With five races in six weekends, the frantic start to the F1 2025 season didn’t give the drivers much chance to grab a breather.

While such a frantic schedule allows for great momentum for the drivers and teams who have things figured out for this year, the inability to take some downtime meant there was no chance for those struggling to take a step back and critically analyse in depth where improvements could be made – meaning the two-week gap between Saudi Arabia and Miami finally allowed for that respite.

Which F1 drivers will have welcomed the gap between races?

For those who hit the ground running in Australia, five races in six weeks have meant that they’ve been able to push on and capitalise on that comfort. But, for drivers who needed some time to get in the sim, examine the data forensically, and just get a chance to mentally reset for the next barrage of races, that chance has only come with the weekend off between Jeddah and Miami.

Let’s look at which drivers needed the weekend off to take a breather, explore some options in the sim, and dust themselves off.

Lewis Hamilton

After the highs of the winter, as the seven-time F1 World Champion’s move to Ferrari dominated the news cycle, the reality of the British driver’s lack of competitiveness started to hit him hard by the Japanese and Bahrain Grands Prix.

Hamilton’s head had completely dropped by the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, to the point where his self-effacing comments became over the top in their morosity.

The seven-time F1 World Champion has always been very good at compartmentalising disappointments and mentally resetting, but the more fundamental nature of the mismatch between the efforts he’s putting in versus the on-track reality may be even testing his usual mental processes more than usual.

Confirming in Saudi Arabia he was putting in a full working week and “cancelling plans” to start attempting to close the performance deficit to Charles Leclerc, the little gap between races might just do Hamilton the world of good – even if he doubts the picture will change much in the near future.

Liam Lawson

After his two substitution runs in 2023 and 2024, Lawson has had a hell of a start to his first season as a full-time F1 driver.

The matter-of-factness and confidence he brought to the table over the winter may have been the bravado of a man in his early 20s, but it appeared the Kiwi had mentally prepared, and well, for the major challenge of racing for Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen.

Of course, it didn’t play out that way, and the intense scrutiny and turmoil he went through was visible in his demeanour and even his complexion – Lawson was shaken to his core, and could have been questioning things about himself that racing drivers need to be utterly convinced of in order to thrive.

Rescued from that situation, and quickly, by Red Bull, Lawson is following the path that others, like Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly, have. Of course, without the benefit of having tested or driven the VCARB02 in his pre-season preparations, Lawson is playing catch-up against his new teammate Isack Hadjar, and his performances in Japan and Bahrain showed that.

But, in Saudi Arabia, it was clear that Lawson had started to click with the team again, as well as with the car, and there was little to choose between himself and Hadjar at what was a circuit demanding of a driver’s confidence.

Getting the chance to brush himself off after the very public pressure and the resulting ignominy of having his Red Bull dream taken away, for now, the chance to look over the data from his first three races back at Racing Bulls and take some time out to relax and train will have been invaluable.

Yuki Tsunoda

On the other side of that coin is Yuki Tsunoda.

Unlike Lawson, Tsunoda is likely at the end of his Red Bull journey if he can’t make the RB21 work for him – after four years in the sport, it’s not likely he’ll get the chance to drop back to the safe comfort of Racing Bulls if he can’t capably back Max Verstappen up.

Tsunoda is a known quantity now, and has proven himself as a solid and consistent performer since taking over as the team leader at Faenza following Gasly’s departure over two years ago. Thrown into the RB21 without any pre-season testing, Tsunoda has to use his experience to get to grips with it over the race weekends. And he has to do it fast, if Red Bull is to have any chance of recovering the Constructors’ Championship.

To his credit, Tsunoda fared reasonably in Japan and Bahrain, particularly in the desert race as the RB21 proved a tricky beast for both drivers. With Verstappen also unable to unlock his usual competitiveness on what was a galling weekend for Red Bull, Tsunoda made it into Q3 and the points.

But Saudi Arabia brought the extent of the challenge back into sharp focus. Almost a second off the pace in qualifying, Tsunoda was visibly shocked as he spoke to the media afterward, perhaps realising the full potential of the RB21 is far beyond what he’s capable of delivering at this point.

Any chance of figuring it out further was wrecked by the first-lap collision between himself and Gasly, with both realising they could have done more to race more sensibly on the first lap as neither came down hard on the other.

Red Bull lined up a day’s testing with the RB19 at Silverstone during last week, giving him a chance to get some time behind the wheel of a car well-known to the team, as well as giving him more relevant data for him to start getting his head around.

Tsunoda is understood to have fared well during the test, as well as having worked diligently back at the factory and in the simulator to prepare himself for Miami and the start of the European season.

While Tsunoda doesn’t have the immediate pressure of having a potential replacement breathing down his neck as Red Bull have given him the assurance of the season, the Japanese driver must start delivering if he’s to extend his F1 career – whether that be with Red Bull or another team – beyond this year.

More on F1 2025

👉 Ranking the rookies of the F1 2025 season so far

👉 Do F1 drivers have an expiry date? What history shows about passing 40

Fernando Alonso

The Spaniard has had a low-key start to the F1 2025 season and trails his teammate Lance Stroll 10 points to zero after the first five races of the year.

It’s another year of needing to be patient for Alonso as he waits for the effects of Aston Martin’s investments and the arrival of Adrian Newey to kick in, but there’s still a chance for Alonso to showcase his usual excellence in the midfield.

Unfortunately for Alonso, it’s a situation he’s become all too familiar with during his career but, unusually for him, it could be argued that Alonso hasn’t maximised every opportunity available to him in the first five races of the year – highlighted, in particular, by his very out-of-character mistake in Australia.

After a “heartbreaking” race in Saudi Arabia, in which Alonso finished 11th after giving it “100 percent”, the Spaniard has been open about trying to stay calm about the situation of his team’s current lack of competitiveness.

“There’s nothing we can do now,” he said.

“Next year is a complete reset, and we have now great people in the team working on next year’s car. So the trust is maximum on the new management and the new people, and the team is getting ready for that moment.

“If the regulations were stable, and next year we have the same cars as we have now, I think it will be more tough to digest.”

One of just four drivers yet to score points so far this season, Alonso can usually be trusted to dig deep and deliver beyond what his car should theoretically allow but, if his head has dropped for the first time as he faces a season of monotony, the chance to shake off the disappointment of that realisation may have served him well.

Lando Norris

It’s a season that will define Lando Norris. Given the fastest and most versatile car on the grid, it’s a position in which the British driver has made headlines in the past for suggesting it’s an easy position to be in.

There are still plenty of question marks over Norris’ mental control and his ability to deliver at his peak potential weekend in, weekend out – questions that the man himself appears eager to discover the answers to.

His openness in addressing his own weaknesses is commendable, as is his reluctance to compromise on his own ideals, but the facts suggest that, in the dog-eat-dog world of elite sport, those who refuse to let those doubts creep in prosper.

In his quest to become World Champion and the finest racing driver in the world, it can’t be said that Norris is even the finest racing driver in his team at present, such has been the extent of Oscar Piastri’s step forward this year.

The gap between the pair isn’t huge, and Norris’ Australian win proved that he is capable of delivering at the highest level of performance a team can wish of a driver. But mistakes have been frequent and this has given the opportunity for Piastri to perform, in Verstappen-esque fashion, and deliver three wins from five races.

Norris and McLaren have been open in that the changes made to the car over the winter have resulted in him being less comfortable behind the wheel compared to Piastri, with team boss Andrea Stella explaining how the “episodes” Norris is encountering are actually visible in the data.

But excuses and caveats don’t deliver championships. Last year, Verstappen’s abject refusal to accept the limitations of his Red Bull saw him grind out result after result, through sheer force of will and bloody single-mindedness.

Piastri appears to be closer to this type of mindset than Norris, whose style appears to be closer to that of a Kimi Raikkonen or Jenson Button – untouchable when everything comes together but can be anonymous if all the pieces aren’t lined up.

That’s not to suggest that Norris can’t get it together and start delivering upon the potential of the MCL39 but, with the form his teammate is showing, the task facing Norris in defeating both Verstappen and Piastri (and even perhaps George Russell) is a huge one.

Read Next: Honda express Max Verstappen wish amid $300m Aston Martin move claim