.

Oh, yeah. And I'm now ahead. Sorry, gosh. I'm the math guy. Come on here. We know that's not true. We know that's not true. Say 20-20.

Go on, okay. Right. Okay, we go to our prediction for Constructors Champion. Now, I went for Ferrari. I went for Ferrari. How did that go? Pre-testing. And I said it with my chest.

I was fully dialed into the fact that Hamilton and Leclair, on paper, going into this year, were the strongest lineup. They had to be. They were. And then the paper was ripped up and put in the shredder once we went to testing. And Ferrari finished. Let me do some quick maths.

To 435 points of the Constructors Championship. Is that how many minus points you get for this prediction? Nope. Oh, okay. Shut up. At least I went for something a bit exciting. What did you go for, Tommy? So I went for McLaren.

which I know boo obvious but it kind of wasn't because they were people thought they'd have a good season obviously my logic was they were going to continue that form and the thought here was that they were like this was their like chance to gain and capitalize while everyone else was thinking maybe a bit more about next year with the new regulations so yeah they were favorites but not by a you know by any stretch like very small yeah it was it was close between McLaren and Ferrari at this stage. Obviously, once we saw testing, we knew they were overwhelming favourites.

We did indeed. Well done, Tommy. You score a point and we're now level again. As we head to World Champion. So I went for Max Verstappen. No points. Two points away. And this would have been a generationally good prediction.

As we mentioned before, you know, like after testing, we both went for him for World Champion, of course. but before again I had that same logic that I didn't think they were going to be that great I thought McLaren would be strong what's really annoying about this was of course one gutted that Max didn't win the title and two had it come in before testing I did my call of the season like my prediction of the whole season was already this that McLaren win the constructors easily Max pips them to the world championship and Ferrari are a flop and I would have called the season perfectly

minus the two points so alas it didn't happen and no points and the only points you're scoring our Ferrari

being a flop which makes me really happy indeed so you went for a lot of logic with Max for Stapp

and my world champion was Charles LeCler now this one was obviously a stretch this one was this one

was it though like a small stretch this was like a If Ferrari can build on a quite strong 2024, of course, Ferrari were in the hunt for the Constructors World Championship, but once again, similar to how we were speaking about this year and there were moments, McLaren were opening the door for this to happen. They opened the door last year with some mistakes, some errors, and we were coming

into Abu Dhabi going, how on earth have Ferrari got a chance of winning the constructors? But, you know, Ferrari were reasonably strong. And I hoped and prayed that they would continue on this path of improvement. Just a small little tweaks here and there. Nope, they changed the entire car and went backwards. So, of course, Charlotte Globe Champion did not happen. He finished 100 and seven, a hundred and, wait, let me do the maths. 100, 200 minus 181 points.

I think I'm, yep, that that's a long way. That's a long way. That's got to be a minus point, surely. Shut up. Stop calling for that. Crazy. No, what I will say is, you say it was crazy. I'm going to come to your defence here and look back at the end of 2024. And obviously, you know, the joke is now you look at it and go, Ferrari were terrible. Oh, my God. And you obviously like, you're backing shall. You'll always back shall.

But the form at the end of the season, Charler, first, second, fifth, first, third, fifth, fourth, second. second, third. Oh, wow. As good, as good. I know, yeah, as good as, you know, you look at Landau's form at the end of the season, first fourth, second, six, six, tenth, first. Max's form at the end of the season, second third, sixth, fifth, first, fifth, first sixth. Charlotte Clay was as good as those two at the end of the season. And yeah, it's not, it's not, it's one of those things you look back on it now and it's so far off because of what's happened but it wasn't actually the craziest of predictions a lot of people let's not forget we went into the season thinking that we were going to have max oscar lando charl lewis and george all going for the championship

we were like seven driver championship this is going to be amazing it's the closest going to be the closest season ever of course it should have been you know there was no regulation change and then McLaren were like, nope, we're going to make a really, really good car. I'm going to turn up half the time. And Ferrari just decided to never turn up. Okay, we'll have long points. We had two. Crazy prediction.

My crazy prediction for the season, why was I so aggressive with this? I said with two races to go four drivers can still win the title Why didn't I just say three We had not seen a three-way fight since 2010 And you would have allowed it You would have said sure Because that would have still been crazy

But my stupid heart Said Charles Leclair will be in there as well And was he F? Ridiculous George Russell let you down on that one didn't he? George was out with what three races to go maybe four technically just maybe more goodness no it wasn't more than that i remember we were talking about george being

oh yeah true yeah fair um yeah because if he'd won the final four and everyone had dnft it's yeah half a point isn't it half a point no it's not it's definitely not okay um i went for astin martin score less than 50 points which again was looking an absolute dream of a prediction at the start um because yeah they they kind of of Lance Stroll got a couple of points at the start of the season In a couple of points

mate Well yeah like a couple of Sorry a couple of points finishes But it was more than a Respect on his name mate He finished in Australia Exactly in kind of crazy races Alonso meanwhile

Retired retired 11th 15th 11th 15th 11th retired a stinker And I was like I've cooked This is this is an absolute worldy Of a prediction And alas Alonzo turned his fortune around

and scored loads of points so he rocketed his way all the way up to 10th in the championship and Lance scored 33 my guy as well I was about to talk to him I know you're a big Lance Charles fan boy I will talk about it

It's all about Fernando with you isn't it It's all about Fernando Oh Fernando did this He only scored 56 points this year But to be fair On his own ruined your prediction So that makes me really happy Okay but no points either

So we are still level As we head to the final prediction of this year Which was the Patreon prediction And mine was from Meenarver Hamilton beats Leclair across the season Yeah

You know we mentioned minus points Yeah this might well be How many times did Hamilton actually Ignoring sprints Sprints, Sprints don't matter All right, let's talk about the main races Wow, fan boy All right we can include sprints as well

I think it's probably still works in my favour But okay let's do the entire thing then Do you want me to just tell you the head to head? I mean if you've got the head to head. I have got the head to head. The sprint was a draw, so pretty close, actually, if we're just counting sprints, three all. But we're not just counting sprints, we're counting the race as well. And it was 183 to Charlerclair. So it wasn't even close, was it? And these are obviously, because there's more than 21 races in the season, I'm assuming this is taking away

the disqualification, which Charles obviously was ahead of him again. So yeah, yeah. Yeah, it wasn't good reading for Hamilton. I can't believe, yeah. Looking back on it now, I was like, oh, Hamilton, surely he's going to have a great year. He's going to go into it being a bit better. I thought it would be consistent. I think this was the thing. I knew Charles would be incredibly strong and qualifying, as was expected.

Because we saw that with Hamilton and George Russell. Obviously, when we made these predictions, we just finished 2024. Hamilton wasn't great in qualifying but he was always like storming through the field in the race. He didn't really even do that too much this year. So no very wrong prediction. Not even close. Mine

and we can deliberate this and talk about it was from Katie. Multiple teammate collisions from the same team. All right. A multiple is more than one and I've got of course McLaren when they came together in Canada and Charlotte Clare lost his end plate

to Lewis Hamilton in China. Wait, what are you talking about? What do you mean? Multiple teammate collisions from the same team. Yeah. Why are you doing it? Oh, so you're trying to get two points? No, what do you mean?

I mean, you've easily got this prediction. McLaren crashed into each other like three times. It's not even a debate. I was confused why you're even debating it. Well, no, but you can read this two different ways. You can read this as multiple teammate collisions in terms of from the same team or multiple teammate collisions as in you have multiple of different teams colliding together. Well, that's got to be a disqualification for going for a double, double meaning question.

No, don't start, don't start crying about it. I just, you know, I was just, I was basically just, I read that as, I was flaunting there. Okay, I could also be, yeah, I guess McLaren, of course, yeah, in Singapore. What was your wording then just for, just for? Whatever, but you can read this in two different ways. But what was your, what was your wording of it? Well, no, I'm not going to talk anymore. What was your opinion of what you actually were predicting?

That it could be teammates. I think I'm wrong in the way that I. can also see this in a different way. The way that I think Katie has done it is the way that you're thinking about it, which is multiple teammate collisions from the same team. But in my weird brain processing, I'm also thinking this as teammates coming together, as in, ah, there was a time when the McLaren's came together. There was a time when the Ferraris came together.

Do you know what I mean? There's also that way that you could read it. Out of curiosity, then, was there another teammate collision apart from McLaren? Ferrari. Yeah, the end plate came off from Charlotte Clare's car because of Hamilton in China. The smallest one. I'm trying to think actually

was there any others? Yeah, let's go through it even though I've scored obviously a huge amount of points there. Was there any contact between any of the teammates? George Oswald and Kimi Antonelli, did they ever touch? I don't feel like they did.

Did Albone and Signs come together at all? Hadjar and Lawson, I'm sorry, but they must have touched at some point this year. Like, they have to have done. Bermin and Ockon? Bok-O-O-C-O-C-O-C-O-C-I was reading O'Con as you said, Bairman. Oh, this is off the rails.

Bocon came together. Bocon, they bonged. Bocon, that's their name now. Bocon, you know, like, people put like B'Ongelina. Bocon. So, yeah, Bocon did collide. When did they collide? Silverstone.

Yeah, they did, didn't they? Yes, yeah, they spun. They did the synchronized spin. There you go. So you've got it. You've got it anywhere. That was a lot fun. Wow, goodness gracious me.

So everybody just, their brains probably. Well, to be fair, that is the winning point. So we had to do a big stewarding decision on it. Yeah. She may as well give me two. And enjoy the money. Yeah,

so let me change the intro. This is the biggest championship after our predictions championship across the year. So then, so how it rates now is the predictions championship across the year, this one, and then the stupid other one about 20th to 1st, which, you know, I think has gone out before this, if I'm not mistaken,

I think this one goes out after. So no one cares about that one. What I will just say, though, I know you, I know you try to, uh, it is insane. How many predictions we've made this season, I'd love to work it out, how many we made during the race. So that, that must be like, it's got to be easily 200 plus, right? Because there's 24 races, there's nearly like, there's a lot of predictions because we do. Well, what do we do? We do, we do.

we do surprise we do the top three we do quality position then we do a patreon a crazy crazy so it's usually eight i think and then we have sprints and then we have sprints and then it's 204 that's a lot so yeah and then obviously there's all these ones then there's the entire championship table prediction and if you add them all together you that's one point separated by one point that's crazy yeah it's crazy but Gallagher comes out of top I love how this year, this year, the Bellingham competitiveness has really shone through. And I can't wait to see what next year brings. I really, I really can't.

What is really annoying is, so like, I've lost the championship with Max Verstappen. And I've lost this. And if Max Verstappen had won the championship, I would have ended up. You would have won everything, basically, I think. Well, maybe, I don't know, maybe. Would you have won the main predictions of, would the predictions of, changed, I'm not sure. This would have obviously changed because I had him as world champion.

It's funny, actually. This probably won't even make the YouTube video, but it's definitely going to make the audio pod. So I was chatting to, I was chatting to Elle about how I should play the predictions for Abu Dhabi, right? And I was saying, wow, tactical. Yeah, no, we were just discussing it, right? I think I maybe had even done it, actually, but we were just reflecting on what I'd gone

for. And I said that we had an additional one, which was world champion. And I was like, look, we've, I went for Lando and Tommy went for Lando, and she went, we should have gone for something different because, you know, you're so far behind that surely you need the, and had I gone different, we would have tied. So I'm so glad that I didn't go different. And yeah, I think, yeah, it was actually, it was, don't worry, we weren't doing tactics beforehand. It was actually me reflecting after I done the predictions before the race.

The way you said I was speaking to L is like, you sat on a laptop with an Excel spreadsheet, But in like every scenario, I've run the numbers. Also, I just want to gloat a little bit that in this set of predictions here, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you're really enjoying it. It's the fact that I've gone for Charlele-Cla World Champion and Ferrari Constructors Champions and still be a new. So, you know, if I actually use my brain, I joke, because of course we thought Ferrari might have actually been good.

Okay, right. Well, that was a weird ending. And what a fun way to end this 2025 F1 season predictions pre-testing. Tommy, what are your final thoughts, please? Look, well done on the predictions. Yes, and maybe tell you your face. I'm so pleased for you. But it is, I will, it's been a really fun season of predictions.

The fact that it's been this close, again, I don't know how we managed to do it, particularly with these ones where like, you know, people joke about us massing the other predictions, because if we're one point separated in both the other two ones we did as well, which are just basically based on what happens in the in the season so crazy scenes and look forward to doing this or next season when not only are we going to do it before testing again but it's a completely new regulation so it really will be based on vibes yes yeah i can't wait for that um i can't quite work out whether we're as good as each other or as bad as each other uh with the fact that we're always so close but i'll let everybody decide that

And not ourselves. Right, that is it. Thank you, everybody. A bit more content to come before the end of the year, reflecting on everything we've ever done. And yes, we will see you very soon. What's a love. Bye.