It may feel like the last season ended just yesterday but the new season begins shortly. Max is now a double world champion, Red Bull is now the winner of the constructors championship and Mercedes has lost that title for the first time since the introduction of the hybrid engines back in 2014. Besides that, there have been many changes in the paddock. Many team principals have changed teams, Vettel and Ricciardo have left F1 while Nick De Vries and Logan Sargeant have joined Alpha Tauri and Williams respectively.

With the introduction of the next generation of cars in 2026, the great news is that Audi will join F1 and become the power unit supplier for Alfa Romeo. Ford will also partner with Red Bull and start producing the team’s engines for the new era. It remains to be seen what Honda will end up doing since they will stop providing engines for Red Bull at the end of 2025. In any case, I believe these news are great for the sport and show how the new regulations are relevant for the road car manufacturers.

On the predictions side, the model does not have access to the F1 testing data. Hence, the predictions are based solely on the results of the previous seasons. It is reasonable to expect that the strong teams will remain strong given that there were no major rule changes since 2022. It remains to be seen which team has unlocked the biggest gains during the winter and whether we will have a real 3-way battle in the championship.

You can access the power predictions here.

Driver	Qualifying Prediction	Actual Qualifying Result	Race Prediction	Actual Race Result
Verstappen	1	1	1	1
Perez	2	2	3	2
Alonso	10	5	7	3
Sainz	6	4	4	4
Hamilton	5	7	6	5
Stroll	12	8	9	6
Russell	4	6	5	7
Bottas	8	12	11	8
Gasly	11	20	17	9
Albon	18	15	15	10
Tsunoda	17	14	14	11
Sargeant	19	16	16	12
Magnussen	13	17	19	13
de Vries	20	19	20	14
Hulkenberg	16	10	10	15
Zhou	14	13	13	16
Norris	7	11	12	17
Ocon	9	9	8	R
Leclerc	3	3	2	R
Piastri	15	18	18	R