With Lewis Hamilton in a Ferrari, teenage rookie Kimi Antonelli in a Mercedes, Liam Lawson up against Max Verstappen at Red Bull, Ferrari reject Carlos Sainz a huge coup signing for Williams and at least one new driver at eight of the 10 teams, Formula 1’s reshaped 2025 line-up is hugely exciting.
But could it have been even more exciting? Yes. Here are some of the most interesting potential deals that didn’t quite come together.
Alonso to Mercedes (or Red Bull)
Mercedes’ heart was set on promoting Antonelli as Hamilton’s 2025 replacement as soon as it knew it needed one. But its head needed to consider alternatives in case its private work with Antonelli in the first part of the year revealed 2025 would be too soon for him to be thrown into a Mercedes seat.
The Race’s Mark Hughes learned that Fernando Alonso was Mercedes’ preferred Antonelli fallback option in the weeks after Hamilton’s Ferrari move bombshell.
Alonso was believed to be open to it even if on paper it might seem like a demeaning ‘seat-warmer’ slot until Antonelli was ready - as Alonso would’ve backed himself to perform so strongly Mercedes would’ve either got rid of George Russell after 2025 or decided it didn’t need Antonelli that soon after all.
Ultimately though Alonso’s desire to “dictate my destiny for good or for bad” led him to commit to a new Aston Martin deal in April rather than wait to see if he was needed elsewhere.
That also ended a flirtation with Red Bull - either as a Sergio Perez replacement or as a Verstappen fallback if the team’s early-season internal turmoil around Christian Horner and Jos Verstappen had ever reached a point of no return. Talks were had, and with Red Bull still dominant at the time Alonso was known to have been understandably keen to explore the prospect of moving there.
But in the end it became just another entry on the list of times Alonso and Red Bull talked about joining forces but didn't (a list that Horner and Alonso disagree on the length of, but that dates right back to 2008).
Do we wish it had happened? Yes. Alonso in either a Mercedes or a Red Bull would’ve been a guaranteed blockbuster storyline that wouldn’t have been too far behind Hamilton/Ferrari in tantalising pre-season excitement terms. And he’d surely be a stronger guarantee of immediate top-level performance in those cars than their actual occupants Lawson and Antonelli.
Other related might-have-beens: Verstappen walking out of Red Bull to join Mercedes would have pipped even Hamilton/Ferrari on the 2025 storyline list but always seemed more like a great chance for Toto Wolff to wind Horner up than a firm possibility, despite Red Bull’s internal angst. Once Alonso was off the table, Sainz was Mercedes’ plan B but Antonelli quickly convinced the team it wasn’t going to need one. Wolff also said some polite things about Sebastian Vettel one day and people got excited about it. And if Hamilton/Ferrari had never happened, Antonelli was already set to be placed at Williams for at least 2025 for a Russell-style lower-key F1 grounding.
Lawson to Sauber
In the brief period when Perez had a 2025 Red Bull contract and looked like he probably would deserve it and Ricciardo was doing a solid enough job at RB, in-house routes to Lawson’s promised 2025 F1 graduation seemed to be diminishing.
That was when Audi/Sauber took a serious look at taking Lawson off Red Bull’s hands, a look that didn’t ultimately come to anything.
Do we wish it had happened? No. There’s little reason to expect that anyone in a 2025 Sauber will get noticed that much. But if he becomes the latest driver who takes a career battering alongside Verstappen, Lawson might find himself thinking that leading Audi’s F1 entry in 2026 would’ve been a good long-term option. The most intriguing part of this might-have-been is that if Sauber/Audi had grabbed Lawson, he would’ve been off the table for Red Bull at the end of the year and its Perez dilemma would’ve deepened.
Other related might-have-beens: Audi wanted Sainz so much that Helmut Marko claimed it made him an offer even Red Bull couldn’t afford to match. Sauber paid a bit of lip service to its long-time reserve Theo Pourchaire too. Pretty much everyone seeking a 2025 home was tempted enough by the Audi prospect to cast an eye in Sauber’s direction. But then they all saw Sauber’s current state and went elsewhere.
Albon (back) to Red Bull
Before being replaced by Lawson, Perez repeatedly looked vulnerable to being replaced by Red Bull Racing predecessors. Sainz regularly cropped up in that conversation (but normally accompanied by an asterisk over the Sainz/Verstappen families’ past tensions) and there was a spell when Red Bull seemed to be simultaneously considering either bringing Ricciardo back into its top team or binning him off altogether (which it actually did, sooner than expected).
But another Red Bull Racing ‘old boy’ was in the mix for a while too - admittedly technically for 2026 not 2025. Red Bull offered Alex Albon a pre-contract that would’ve given it first call on his services for 2026, and given 1) that Williams had thought about releasing Albon for 2025 if it was going to lose him for 2026 anyway and 2) how desperate Red Bull eventually got to get rid of Perez, you can’t really rule out the thought of Albon ending up back alongside Verstappen this year.
Rather like Alonso, though, Albon took charge of his own destiny and signed a bigger-money, longer-term deal with Williams early on.
Do we wish it had happened? No. Albon/Red Bull has been and gone as a storyline and having let Franco Colapinto get a bit too close for comfort it looks more likely that Albon’s F1 destiny will be as a star underdog overachieving for a team like Williams rather than getting back into a top squad.
Ocon to Williams
Esteban Ocon got as far as a seat-fitting and contract talks at Williams. But it didn’t turn into a deal - both because Sainz was always Williams’s priority and by then it looked like it would probably beat Audi to him, and because Williams was among the teams that had reservations over Ocon’s predilection for falling out with and tangling with team-mates.
Do we wish it had happened: No. Sainz landing at Williams from Ferrari is both a stronger storyline and likely to give Williams better results than it would’ve got with Ocon.
Other related might-have-beens: Bottas was keen to return to old employer Williams too, but was also behind Sainz in its queue. When Alpine tried to pluck Sainz out of Williams’s grasp, Bottas the most likely Williams alternative and conversations got pretty serious before Sainz got the seat after all. And there was that day Williams team boss James Vowles outraged a section of the F1 fanbase by declaring Mick Schumacher (never a realistic 2025 Williams contender anyway) “not special” then had to clarify that by “not special” he meant ‘not a multiple world champion’ rather than ‘rubbish’.
Tsunoda to Haas
Yuki Tsunoda remaining parked at the secondary team seemed to be pretty much the only point of constant certainty around Red Bull’s 2025 F1 driver line-ups through the mad months that covered the Verstappen tension, indecision over Perez and Daniel Ricciardo/Lawson swap. Regardless of how well Tsunoda performed, Red Bull management’s mind was made up about his limitations.
But both Tsunoda’s personal management and a few of RB/Racing Bulls’ midfield rivals explored whether a move outside the Red Bull fold for 2025 might be his best career option even if it initially meant a sideways or backwards step.
Andreas Seidl considered Tsunoda when in charge at Sauber/Audi and talks took place with Alpine, but it was Haas - whose boss Ayao Komatsu is known to rate Tsunoda - that looked most interested.
Ultimately Tsunoda continued to keep faith that remaining in the Red Bull family might one day offer him chance to drive for its main team.
Do we wish it had happened? Yes. Tsunoda in a 2025 Haas vs Tsunoda in a 2025 Racing Bulls is probably much of a muchness results and storyline-wise. But for all his flaws, all the time Red Bull won’t take him seriously it just makes the question mark over what a driver with such obvious natural talent might achieve outside the Red Bull system more intriguing.
Sainz to Alpine
Sainz spent the first half of 2024 being left hanging by F1’s most recent champion teams (Red Bull and Mercedes) and bitterly fought over by two of F1’s least competitive teams (Sauber and Williams).
Then just as his situation seemed to be simplifying (Red Bull and Mercedes weren’t interested and Sauber wasn’t competitive), along came a curveball: the now Flavio Briatore-steered Alpine team and its promise of a switch to Mercedes customer engines after 2025.
Alpine had been trying to entice Sainz even before that, but was using its works status as a selling point. Ironically it then flipped to using its impending customer status as a draw because Sainz was known to like the idea of having a Mercedes engine for the 2026 rules.
Too many other things about Alpine worried the Sainz camp, though, and Williams won the race for him.
Do we wish it had happened? No. Given the varying flavours of chaos around Alpine in recent years, Sainz ending up there would make his Ferrari exit seem even more cruel. Williams has given enough hints it might be on an upward trajectory to be optimistic for him.
Other related might-have-beens: Every team’s second choice Bottas was also a possibility at Alpine but Seidl’s replacement by Mattia Binotto made Bottas more interested in and optimistic about staying at Sauber. Alpine insisted that giving its World Endurance Championship driver Mick Schumacher a test alongside leading 2025 seat contender Jack Doohan was not a shootout for the drive. But it actually might’ve been a bit of a shootout. And Schumacher lost it. No one at Alpine declared him “not special” in public, though. So that’s something.
Colapinto to Red Bull
Colapinto’s stunning early performances with Williams put him on a lot of radars - including Red Bull’s.
While that was most likely as a Racing Bulls signing to slot in after Lawson moved up to Red Bull, the combination of Colapinto’s promise (and level of sponsor draw) and Red Bull’s various reservations over pretty much everyone in its pool except Verstappen meant there was a genuine chance Colapinto could’ve been thrown straight into Red Bull Racing had he maintained his initial performance level to the end of his Williams stint.
As Colapinto started getting noticed more for his big crashes than his pace and Red Bull became more convinced Lawson would fit its 2025 bill, the interest cooled.
Do we wish it had happened? No… though it would’ve been a mega story. For all Colapinto’s promise, though, after the messier end to his 2024, the last thing he needs is the pressure of an instant comparison to a very well-established Verstappen in the same car.
