Kimi Antonelli and Liam Lawson are perhaps the two drivers most under pressure this season as they face a “big ask” matching up to their team-mates as their teams fight for championship titles.

That’s according to respect Formula 1 journalist James Allen.

‘Your weakest link is going to drive your constructors performance’

The F1 2025 championship promises to be one of the most exciting in years with four teams; Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes, in the hunt for the championship double.

Last year Red Bull’s reign was threatened when a development misstep accentuated the RB20’s balance issues and led to a 10-race winless streak, the team’s longest dry spell 2020.

That, in conjunction with McLaren and Ferrari’s in-season upgrades, meant first McLaren and then Ferrari overhauled Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship while Lando Norris closed in on Verstappen in the Drivers’ title.

The Red Bull driver held on to win the Drivers’ title for a fourth successive season but Red Bull’s P3 meant he became just the third driver in F1 history to win the title despite his team finishing third or below in the teams’ championship. The last instance was in 1983 when Nelson Piquet was crowned World Champion despite Brabham finishing third in the table.

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Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez born the brunt of the blame for that and was dropped in the days after the season, replaced by Red Bull junior Liam Lawson. The Kiwi will take on what has often been called the most difficult job in F1 – partnering Verstappen.

But he’s not the only driver facing huge pressure as there are also questions about Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli and whether the 18-year-old, the youngest driver on the grid, could the weak link that cost Mercedes in the F1 2025 championship.

Ahead of a season in which many are predicting could be most competitive in years, unequal team-mate line-ups could be what swing the odds in the championships.

“It’s always been that difficult relationship, hasn’t it?” Allen said on his podcast, James Allen on F1, when asked about team-mate battles.

“The first person you need to beat is your team-mate, because you’re in the same car, but at the same time there is that collaborative element that there is in in a stick and ball sport where you’re all in it together.

“And it’s that balance has always been challenging. I think it changed as Formula One became more corporate through the 2000s obviously, some teams like Schumacher’s Ferrari was all about Michael winning World titles, and the other guy was, not exactly a passenger, but their sole job was to score as many points as possible, but just don’t get in Michael’s way.

“Other people don’t really like that approach, and have tried to be more collegiate. And we’ve seen some pretty, you know, some pretty big fallouts as a consequence. I think what really drives it though, in the end, is how close the field is.

“So if you’ve got a championship like this one, where the cars in the top four particularly we’re expecting to be very close together on performance, your weakest link is going to be the thing that’s going to drive your constructors performance.

“So for example, not suggesting for a moment that Antonelli is a weak link, but he’s an 18 year old kid getting into a Formula One car for the first time. The pressure on him to be close to the sort of points tally at the end of the year that George Russell gets is going to be very big, but it’s a big ask for an 18 year old.

“Obviously, same with Lawson going in at Red Bull. You know, that seat has failed repeatedly, Perez had a couple of decent seasons early on, but generally speaking, that second seat has failed for a very long time. So I think the pressure really is on that kind of collective effort, and that does shift the dynamic.”

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