The 2015 FIA Formula One World Championship was a motor racing championship for Formula One cars. It was the 66th Formula One World Championship recognised by the sport's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), as the highest class of competition for open-wheel racing cars. Twenty-two drivers representing 10 teams contested 19 Grands Prix, starting in Australia on 15 March and ending in Abu Dhabi on 29 November as they competed for the World Drivers' and World Constructors' championships.
Lewis Hamilton was the defending Drivers' Champion after securing his second title at the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. His team, Mercedes, began the season as the defending Constructors' Champion, having clinched its first championship title at the 2014 Russian Grand Prix.
The calendar featured two significant changes from the season. The first was the return of the Mexican Grand Prix, held for the first time since . The other change was the cancellation of the German Grand Prix after a venue could not be agreed upon, leaving the nation without a World Championship event for the first time in fifty-five years.
Hamilton secured his third Drivers' Championship with three races left in the season. The runner-up was his teammate Nico Rosberg, 59 points behind, with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel third, another 44 points adrift. Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team clinched the 2015 Constructors' Championship at the Russian Grand Prix, ahead of Ferrari and Williams, and ended the season with a record 703 points. Hamilton also won the FIA Pole Trophy with a total of 11 pole positions in the season and the DHL Fastest Lap Award. Ferrari won the inaugural DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award. This season was also the first in which future World Champion Max Verstappen competed.
Teams and drivers
The following teams and drivers took part in the 2015 Formula One World Championship. All teams competed with tyres supplied by Pirelli.
EntrantConstructorChassisPower unitNo.Race drivers Scuderia FerrariFerrariSF15-TFerrari 06057 Kimi RäikkönenAllAll Sahara Force India F1 TeamVJM08VJM08B Mercedes PU106B Hybrid1127 Sergio PérezAllAll Lotus F1 TeamLotus-MercedesE23 Hybrid813AllAll Marussia-FerrariMR03BFerrari 059/3289853 Will Stevens Roberto MerhiAll McLaren HondaMcLaren-HondaHonda RA615H201422 Kevin Magnussen Fernando Alonso Jenson Button12–19AllMercedesMercedes PU106B Hybrid644 Nico RosbergAllAll Infiniti Red Bull Racing RenaultRed Bull-RenaultRB11326 Daniil KvyatAllAll Sauber F1 TeamSauber-FerrariC34Ferrari 060912 Felipe NasrAllAll Scuderia Toro RossoToro Rosso-RenaultSTR103355AllAll Williams Martini RacingWilliams-MercedesFW37Mercedes PU106B Hybrid1977 Felipe Massa Valtteri BottasAllAllSources:Official entry lists:
Free practice drivers Four drivers drove as third or test drivers throughout the season.
+ Drivers that took part in free practice sessionsConstructorPractice driversNo.Driver nameRoundsLotus-Mercedes 30 Jolyon Palmer 3–5, 8–12, 14–19Marussia-Ferrari 42 Fabio Leimer 10Sauber-Ferrari 36 Raffaele Marciello 2, 5, 9, 16Williams-Mercedes 41 Susie Wolff 5, 9Source:
Team changes Several team changes took place before the season began. Both McLaren and Lotus changed engine suppliers for the 2015 season. McLaren ended their 20-year partnership with Mercedes-Benz, in favour of a return to full-works Honda, who had previously supplied them from until 1992. Honda had been absent for seven years: they had provided British American Racing and Jordan Grand Prix with engines until they purchased the former in and then had competed as a constructor until and thus a Japanese-licensed engine manufacturer returned to the sport for the first season since 2009 when Toyota was the last Japanese-licensed engine manufacturer to compete.
Lotus ended its association with Renault in favour of a deal with Mercedes. This ended a 20-year involvement of Renault with the Enstone-based team, (which operated as Benetton from 1992 until 2001, as Renault from 2002 until 2011 and as Lotus from 2012 until 2015) after being an engine supplier to Benetton since , and being the owner of the team from to .
Both Caterham F1 and Marussia went into administration towards the end of the 2014 season. The latter was saved narrowly from liquidation in February 2015, re-entering as Manor Marussia, when new investment was secured and the team left administration after an agreement with creditors was reached. Caterham ultimately folded and its assets were auctioned off by company administrators after the start of the season.
Driver changes The driver line-ups saw a couple of changes prior to the 2015 season and one more prior to the Singapore Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel left Red Bull Racing at the end of the 2014 season after six years with the team and nine years with its wider junior development programme to join Scuderia Ferrari in a multi-year deal replacing Fernando Alonso. However, the news would be firstly announced by Christian Horner in an interview with Sky Sports days after Vettel had told him of the move. Alonso, who was still in negotiations with the team, was caught blindsided. Alonso would then replace Kevin Magnussen at McLaren, returning to the team after he last raced for them in . Following an accident during pre-season testing, Alonso withdrew from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, and Magnussen returned as his temporary replacement. Daniil Kvyat was promoted to Red Bull from Toro Rosso to fill the vacated seat.
Toro Rosso changed their entire line-up: along with Kvyat joining Red Bull, the team chose not to renew Jean-Éric Vergne's contract. Vergne went on to compete in the Formula E Championship while also becoming a Ferrari development driver. They were replaced by the 2014 Formula Renault 3.5 Series champion Carlos Sainz Jr. and the 2014 FIA Formula 3 European Championship third-place finisher Max Verstappen. The latter became the youngest driver to make a Formula One début, at the age of 17 years, 164 days when he started the season.
Esteban Gutiérrez and Adrian Sutil were released from Sauber, where they were replaced by the former Caterham driver Marcus Ericsson and the GP2 driver Felipe Nasr. Gutiérrez and Sutil went on to join Ferrari and Williams respectively as reserve drivers.
Manor Marussia also had two new drivers: They employed the former Caterham driver Will Stevens to drive for his first full season in the sport, while another former Caterham test driver, Roberto Merhi, was signed to a short-term deal while he also drove in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series. Max Chilton relinquished his seat, joining the Indy Lights championship, while Jules Bianchi was in a coma at the start of the season and ultimately died from injuries sustained at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix. Alexander Rossi was later drafted in by Manor Marussia to make his Formula One début at the Singapore Grand Prix, replacing Merhi. The Spaniard returned to the team for the Russian and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix, sharing the car with Rossi for the remainder of the season.
Kamui Kobayashi went on to race in the Super Formula series in Japan after the folding of Caterham left him without a drive in Formula One.
Calendar The following nineteen Grands Prix took place in 2015:
Round Grand Prix Circuit Date 1Australian Grand Prix Albert Park Circuit, Melbourne15 March 2Malaysian Grand Prix Sepang International Circuit, Kuala Lumpur29 March 3Chinese Grand Prix Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai12 April 4Bahrain Grand Prix Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir19 April 5Spanish Grand Prix Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Montmeló10 May 6Monaco Grand Prix Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo24 May 7Canadian Grand Prix Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal7 June 8Austrian Grand Prix Red Bull Ring, Spielberg21 June 9British Grand Prix Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone5 July 10Hungarian Grand Prix Hungaroring, Mogyoród26 July 11Belgian Grand Prix Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot23 August 12Italian Grand Prix Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, Monza6 September 13Singapore Grand Prix Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore20 September 14Japanese Grand Prix Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka27 September 15Russian Grand Prix Sochi Autodrom, Sochi11 October 16United States Grand Prix Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas25 October 17Mexican Grand Prix Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City1 November 18Brazilian Grand Prix Autódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo15 November 19Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi29 NovemberSources:
Calendar changes
There were a few revisions to the calendar from the previous season. The Mexican Grand Prix returned to the Formula One calendar for the first time since 1992. The race was held at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit located in the centre of Mexico City, which was the location of all Mexican Grands Prix in previous decades. The circuit was substantially reconfigured to accommodate the sport's return.
The Grand Prix of America and the Indian Grand Prix were both contracted but did not feature on the calendar. The former originally aimed for a debut in at the Port Imperial Street Circuit in New Jersey after a 15-year contract was signed, but was delayed for a third straight year, while the latter was cancelled for the second consecutive year due to an unresolved tax case in the Bombay High Court.
The German and Korean Grands Prix were both included on the provisional calendar. The former was set to return to the Nürburgring, in accordance with the event-sharing agreement established between the Nürburgring and the Hockenheimring in 2008. The Nürburgring had previously hosted the race in 2013 and so was scheduled to host it again in 2015, but the venue was left off the provisional calendar, leaving the event-sharing agreement at a stalemate. With both venues unwilling to host the event, the race was ultimately cancelled, leaving the country off the Grand Prix calendar for the first time since . The Korean Grand Prix was scheduled to return to the Formula One calendar after being removed in 2014, but the plan was ultimately abandoned.
Regulation changes
Technical
Power units The number of power units a driver could use in a season was reduced from five in 2014 to four in 2015. This was tweaked after the 2015 British Grand Prix, with new power unit manufacturers being allowed one other power unit in their first season of competition; the only manufacturer affected in the 2015 season was Honda, who were allowed to take advantage of the rule even though it had been introduced after the season had begun. The rules regarding engine development that were introduced for the previous season were changed as well, with the manufacturers allowed to perform half the development permitted in 2014.
Noses Following the backlash over "ugly" nose designs in 2014, the FIA moved to amend the rules surrounding nose designs for the 2015 season. Noses were lower than in 2014, retaining a minimum cross section, but they had to taper to a point at a fixed linear rate, effectively outlawing the dramatic finger shapes seen in 2014 in favour of a more gradual shape. Furthermore, the design of the nose had to be symmetrical and consistent with the centreline of the car, thereby banning the more exotic designs, such as the "twin-tusk" approach used by Lotus on the E22 chassis.
Weight and bodywork