Today, Jan. 29, is day 52 of 98 between the final race of the 2024 Formula 1 season and the first race of the 2025 season.
From this point onward, things in the F1 world start to get a bit more serious, with private tests, car launches and official testing in Bahrain. Up until now, though, F1’s drivers have had time to kill, and the vast majority of them have been doing it in style.
Given a break from their teams for a couple of months, information on what drivers get up to is limited to their social media output and occasional sightings by fans. Some, like world champion Max Verstappen, value their privacy during the winter and keep Instagram posts to a minimum. Others love to share.
We’ve trawled two months of social media posts so you don’t have to, to bring you a brief summation of what F1’s megastars have been up to over the winter.
If you’re an F1 fan, you probably saw Hamilton break the internet with his ice-cold photoshoot alongside a Ferrari F40 and Enzo Ferrari’s trackside villa on his first day at Maranello. But before his arrival at his new team, which included his first 30 laps as a Ferrari driver around the Fiorano test track, the seven-time champion had spent some of his winter break in British Columbia.
Being an adrenaline junkie, Hamilton wasn’t satisfied with your standard double diamond runs, and instead met up with snowboarding legend Shaun White to take a helicopter ride to find some powdery backcountry — all while dressed in red, naturally. A minute-long video on Instagram, appropriately set to Wu-Tang Clan’s “Protect Ya Neck,” showed Hamilton riding in a helicopter, snowboarding in deep powder and catching some serious air.
Around the same time, Hamilton’s former performance coach, Angela Cullen, posted a photo from a ski resort on her Instagram. Linking the two seemed like a stretch, but in the background of the photo was a red piste marker with the number 44 (Hamilton’s race number). The internet put two and two together and somehow arrived at the correct conclusion that after two seasons apart, Cullen was joining forces with Hamilton again ahead of the 2025 season.
Norris’ early-January Instagram feed was full of photos from the gyms, golf courses and sand dunes of Dubai. Nothing unusual about that for an F1 driver, but it was an incident that he had nothing to do with that generated the most headlines around his name.
Footage of a red Ferrari F40 losing control on a mountain road above Monaco went viral in January as it showed the $2 million 1980s supercar spinning 180 degrees and crashing into a barrier. The number plate matched the car Norris reportedly bought after the Miami Grand Prix last year, although it was clear from the footage that Norris was not at the wheel when it crashed.
Fortunately, the unknown driver was unharmed and the car moved off the road to a layby before the video ended, but the damage to the rear of the vehicle looked expensive.
It didn’t take long for Russell to get back behind the wheel of a Mercedes, but with F1 testing still a couple of months away, he had to make do with an AMG GT on a frozen lake in Sweden.
In a video posted to his Instagram, Russell showed exceptional car control as he danced the bright yellow supercar across a frozen lake at more than 120 mph. At some point, though, it seems that car control lapsed as he also shared a photo of the same Mercedes firmly wedged in a snowbank.
“Limits are made to be pushed after all!!” read the caption.
And it wouldn’t be Russell’s Instagram account without copious amounts of shirtless training photos from various exotic outdoor gyms throughout January.
Judging by his posts on Instagram, Tsunoda’s main focus over the winter was consuming as much Japanese food as possible.
The food-loving Racing Bulls driver posted a number of photos from restaurants in Japan, as well as one from inside a sauna and another from a packed auditorium of fans. It was the bowl full of ramen on the post titled, “Winter break postcards from Yuki” that he seemed happiest about, though.
The new Mercedes reserve driver appeared to spend most of his winter riding bicycles on gravel roads in Australia, including taking part in a race wearing nothing but a pair of budgy smugglers. When he wasn’t wearing various forms of tight-fitting lycra, Bottas appeared to be enjoying the fruits of his various side projects — including Oath gin and Ihana wine — while also partaking in several Aussie barbecues.
Leclerc’s mid-winter training camp included cross-country skiing, time pushing weights in the gym and a few hands of poker. Naturally, it was all caught in stylish, candid photography at a five-star resort in the Italian Dolomites.
Albon’s break was standard F1 driver fare. A “chill holiday” with his girlfriend and pro golfer Lily Muni He in the Maldives (including a photo from a business class suite watching a video of Hamilton on his seatback screen) followed by a more stressful-looking training camp.
After Instagram posts celebrating Christmas, New Year’s and a test in a two-year-old Haas in January, Ocon visited Paris for an NBA game between the San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers.
Standing courtside as a VIP, Ocon commented “That game was craaaazy” as the Pacers won 136-98. In a photo with Spurs 7-foot-3 center Victor Wembanyama, Ocon, who is among F1’s tallest drivers at 6-1, measured only right below the shoulders of his fellow Frenchman.
Piastri made the most of his time back home in Australia by taking in a cricket test match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before New Year’s, in which Australia beat India, and a trip to the Australian Open in late January. He also found time to post from the gym and a trip to some white-sand beaches in his homeland.
Perhaps the biggest accomplishment over the winter goes to the youngest driver on the grid. After turning 18 last August, Antonelli — who has already completed extensive testing in Mercedes F1 cars ahead of his debut this year — was finally old enough to attempt his driving test in his native Italy.
Five months later and Antonelli posted a photo of him from a driving school car with a thumbs up and beaming smile. His team, Mercedes, confirmed the Italian was now the proud owner of an F1 super licence and an Italian driving licence.