Half of this season's Formula 1 race meetings have concluded, meaning there are just 12 more races to be run.
Though it was hoped that the 2025 season would be one of the closest in recent memory, McLaren have strolled away from the pack and have already crowned themselves as champions-elect.
But what are five of the biggest talking points from the season so far?
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Verstappen and Red Bull’s imminent divorce?
After winning four successive drivers’ championships, a decline was inevitable in the Red Bull/Verstappen partnership, but many did not expect it to occur this quickly.
Having won every race bar one in 2023; Red Bull have now won just twice in 2025, and both were courtesy of the Dutchman’s demonstrable brilliance.
At Suzuka, he stunned both McLaren and the paddock to take a decisive pole position, which he was able to maintain on race day, such was the limited opportunity for overtaking.

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Then, at Imola, he executed perhaps the overtake of the season when he swept around the outside of polesitter Oscar Piastri through the Tamburello chicane.
But Verstappen’s razor-sharp consistency and effortless brilliance has not been able to thwart the McLaren charge and he has consistently talked down his chances about winning a fifth drivers’ championship in succession.
Beyond the tarmac, the team’s troubles continue. The issues surrounding the competitiveness of the second driver has not got better, after Sergio Perez’s own decline in 2024, in fact it has got worse. Liam Lawson was demoted after two races and his replacement, Yuki Tsunoda, has gone two months without scoring a single point.
Add in Christian Horner’s departure, their failure to close the gap to McLaren with the new technical directive and the uncertainty surrounding the squad’s competitiveness for 2026, rumours about the Dutchman departing the team have grown more abroad.
Any pre-weekend press conference inevitably begins with Verstappen’s place in the driver market, how it affects Mercedes' George Russell, and it will not end until their futures are ironclad.
The world champion moving to Mercedes would be an earthquake in the world of Formula 1 and everyone knows it, not least Red Bull who have lost not only their form, but key personnel since the beginning of last year.
McLaren title battle
After seizing the constructors’ championship at the final race of last season, McLaren headed into 2025 as favourites. But how they have even exceeded those expectations!
Winners of every grand prix bar three, on the podium in every race bar one, leading the constructors’ championship with more than double the points tally of second-placed Ferrari, it has been utter domination from day one.
But unlike in the previous two years, Oscar Piastri is proving to be a more consistent threat to Lando Norris and leads the championship at the halfway stage. Do not be swayed by his calmness and stoicism, beneath the visor is a methodical and massively determined driver who has been more than Norris’ equal this year.
The Australian leads the championship having won five races, taken five further podiums and by being simply better at executing his potential than his more experienced teammate.
Piastri is in just his third season in the sport, while Norris has been waiting for a season like this since his debut with McLaren in 2019.

Piastri dropped Alpine for the Woking-based squad while Norris bleeds papaya orange. And the Aussie’s direct and decisive nature perhaps differs to Norris who wears his heart on his sleeve a lot more vividly.
Yet, they are just eight points apart in the standings, with every chance they will duel for the championship in a showdown in Abu Dhabi for just the second time in nine seasons.
Incredibly, such is the tight margins between them, the first quarter of the season was devoid of them battling one another. It was not until the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix where they would exchange positions, but such was Norris’ tyre advantage on that occasion, it was scarcely a battle.
But the first flashpoint was that of Canada, where Norris was caught out by Piastri losing electrical power down the start/finish straight and chanced a move to the inside of the pit wall, one that was never set to work. Norris was out on the spot, while Piastri continued in P4.
Then the two went throat-to-throat for the race win in Austria where, this time, Norris’ savvy use of the DRS detection points allowed him to gain more straight-line speed at the correct places and convert pole position into race victory.
As the limelight glows, it will be fascinating to see which one of these two will prevail.
Nico Hulkenberg's drought ends
Since returning to the sport on a full-time basis, in 2023, the German has found a new lease of life in the cockpit. Usually Haas’ leading driver in the pair of seasons he was there, Hulkenberg has now become a galvanised figure between the Sauber, and soon to become Audi, walls.
Though the C45 looked cut away from the midfield crop in the early part of the year, upgrades during the European rounds have galvanised its form and Hulkenberg has taken advantage.
Having already scored points during the hectic Australian Grand Prix, thanks to his mastery of the changeable conditions, the Sauber driver did so again at the British Grand Prix but cleared a huge barrier in doing so.

On his 239th race start he scored first podium, and the entire sport was pleased for him. Nobody had waited that long for a first rostrum finish. But such is the German’s dedication to the sport, that has brutally undermined his talent, it was the very least that he deserved.
His comeback drives, from the back of the Spanish and Austrian Grand Prix grids, also landed points-scoring finishes and have re-asserted a long-perceived narrative, he is one of the sport’s best drivers and arguably the best of the midfield.
But to demonstrate all of this in a Sauber, that was last in the 2024 standings, has come as a massive surprise.
Albon and Williams’ rise
The historic constructor have laboured near the foot of the championship for too long and though they remain a world away from their title-winning heydays, they are slowly gaining traction and confidence under the stewardship of James Vowles.
This is in direct proportion to Alex Albon who has hinted at his talent for a few seasons but has not had the machinery to solidify that. But both driver and team have been eye-catchingly strong in 2025 and have racked up their best points total in nearly a decade.
The Grove-based team have 59 points and sit fifth in the championship, not since 2016 have they earned that many points this quickly into a season. And for eighth-placed Alex Albon, he has 46 points after a dozen races, his second-best total in his F1 career.

James Vowles was formerly the motorsport strategy director at Mercedes
What has made the Thai driver’s run even more impressive has been how he has dispatched of Carlos Sainz, a grand prix winner who represents Albon’s toughest teammate since Max Verstappen.
But he has dealt with him superbly and has only followed in his tracks in just one grand prix in which they both finished.
Ferrari’s disappointment
If McLaren were favourites for this year’s championships, then Ferrari were not far behind. Their encouraging end to 2024, which brought them to just 14 points behind winners McLaren, ostensibly lit the touchpaper for 2025, where they would quest for a world championship crown not won in 17 years.
But despite still being second in the standings, the top spot is not even within sight. Ferrari are the only team of the big four to not have won a grand prix in 2025 and, apart from the Monaco Grand Prix, they have not come particularly close.
The car’s narrow operating window has hurt the confidence of new arrival Lewis Hamilton and has frustrated Charles Leclerc, who has largely extracted the potential from his limited machinery.

The squad are expecting to introduce new upgrades for the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix, which they hope will mitigate their troubles with the rear of the car.
But without question, 2025 will be remembered as a missed opportunity from Ferrari, who had a genuine shot of winning a long -awaited title before the regulation changes poised for 2026.