Lights out again for Formula One after off-season wheel-spinning

It was oh so quiet! The engines revs on the grid were still and the driver market was in a formation lap holding pattern in anticipation of a guaranteed silly season to come ahead of 2025. But as Bjork would say, 'Zing boom'.

The upheaval started with backmarkers Haas parting ways with Guenther Steiner, the occasionally foul-mouthed and moustachioed team principal who had become viewed as a mascot of sorts by those drawn into the sport by Netflix's Drive To Survive but whose vast experience within motorsport was highly respected by the people following F1 for far longer.

Then Andretti's hope of being accepted into the fold as an 11th team for 2025 was turned down with a "no, not yet" and an emphasis on the potential detrimental impact adding another team would have on the commercial value for the existing ten.

But the moment the sky really caved in was February. Lewis Hamilton had signed a new Mercedes deal late last summer and given that he will be 40 by the end of 2025 when that contract was due to expire, the expectation was that the seven-time world champion would finish his career with that team until at least then.

All of a sudden though, the drip, drip of rumours became a deluge on 1 February, claiming that Hamilton, statistically F1's most successful driver of all time, would leave and join forces with the sport's most iconic and historic team Ferrari.

Jaws were very much hanging low at kerb level and, by that evening, were resting on the asphalt when Ferrari and Hamilton had finally confirmed that he will be racing in red for the twilight of his career.

With the gifted Charles Leclerc signing a lucrative and lengthy contract extension with Ferrari a week before to confirm his status as the driver the Prancing Horse