Ferrari star’s brother and Red Bull’s future F1 hope: Every Abu Dhabi GP rookie driver swap

Remember at the F1 season-opening 2025 Australian Grand Prix when we thought there were a lot of rookies about? Well in Abu Dhabi, there will be even more!

F1 takes to the Yas Marina Circuit this weekend for the final race of the 2025 season, and there is still a drivers' championship title to be decided.

Meanwhile, teams including Racing Bulls and Aston Martin are squabbling for position in the constructors' championship, hoping to finish as high up the standings as possible.

Amid all of this, however, is one last attempt for the teams to conform to F1's rookie driver rules for 2025, and that means FP1 will be full of rookies taking the places of some of the most experienced F1 drivers.

On Friday December 5, there will in fact be nine rookies on the grid in total.

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, for example, will miss out as F1 session debutant Cian Shields takes over for FP1, and beside him in the other Aston Martin will be Jak Crawford, with neither Alonso or his team-mate Lance Stroll taking part in FP1.

The sport's most successful driver Lewis Hamilton will also make way for Arthur Leclerc, the brother of his team-mate Charles Leclerc, on Friday morning.

18-year-old Arvid Lindblad, who has recently been confirmed to be racing full-time with Racing Bulls next year, is replacing Yuki Tsunoda at Red Bull in FP1, as the team get another chance to see Lindblad next to four-time world champion Max Verstappen.

Lindblad is expected to be Red Bull's next 'big thing', and has broken records in multiple junior series, becoming the youngest winner in F3 history in 2024 at just 16, with a victory in the Bahrain Sprint. He also became the youngest winner in F2 history at 17 years old in Saudi Arabia earlier this year.

While 21-year-old Isack Hadjar has recently been promoted up into Red Bull for 2026, Lindblad may be the next on that production line, and with Verstappen's future up in the air, he could well be driving for the main team before you know it.

Every FP1 driver swap at 2025 Abu Dhabi GP

The use of rookies in FP1 in Abu Dhabi is all part of F1's rookie driver rules for 2025, which state that teams have to place rookies in each of their cars at least twice per season.

Mercedes and Sauber have already fulfilled that quota, but the other eight teams have not and are doing it on the final race weekend of the season.

Pato O'Ward will return to the cockpit of a McLaren F1 car having taken part in multiple FP1 sessions in the past, but this weekend he will briefly replace Oscar Piastri, meaning the title contender won't get a full weekend's running in his car.

It will be a busy Friday for the rookies who are also competing in the F2 season finale this weekend, which include the aforementioned Lindblad, Shields, Crawford and Williams-backed driver Luke Browning.

Below is the full list of driver swaps you can expect to see in the first practice session on Friday at the Abu Dhabi GP.

F1 HEADLINES: McLaren pull out of Abu Dhabi media duties as driver slams ‘unacceptable’ team orders

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Sam Cook - Digital Journalist

Sam Cook is a talented young sports journalist and social media professional who now specialises in Formula 1, having previously worked as a football journalist and a local news reporter for a variety of different brands.

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