2025 Austrian GP Contenders Vs. pretenders pridictions
Welcome to my 2025 Austrian GP. In this blog, I will predict a driver and a team that I would consider a “Contender” and a team and driver that I think will be a “pretender”. So basically, it’s my prediction for a team and a driver that I believe will have a good weekend, and a team and a driver that will have a bad weekend. Before I make my predictions, I will compare my picks to how the team or driver has performed thus far. For example, Russell fishing P8 would be a bad weekend, and Nico finishing P8 would be a good weekend.
Race winner: George Russell
I might have some Mercedes bias because they are my favorite team, but they did show solid pace in Canada. We all know that they typically struggle in warmer temperatures, but they brought a rear-axle upgrade to Canada that they hoped would fix the issue. The problem is that Canada wasn’t the best track to test the upgrade, considering they did well in Canada last season with the same tire issues. They are also bringing more upgrades this weekend that will address more issues. Last season, Russell won this race after a late collision between Max and Lando, which took Lando out of the race and Max in 5th after the penalty. So they did have good speed last season(even though they were way behind Max and Lando), which I hope they can build on.
Contender: George Russell and Mercedes
I don’t like using the same driver twice, but at this point, Russell and Mercedes don’t have the speed to keep up with McLaren. If he wins this weekend, I will then start to expect them to be at the front more often, which will affect how I pick my contenders. It's like if I picked Oscar every weekend. We expect a Lando or Oscar win, so this prediction would be boring if I always picked one of the McLarens to be the contender. I also predict Kimi to get another podium this weekend, which is why Mercedes is my contender team.
Pretender: Lance Stroll
Lance is the easy pick, but I have no choice but to pick him this weekend. Yes, Lance is ahead of Alonso in points, but if you look at the race results, you’ll truly see how bad he has been driving. Lance started the season hot with back-to-back points in Australia and China, but since then, Lance has not finished above P15. Lance has not finished a GP ahead of Alonso since the Hungarian GP last season (excluding DNFs). Last season, Lance finished P13 ahead of Alonso, but with his recent hand injury and P17 in Canada(which is his strongest GP on the calendar), I don’t see Lance challenging for anything above P15.
Pretender Team: Alpine
I was torn on which team to pick for this. Williams have been struggling recently, and I don’t think this track suits them, but I feel like Alpine will have the worst weekend so far. We all know that Alpine does not have the best engines on the grid and has struggled at faster tracks because of it. This is Colapinto’s last race on his contract, and he honestly needs a good result to keep his seat. I think we will see a very aggressive Colapinto that will see too many late lunges and probably a race-ending wreck, especially at turn 3. Gasly was completely absent in Canada, but he did score points in Spain, which I think was due to a Kimi DNF, Max penalty, and a bad weekend from Williams and Haas(I think Haas will be stronger this weekend)
Dark horse: Kimi Antonelli
I think Kimi has a good chance of winning this weekend. I’ve already mentioned the upgrades, and I have George winning, but Kimi showed some good speed last race. I don’t see Kimi fighting for the lead, but I can see a situation like last season where the leaders crash into each other and Kimi goes through.
What do you think of my predictions? Is Kimi winning too much of a long shot?