Bold predictions my gf and I made over dinner tonight.
Our prominent storylines. Ocon starts to lose a couple of FP1s to Doohan. He drives well, gets given contract. Likely good marketing given popularity of Australian drivers. Also bias.
This is also kinda based on the feeling that Perez turned down the 1 year deal. Then underperformed. Then failed. So the deal was taken away completely. Perez finds himself seatless due to hubris. We call stop calling him Checo and start calling him Chicarus.
Sainz signs with Williams. The reveal of this is delayed to work out wtf they are going to do with Sargeant from now until the end of the year. They likely pick up Mick Shuey for some races, or just tell Sargeant to sell himself well to other racing comps. Vowels has sold Sainz on them being a top team from 2026.
Riccardo is put in to Red Bull for a mixture of highest highs and out of race money. Seen as too valuable commercially.
Ocon is given a chance to be the lead driver in a team in a hope to bring back his f2 consistency days as he mentors Lawson on how to hate his teammates. Lawson is already quite proficient.