EXCLUSIVE: Ross Brawn on a ‘vintage’ 2025 season, F1’s three-way title fight and his star drivers

F1 fans have been treated to a spectacular show in 2025, with the gap between the front and the back of the field continuing to shrink, three drivers going wheel-to-wheel for the Drivers’ Championship, and plenty of others enjoying their moment in the spotlight.

Ahead of the decisive final few rounds, F1.com gathered the thoughts of former technical chief, team boss and F1 Managing Director of Motorsports Ross Brawn, who drew some insightful connections with his hugely successful time in the sport along the way.

An F1 season for the ages

After Red Bull’s commanding start to the latest ground effect ruleset, and Mercedes’ dominance for several years before that, the last couple of seasons have delivered a level of competitiveness not seen in F1 for quite some time.

In 2024, four teams and seven drivers claimed victories, while in 2025, three teams and four drivers have triumphed up to this point, along with seven out of 10 teams and nine out of 20 drivers making their way onto the podium.

Although there remains a class-leading squad, with McLaren managing to wrap up the Teams’ Championship a few rounds ago in Singapore, the margins up and down the order have generally been closer than ever.

Take the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend, where 0.771s separated Lando Norris in P1 and Franco Colapinto in P20 at the end of Q1, or the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, which produced the closest Q3 phase in F1 history when just 0.528s covered the top 10.

Brawn, along with many millions around the world, is watching on keenly.

“It’s been a great season,” says Brawn, speaking to F1.com after a charity event for the Thames Valley Air Ambulance at the Williams factory. “I think the wonderful thing about F1 recently is the number of different race winners we’ve had.

“Obviously McLaren are doing exceptionally well, because they’ve had two drivers up there all the time, but if you were to ask me who’s going to win the next race, I think I’d struggle to say, which wasn’t always the case.

“In prior years, the Red Bull dominance or the Mercedes dominance sometimes took the edge off the spectacle. This time we’re having a vintage season.”

Oscar vs Lando – and Max…

At the very sharp end, a gripping intra-team battle between Norris and Oscar Piastri has headlined most of the season – the momentum ebbing and flowing from one McLaren driver to the other and the points gap remaining relatively small.

Both have enjoyed plenty of highs, from Piastri’s early-season hat-trick of wins in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Miami to Norris’ emotional first victories around the streets of Monaco and on home soil at Silverstone.

They have also endured their fair share of lows, such as the Australian’s recent spate of incidents and the Briton’s late-race retirement at the Canadian Grand Prix, where he ran into the back of the sister MCL39 and came close to wiping the pair out.

Norris is the McLaren man in form as the title race heads into its final three rounds, fighting back from his agonising technical retirement at Zandvoort to put a solid run of performances together and wrestle the championship lead back from Piastri in Mexico.

However, there is the added layer of a revived Max Verstappen and Red Bull putting pressure on both of them – the Dutchman more than halving a 104-point deficit via three wins and four podiums from the last seven Grands Prix.

So, what does Brawn – who has worked with a host of World Champion drivers over the years, including the likes of Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton – make of the situation?

“We’re seeing the layers peeling off the main contenders, particularly Oscar and Lando,” Brawn comments. “We all know Max very well from the past, but we’re seeing the characters of Lando and Oscar being revealed as the competition gets more intense.

“I think when you’re on the path to success in F1 it’s very team-centric, but when you get there and you’ve got a Drivers’ Championship at stake, it becomes a bit more self-centred, which is natural. Now the Teams’ Championship is settled, it’s going to be fascinating to see how those two further reveal and develop their characters.

“We’ve had Oscar, who’s always been portrayed as ‘Mr. Cool’… and Lando, who’s always been seen as a little bit conservative, and is showing a lot more aggression in the last few races.

“I’m going to be highly entertained to see how they work it all out between themselves, but then there’s also the resurgence of Red Bull as a competitive team, which is giving Max a chance to mix it up in there!”

As Brawn touched on, while Verstappen is used to winning and has claimed the last four world titles on the bounce, this is the first proper F1 championship fight for Norris, after his mini push for the 2024 crown, and a brand-new experience for Piastri.

“As a driver, it’s very easy to comment when you’re down the field about what’s going on at the front of the field, but it’s very difficult when you get there,” adds Brawn. “You’re not in the spotlight when you’re in fourth or fifth, you’re not under the same scrutiny.

“When you’re fighting for a championship or you’re winning races, you suddenly come under intense scrutiny, and Lando and Oscar are not used to it yet. They’re getting used to it, but Max has been there and done it. He knows what it’s like, he knows the emotions, he knows the feelings, he knows the dynamics of it all.

“It’s showing us different sides of their characters that we haven’t seen before, which is, again, the fascination of F1, the fascination of sport.”

Brawn’s other star performers

Beyond the scrap between Norris, Piastri and Verstappen, which will be settled during the final flyaway stretch in Brazil, Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi across November and December, several other drivers have caught Brawn’s eye in 2025.

Rookies Isack Hadjar and Ollie Bearman are two drivers namechecked by the experienced team chief, with the Racing Bulls man reaching the podium at the Dutch Grand Prix and the Haas racer starring en route to fourth in Mexico City and sixth in Sao Paulo.

But it is the other driver who remained mathematically in contention for this year’s title until Mexico who sits at the top of Brawn’s list: Mercedes’ George Russell.

“George has done a fabulous job,” Brawn states, pointing to Russell’s incredible consistency, brace of wins and eight podiums – despite having to deal with plenty of talk about his future in the media – aboard a Mercedes that did not deliver the step required to be a genuine championship contender.

“I think in those circumstances, George’s performance has been very, very impressive, and of course, the result in Singapore was exceptional. Hats off to him for this year.”

Hulkenberg’s Silverstone surprise

Elsewhere, a driver Brawn came close to working with when he was at the helm of the Mercedes works team – the German manufacturer returning to F1 in 2010 after purchasing the 2009 title-winning Brawn GP outfit – put a smile on his face at the British Grand Prix.

One of those nine podium finishers this season, Nico Hulkenberg finally put his hands on an F1 trophy at Silverstone after 239 starts – a feel-good moment that was celebrated not only by his Kick Sauber squad but the rest of the paddock.

“When I was at Mercedes, we almost employed Nico, because we didn’t know what the situation was with Lewis for 2013,” Brawn explains, going back to Mercedes’ pursuit of the then-McLaren driver. “We were having a challenging time closing that deal, and Nico was on standby. He behaved in a very mature way during those discussions.

“I made it as transparent as possible what the situation was, that there was a chance [of him racing for Mercedes], but it depended on what Lewis decided to do in the end. When Lewis did sign with us, we managed to sort things out with Nico that we couldn’t go ahead.

“But I was quite looking forward to working with him, because I think he’s a great driver. He’s very, very mature and very balanced. He’s had a great career. It’s hard to imagine that Silverstone was his first podium after so long, and after some great performances and great drives.

“So, that outcome was lovely to see, and I was particularly pleased given that I know him fairly well. It was a good result for the season.”

Hamilton’s new chapter at Ferrari

Another major talking point this season has been Hamilton’s move from Mercedes to Ferrari after more than a decade at the Silver Arrows – the seven-time World Champion embarking on a new chapter with the aim of delivering his first title since 2020 and the Scuderia’s first since 2008.

Hamilton is, of course, a driver who Brawn knows very well, thanks to that aforementioned successful mission of convincing him to join Mercedes back in 2013, ahead of the 2014 rules reset that yielded a hatful of titles.

Ferrari are also a team that Brawn knows very well, having spent some 10 years at the famous Maranello marque and been one of the key figures who helped turn them into serial winners across the early-to-mid-noughties.

It has been an up-and-down journey for the driver and team so far, with Hamilton’s highlight being a Sprint pole position and victory at the second round in China, before a challenging mid-season run where he battled to understand Ferrari’s developing SF-25 package.

The last few rounds have been more encouraging, though, thanks to Ferrari finding a way of extracting more from their car, and Hamilton “finally feeling like I’m on top of it” to push team mate Charles Leclerc hard across the Austin and Mexico weekends.

So, what is Brawn expecting from the partnership going forward?

“Lewis is a pretty determined character and has shown resilience in the past, so there’s no reason why he won’t [deliver]. I just hope that Ferrari get it right with the new rules.”