Does Verstappen fear Russell but not Norris? F1 Q&A

Australian Grand Prix

Venue: Albert Park, Melbourne Dates: 14 March-16 March Race start: 04:00 GMT on Sunday, 16 March

Coverage: Live radio commentary of practice and qualifying on BBC 5 Sports Extra, race live on BBC Radio 5 Live. Live text updates on the BBC Sport website and app

After a three-month break, the 2025 Formula 1 season is almost upon us.

The Australian Grand Prix this weekend is the first of 24 races between now and Abu Dhabi in December.

There are plenty of talking points with Lewis Hamilton preparing for his Ferrari debut, Max Verstappen chasing a fifth consecutive drivers' title and McLaren hoping to maintain the pace that brought them the constructors' championship in 2024.

BBC Sport F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your questions before the season gets under way in Melbourne.

What is the pragmatic expectation at Ferrari this year? Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc have all failed to win them a championship so far. Is too much expected from Lewis Hamilton? – Kenneth

Hamilton has been clear - he is going to Ferrari to win an eighth world title.

When a driver of that level goes to such a storied team, it's obvious what the target is. So, questions about whether too much is expected of him miss the point - he and Ferrari expect that of themselves.

The impact of such an achievement would be massive.

Hamilton's move to Ferrari has already dramatically increased interest in F1 in the run-up to this season. Imagine what the reaction would be to the sport's most celebrated driver breaking the only remaining all-time record while driving for its most iconic team.

Will he do it? That depends on two things. Whether the Ferrari car is up to it, and whether Hamilton can beat his team-mate, Charles Leclerc.

As for comparisons with Alonso and Vettel, neither managed to win the title they and Ferrari so craved.

Alonso was plain unlucky - he should have won in 2010 and 2012. He was outstanding in both years, especially in 2012.

Had it not been for a catastrophic strategy decision in Abu Dhabi in 2010, and two separate assaults from two different Lotus drivers at the start of two different grands prix in 2012, he would have been champion.

Vettel's situation was more complex - arguably he and Ferrari threw away chances in both 2017 and 2018 through a combination of driver errors and team fallibility. Many people believe Alonso would have won at least one of those titles had he stayed at Ferrari.

But that was then. The belief is that this is about as good a time as Hamilton could go to Ferrari.

In Frederic Vasseur, they have a team boss who has given the team a more international outlook, and is very matter-of-fact and focused on practicality. He seems to be having a good effect and moving them in the right direction.

No one knows what will happen. But it is sure is going to be entertaining finding out, however it ends.

Is this a critical season for George Russell, especially given the possibility that Max Verstappen might leave Red Bull in the future? - David

Every season is critical in F1 - people are always looking for signs of weakness. But the stakes are quite high for Russell this year, and that's almost independent of Max Verstappen.

Russell is out of contract at the end of the year, and his new team-mate is an 18-year-old rookie, Andrea Kimi Antonelli. From the point of view of his reputation within the sport, Russell has to come out on top.

If he doesn't, though, that does not necessarily mean his Mercedes career is over. But it would mean Antonelli had marked himself out as a potential future great.

If Verstappen is not available, Toto Wolff will stick with his current driver line-up into 2026 - Russell has come out of three seasons with Lewis Hamilton and just about won bragging rights. He has earned his status as one of F1's very top drivers.

The pressure is also on Antonelli, even though his raw talent is believed to be immense. If he is comfortably beaten by Russell, he won't be around long. Such is the way of things in F1.

It's a tough world, and only the strongest survive.

Comparing the apparently friendly relationship between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris with the ongoing fallout of the Verstappen-Russell spat, does that show that Verstappen doesn't really fear Norris, but he does fear Russell? – Joe

If you asked that question to Max Verstappen himself, I know exactly what he would say. He fears no one.

Verstappen is absolutely confident that if he is given a car in which it is possible to win the title, he will win it. Doesn't matter who the opponent is.

How he gets on with someone out of the car has no bearing whatsoever on his behaviour in it - you only have to look at last year's Mexico City Grand Prix and his two penalised incidents with Norris to see that.

He is as ruthless as they come, and anyone who gets in his way will get the same treatment.

How they respond to him off the track is a different question. But Verstappen doesn't care about that either. Friendly, or not. Makes no difference to him. He'll race them just has hard.

Do you think the conflict between F1 and the FIA might escalate? Where will it lead? - Sam

There has been for some time widespread concern within Formula 1 about the actions of Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the president of governing body the FIA, and nothing over the winter has changed that.

Ben Sulayem has been embroiled in a series of controversies since he took office in December 2021, and his recent actions in changing the FIA's internal rules to reduce accountability, and codifying a method by which drivers can be banned for swearing have just added to a long list of actions perceived to be problematic by many within the sport.

At the moment, though, there is no open conflict between F1 and the FIA, nor between the teams and the FIA.

However, everyone in the sport is very aware of the growing disquiet within the FIA itself - the latest facet of which was revealed by BBC Sport last week in its report on a number of world motorsport council members being barred from its latest meeting, a dispute that could yet see further legal action.

With an FIA presidential election looming at the end of the year, the sport's bosses are keeping a close eye on events. But unless Ben Sulayem does something that directly affects F1 business, it is unlikely F1 itself will take any action.

But with the drivers unhappy, and the FIA facing a lawsuit from Susie Wolff, and who knows what else coming down the line, this story is not going anywhere any time soon.

After a first-lap red flag, Charles Leclerc managed his tyres to win his home race for the first time in 2024

As the FIA has now introduced an extra mandatory pit stop for Monaco, do you think that introducing this across all the grand prix would improve the racing as there would be less tyre saving? – Andrew

The idea of introducing an extra pit stop into the Monaco Grand Prix has been given a guardedly warm response so far.

The hope is that this will add extra excitement to the race and reduce its tendency to become a procession.

Lewis Hamilton said he believed it was his idea originally, and added: "Monaco has to be at least a two-stop. The one-stop was never really great.

"That (two stops) won't fix it all. We'll still see some of the issues of not overtaking and stuff, but I think it will make it more exciting."

Some, though, have wondered whether this was a reaction to a particularly bad event last year, which was itself caused by a specific set of circumstances.

Last year, there was a first-lap crash that led to a red flag. So all the front-runners fitted a set of tyres to get them to the end of the race, and planned not to stop again. That led to Charles Leclerc leading the race at a pedestrian pace and nothing happening.

But it's not like that every year. Regardless of the difficulty in overtaking, Monaco has seen a series of interesting races in recent years, some influenced by weather, and others by problems experienced by one driver or another.

The mandatory two-stop has been arrived at as a necessary evil - introducing an element of artificiality to ameliorate a specific problem.

In general, introducing that level of gimmickry is not something on which the powers that be in F1 are keen.