{"id":1344,"date":"2025-12-04T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themotornerd.blog\/?p=1344"},"modified":"2025-12-03T18:32:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T18:32:18","slug":"2025-motornerd-awards-i-team-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themotornerd.blog\/index.php\/2025\/12\/04\/2025-motornerd-awards-i-team-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 Motornerd Awards I Team Of The Year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>It\u2019s the first annual Motornerd Awards, an end of year celebration of all that we\u2019ve witnessed in the last 12 months. Max Verstappen took the driver of the year, but for the next award we go to an entirely different championship: the team of the year.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I won\u2019t give the usual awards-show spiel about what this award means and every way in which it\u2019s prestigious, but I will inform you it was a close cut decision. Toyota Gazoo Racing&#8217;s World Rally Team were right up there with 12 victories and a complete sweep of the manufacturers and drivers titles in the WRC, also considered were McLaren\u2019s F1 team for their stellar campaign. Instead, it\u2019s the reigning World Endurance Champions who get the nod. The 2025 Motornerd team of the year is that of Ferrari AF Corse\u2019s Hypercar outfit.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Of course it would feel a bit unfair to hand out this award to the brand that runs countless privateer and factory efforts themselves, but the Hypercar team is a complete works effort.<\/strong> <strong>This year the Scuderia have stood out to me amidst such a stacked grid including multiple Le Mans winners Toyota, a new and improved JOTA\/Cadillac and many other brands the Platinum Era of Sportscar Racing.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Despite the championship\u2019s parity assuring BOP, with lap times separated by hundreds rather than tenths they\u2019ve proven themselves time and time again. Though victory may have alluded the Scuderia in the post Le Mans rounds, they still found themselves in the hunt at Fuji and Bahrain, narrowly missing out on podiums on both occasions.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>There\u2019s more brilliance to be found, as not only did they control the driver\u2019s and manufacturers\u2019 standings at every round, the top three cars in the drivers standings were all Ferraris. It doesn\u2019t hold a candle to Toyota\u2019s 2023 campaign by any means, but it\u2019s the kind of dominance not seen last year. Yes, they faltered in the second half of the season but their stranglehold in the championship\u2019s first half meant they were never really going to lose their grasp on the silverware.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I<strong>t&#8217;s a historically significant title for Maranello as well, as while the F1 team continues to flounder amid strategy woes, internal politics and a chairman who wants his drivers to plug their ears and swallow the continuing mediocrity of F1\u2019s eldest team, the Hypercar squad just leap from strength to strength. In a grid that\u2019s only getting more competitive with every passing race, Ferrari have now completed the transition from apprentice to master, and succeeded Toyota in being the benchmark for everyone else to beat.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>That takes some doing, especially with zero driver transfers and having seemingly changed nothing since their debut. In a market where almost every brand has brought in new drivers and in which new aero jokers are becoming increasingly common, there\u2019s a unique confidence about Ferrari in this paddock. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u2018But of course they\u2019re confident!\u2019 I hear you cry, and yes, Ferrari will never shed the image of a team constantly admiring its own trophy cabinet and cleaning a massive portrait of Michael Schumacher every day. But with the F1 team there\u2019s a subtle arrogance that is emitted, a refusal to change their ways. A reluctance to sacrifice tradition to keep up with the ever-modernizing McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull crews.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>In WEC, there\u2019s none of that. It\u2019s a self-assured team that aren\u2019t chasing the glory of the past, because that was officially consigned to the history books in 1992. The World Sportscar Championship is gone, and WEC will never quite conform to its own shadow. This Ferrari understands that; they acknowledge what came before but they\u2019re not trying to repeat the past: they\u2019re focusing on building their own legacy, and expanding the Scuderia\u2019s own by proxy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>And this year, it\u2019s shown. And it\u2019s why they are the 2025 Motornerd Team of The Year.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">image credit &#8211; Lukas Raich, CC BY-SA 4.0 <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\">https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s the first annual Motornerd Awards, an end of year celebration of all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13,20,28,18,19],"class_list":["post-1344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prototype-racing","tag-13","tag-2025-wec","tag-ferrari","tag-hypercar","tag-wec"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>2025 Motornerd Awards I Team Of The Year - 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