Formula One (F1) is back in business for the 75 season and is bound to be an exciting one. The winter break was slightly less eventful than last year’s however there has not been all smooth sailing. We started with Sergio Pérez being booted out of his Red Bull seat and being replaced with Liam Lawson. Many fans were upset by this thinking Yuki Tsunoda should have received the promotion instead of inexperienced Laswon.  

The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) also made sure they were busy over the break making some very unfavored decisions. The main decision is a new rule on grown adults driving cars going 200 plus miles per hour cars cursing. Last season, we saw Max Verstappen receive a rather harsh penalty for saying a certain explicative by accident. Having to do community service for saying the “F” word was not Verstappen’s cup of tea and he made it known. Now he has bigger problems because saying a curse word during the race or in an interview could lead him and other drivers to a race ban. Drivers can now receive fines, penalties, suspensions, loss of points and even full race bans for using offensive language.  

An exciting and sad thing for some fans was Lewis Hamilton switching to Ferrari. Hamilton has previously been with the Mercedes team for 12 seasons. The transfer to Ferrari was shocking before last season and was the start of the “silly season.” He made his way to the Fiorano Residence and had an iconic photoshoot starting his Ferrari residence. This made fans very excited for the upcoming season.  

Something that recieved a lot of mixed reactions over the winter break was the release date of the new F1 movie with Brad Pitt. Fans were excited about the new movie and shared many reactions online. However, when new information was leaked about the film many followers became outraged and decided to boycott the film. In the move Pitt’s character has a sexual encounter with his female race engineer. Female fans were appalled that this was even thought about being put in the film and called it out for being unnecessary. Women are constantly degraded in motorsports and this adds to that narrative that females sleep their way to the top or to get their job.  

All in all, while the winter break was not as eventful as last season, it still was rather packed with excitement and anticipation for the new season to start.