Formula One Season Bingo

Having bingo cards to complete as you watch Formula 1 with friends or family can really add to the entertainment value, whether it’s the whole season card or our Formula 1 Race Weekend bingo card (which is updated with fresh items for each circuit).  Not only can it help to liven up a boring race, it can make late season races much more exciting to watch even if – as has happened in two out of the last 3 years – Max Verstappen runs away with the title with several races still to go, because there’s still bingo card events to look out for.

We hope to see at least as close a title battle in the 2025 season as there was last year, and preferably even closer.  But even if that doesn’t happen, there’s a LOT to get excited about in this final season before the major rule change that’s due in 2026.

• The sheer number of rookies on the grid:
  • Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes
  • Jack Doohan at Alpine
  • Gabriel Bortoleto at Sauber
  • Isaak Hadjar at Racing Bulls
  • Oliver Bearman at Haas (yes he has raced before as a super sub, but only for three race weekends)
• The promotion to Red Bull of Liam Lawson after competing in just 11 Formula 1 race weekends. How will this bold, talented youngster match up against Max Verstappen – will he succeed where Alex Albon and Pierre Gasly (also very talented drivers) failed?
• Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari – how will he fare against Charles Leclerc?
• How will Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon measure up against each other at Williams?
• Adrian Newey’s move to Aston Martin (although this will mostly affect Aston Martin’s 2026 car, the Red Bull 2025 car could be a casualty)
• Harsher penalties – the rarely seen drive through and stop and go penalties made an appearance at the end of last year and 10 second penalties replaced 5 second penalties – will this trend continue?
• Will McLaren still have the best car?
• Will Max Verstappen be able to avoid a race ban? (he’s on 8 penalty points and none of them expire until the end of June 2025)
• Will the clearly very talented Franco Colapinto find a way to return to the grid, for 2026 if not for 2025?
• Will the silly season be even siller in 2025 as drivers and their management get a whiff of who’s got a decent car for the new 2026 regulations and who’s got a tractor?

With 24 race weekends on the calendar including 6 Sprints, there’s plenty of scope to see even more different race winners than there were in 2024 (seven, all of whom won more than one race).

Formula 1 is currently on a winter break, before returning for car launches on 18th February, pre season testing in Bahrain on 26th – 28th February, season 7 of Drive To Survive on March 7th and the Australian Grand Prix on 14th -16th March 2025.  See you then!

What’s On The Formula 1 2025 Season Bingo Card?

Not only have we kept most of the items from last year (Lando Slam and F1 record broken were removed due to being too frequent), we’ve added several new items for 2025 including:

• Animal on track – making a return, after Max Verstappen vs a groundhog in Canada and Stewards vs a lizard in Singapore showed it should never have been left off
• Driver on 9+ penalty points – and risking a ban.  That will be Max Verstappen if he picks up just one penalty point in the first few races.
• Safety car leads pack through pit lane – when there’s debris on the start-finish straight
• Less than 1 second between podium finishers – between 1st and 2nd and/or between 2nd and 3rd
• Aborted pit stop – to be clear, this means a driver either bailing from a pit stop so late that they have to cross the white line (Sainz in Las Vegas) or driving through the pit lane without stopping and having to go round again because the crew weren’t ready (Ocon, also in Las Vegas)
• Driver has a shocker at their home race
• Drive through or stop & go – both these happened in the same race, Qatar, and with penalties getting harsher, we will surely see one or both in 2025
• Debris causes puncture
• Driver replaced for rest of season
• 2+ drivers pit lane start

The two super-unlikely items all British podium and Hülkenberg podium are staying for another year because one can dream – and if you don’t want them, just remove those items before you generate your cards.

If you think there’s anything that should be on the 2025 card but isn’t, you can always add your own items before generating your cards.

Events That Definitely Weren’t On Last Year’s Bingo Card

One of the wonderful things about Formula One is that occasionally, really crazy stuff happens.  Here’s just a few of the wild things that happened during the 2024 season that no-one would ever have thought to put on the bingo card!

Them’s The Rules

• Disqualification for tech infringement – especially as it was from the win (George Russell in Belgium)
• Driver black flagged – Nico Hülkenberg in Brazil, after his car was pushed by stewards
• Row about inconsistent stewarding (pretty well every race from Austin onwards!)
• Legal pitlane overtake – it turns out you CAN overtake in the pitlane, if your rival is as dozy at the start as Sergio Perez was in the Qatar Sprint
• Race ban – for Kevin Magnusson after he racked up 12 penalty points

What Did I Just See?

• Weather forces change in race start time – moving it earlier, in Brazil (only for it to be delayed again due to an accident on the formation lap)
• Qualy moved to Sunday – Brazil again
• Trackside fire – this happened during Sprint qualy in China
• Pit stop fiasco – Kick Sauber took several race weekends to rectify the cross threading problem on their wheel nuts
• Win from 11th or lower on grid – Brazil again (and Max Verstappen)

Demolition Derby

• Last lap crash – in 2023 and 2024, from George Russell
• Car too damaged to start race – it happened once in 2023, and TWICE in 2024, both involving Alex Albon
• Q1, Q2, Q3 all red flagged – Brazil
• Multiple red flags in one qualy segment – also Brazil

Nul Points

How about substitute driver finishes ahead of one or more full time drivers in the championship standings?  Oliver Bearman scored 7 points in just 3 appearances in 2024, to finish 18th of 24 ahead of both Kick Sauber drivers (who competed in all races).

What Happens If I Miss A Race?

If you miss a race – or indeed any part of a race weekend – check back here a couple of days after the race to catch up with what needs to be marked off.  You can also start playing part way though the season – either mark off all of the things that have already happened straight away or remove from the list before generating your cards.

Pre Season Testing – Bahrain February 26th – February 28th

This is when we’ll see whether the teams are as close together as they were at the end of the 2024 season or whether someone’s made a leap forward over the winter.

Round 1 – Australia March 14th – 16th

Last year’s Australian Grand Prix was an unexpected display of Ferrari dominance as the Scuderia scored their first 1-2 for a very long time, including a win for Carlos Sainz shortly after having surgery for appendicitis.

Round 2 – China March 21st – 23rd (Sprint)

After 4 years of the Chinese Grand Prix being cancelled, the 2024 grand prix weekend had easily enough incidents and excitement to make up for the missing races.  It hosts a Sprint for the second year in a row.

Round 3 – Japan April 4th – 6th

Last year’s race was red flagged on lap one but that didn’t prevent the very dominant Red Bulls from taking a 1-2.  Little did we know that dominance was about to come to an end at the very next race…

Round 4 – Bahrain April 11th – 13th

Bahrain is usually the season opener but has been moved later this year because of the timing of Ramadan.

Round 5 – Saudi Arabia April 18th – 20th

Jeddah is also taking place later than usual because of Ramadan, and given the number of rookies on the grid, three extra race weekends before tackling this extremely unforgiving street course will not go amiss.

Round 6  – Miami May 2nd – 4th (Sprint)

Remarkable last year for being the scene of Lando Norris’ first race win, Miami hosts a Sprint for the second year running.

Round 7 – Imola May 16th – 18th

Since its return to the calendar in 2020, Imola has usually been a wet race Last year, even without rain it cemented its position as a classic of the modern calendar. What looked like yet another Verstappen runaway became a very close finish with less than a second in it.

Round 8 – Monaco May 23rd – 25th

2024 turned out to be the year Charles Leclerc finally broke the curse and performed well at his home race. Apart from that, if you dozed off in the middle of this race and missed all but the first and last few laps you honestly wouldn’t have missed anything important as there were hardly any overtakes and the top 10 cars all finished in their grid positions.  Here’s hoping for something a bit less dull in 2025.

Round 9 – Spain May 30th – June 1st

Spain is generally considered to be one of the less exciting races on the calendar but last year saw many exciting moves on track, from George Russell’s striking move at the start to Lando Norris chasing Max Verstappen down in the closing stages and finishing just a couple of seconds behind him.

Round 10 – Canada June 13th – 15th

You can always rely on Canada to produce an exciting race, especially if it’s wet, as it was last year.

Round 11 – Austria June 27th – 29th

Austria was always the race where everyone and their dog got track limits penalties, but those issues have mostly been fixed now with the addition of tiny gravel traps.

Round 12 – Great Britain July 4th – 6th

Silverstone is one of the all time great tracks and is super exciting whether it’s wet or dry.  With 4 British drivers on the grid all competing for different teams, the crowd are going to love it.

Round 13 – Belgium July 25th – 27th (Sprint)

Spa is another one of the absolute all time classic tracks.  It’s very susceptible to bad weather and the last few years have seen the race all but cancelled (2021) and the start delayed (2023 Sprint) because of torrential rain.  Last year, rain only affected qualy but even without any weather issues the race was a nail biter.  It’s great to see the Sprint return to Spa after a year away.

Round 14 – Hungary August 1st – 3rd

Hungary has a reputation as being somewhere it’s difficult to overtake.  Nevertheless, two drivers made up 9 grid spots each last year.

Round 15 – The Netherlands August 29th – 31st

More of a party than a serious grand prix, this is the home race of Max Verstappen so expect the orange army to be out in force! The Dutch Grand Prix will leave the calendar after 2026 so this is one of your last 2 chances to see it.

Round 16 – Italy (Monza) September 5th – 7th

Last year’s Monza race delivered an unexpected Ferrari win, a delight for the tifosi. It also saw the surprise replacement of Logan Sargeant by Williams Academy driver Franco Colapinto.

Round 17 – Baku September 19th – 21st

The 2024 Azerbaijani Grand Prix turned out to be one of the most gripping of the season, with a battle for the lead that raged through every lap apart from the very last lap after the crash out by Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez caused the race to end under the VSC.  Meanwhile Lando Norris went from 15th to 4th and Lewis Hamilton from a pitlane start (nominally 19th) to 9th, and a new F1 record was created when Oliver Bearman became the only F1 driver in history to score points with two different teams in his first two races.  Colapinto also managed to reach Q3 and score points in only his second F1 race.

Round 18 – Singapore October 3rd – 5th

After the mayhem of the 2023 Singapore race, 2024 was a bit of a damp squib apart from for Lando Norris fans who will have enjoyed his commanding lights to flag victory.

Round 19 – USA (COTA) October 17th – 19th (Sprint)

Austin is a race where overtaking is very possible, but that doesn’t explain how Liam Lawson was able to make up 10 grid positions in a VCARB in his first race back in Formula 1, replacing the out of form Danny Ric.

Round 20 – Mexico October 24th – 26th

Remarkable last year for Sergio Perez having a shocker at his home race and for Max Verstappen getting two time penalties in just one lap.

Round 21 – Brazil November 7th – 9th (Sprint)

Interlagos can ALWAYS be relied upon to produce a thrilling race weekend and 2024’s was quite simply bananas, with all sorts of mayhem resulting in Max Verstappen winning from 17th on the grid and both Alpines in the other two podium positions.  The 2025 race will NOT be the final part of a triple header – very sensibly, the calendar has been tweaked so there’s an off weekend between Mexico and Brazil.

Round 22 – Las Vegas November 20th – 22nd

Last year’s Las Vegas race threw an absolute curveball in the form of unexpected Mercedes dominance, and yet another Formula 1 record was broken as the 2024 season became the first season ever in which seven drivers each had multiple wins.  Despite that, of course, Max Verstappen wrapped up the WDC.

Round 23 – Qatar November 28th – 30th (Sprint)

The 2024 Qatar race was exciting for all the wrong reasons (the race direction and stewarding).  At least moving it to 6 weeks later in the season (a spot it retains for 2025) avoids subjecting the drivers to excessive heat and humidity.

Round 24 – Abu Dhabi December 5th – 7th

Yas Marina is no longer the snorefest it used to be since track changes improved the racing.  If it’s anything like last year or the year before, some important driver and constructor fights will go right down to the wire.

How To Use the 2025 F1 Season Bingo Cards

1. Tap To Start
2. Add any extra events you want to appear on your cards to the list and remove any you don’t like or don’t want.
3. We suggest keeping the grid size at 5×5 to ensure there’s enough items to hold everyone’s interest all the way through the season, but you can reduce to 4×4 or 3×3 if you like.
4. Generate Bingo Cards
5. To play for the entire season, it’s probably easiest to use printed cards.  You can generate a set to print by entering the number you want in the Custom Number To Print box.  It’s best to print several more than you need in case your watch party grows as the season progresses, and also so that people can pick a card they think will be fun to play (e.g. Hülkenberg podium in the centre square if you like a challenge, driver argues about team orders if you don’t!)
6. Generate Printable Cards; this takes you to a page with all your cards on which you can print right away, or save the URL for later use when you are near a printer.
7. Alternatively you can invite through email; this sends each of your chosen recipients a link to their own unique card. The cards persist, so you can mark off a square and see it change colour, and find it still marked off the next time you visit.  This might not work for the entire season (because of phone or browser software updates etc) so we suggest taking a screenshot after each weekend just in case.
8. Watch and enjoy!  The winner is the first to mark everything off on their card, or if no-one manages to do that, the person with the most lines completed when the season ends on December 7th with the Abu Dhabi race.