How the premium pack of F1 rookies fared in 2025

Andrea Kimi Antonelli

Mercedes raised a few eyebrows when it fast-tracked junior phenomenon Antonelli’s Formula 1 debut to replace Lewis Hamilton. For a youngster who had made his first tentative steps in single-seater racing in 2021 and had skipped F3 altogether, the challenge doesn’t get much bigger than representing a top team and stepping into a seven-time world champion’s shoes, even if Mercedes was keen to play down expectations of a driver who was just 18.

It did Antonelli and Mercedes a world of good, then, when the Italian took fourth on his Melbourne debut and backed that up with sixth in China and a pole in the Miami sprint. But his inexperience did catch up with him when F1 headed back to Europe and Mercedes introduced an unsuccessful suspension update that derailed both Antonelli and team-mate George Russell. And while Russell had the experience to deal with the setback, it sent Antonelli into a tailspin.

The ill-fated Imola update coincided with Antonelli’s home debut, and he admitted to feeling drained by the increased attention that would be a feature of the busy European paddocks.

“I had a very long, difficult period in Europe,” Antonelli said when quizzed at the Abu Dhabi finale on his many ups and downs in 2025. “I even started to doubt myself and I was also afraid that I wouldn’t have been able to get out of it.”

Mercedes chief Toto Wolff had to show tough love at times, particularly after a poor weekend at Monza. But a maiden podium in Canada was just one of several signs of Antonelli’s class – too many to throw out the baby with the bathwater. He did bounce back from September’s Azerbaijan GP onwards and, as Mercedes’ performances stabilised, so did Antonelli’s rookie season. He started to deliver cleaner weekends that began yielding big points.

If 2025 was supposed to be a crash course for Antonelli on how to become a well-rounded F1 driver, in time to start the 2026 regulations era on the front foot, then you could consider it mission accomplished.

Hadjar starred at the Dutch GP - aside from breaking his trophy - and his consistency has given him a Red Bull promotion

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

Isack Hadjar

One look at the 2026 driver roster tells you everything you need to know about Hadjar’s rookie campaign with Racing Bulls. Other than Mercedes protege Antonelli, Hadjar placed the highest of 2025’s batch of rookies by consistently qualifying where his car deserved to be – between ninth and 10th on average – and then converting that into regular points.

His season didn’t get off to a good start, though. Hadjar infamously spun off a damp track on the formation lap of the Australian GP. But while that could have been a traumatic and destabilising experience for a 20-year-old newcomer, he bounced back by claiming eighth in his third race in Japan.

Hadjar had a head start over Liam Lawson, who was sent back to Racing Bulls following just two disastrous grands prix weekends at Red Bull. But, even after the Kiwi adjusted to his new reality, Hadjar still proved the quicker of the two on balance, outqualifying him 21 to six, including sprints but not accounting for two mechanical issues for Lawson.

Hadjar’s junior formulas reputation as a bit of a hothead bubbled to the surface at times, but by and large he proved a stable and solid pair of hands with the raw speed to earn Red Bull promotion at some stage. A maiden podium at Zandvoort further cemented his position and, with Yuki Tsunoda never getting into his rhythm at Red Bull, the likelihood of a 2026 promotion was soon upgraded from possible to inevitable.

Does Hadjar have the steel to endure alongside Max Verstappen and dispel Red Bull’s infamous second seat syndrome? Time will tell, but the 2026 regulation changes will give the Milton Keynes team a platform to start afresh and provide a more driveable car to both its racers.

Bearman recovered from early season jitters into a solid first full campaign

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Oliver Bearman

Bearman entered F1 with a bang when he was thrown in at the deep end at the 2024 Saudi Arabian GP deputising for Carlos Sainz at Ferrari. At a tricky circuit and in the grid’s highest-profile team, the 18-year-old showed he had the steel to match his talent by taking seventh on his surprise debut.

His maiden full-time campaign for Haas has only gone to confirm he is still on the right trajectory to one day become a Ferrari driver full-time. But that doesn’t mean it was plain sailing. Coinciding with a false start for the team with an aerodynamically unstable car, Bearman crashed out in Australia. And by his own admission, the first half of his rookie campaign wasn’t to the standard he had expected of himself, laced with errors. Inevitably so? Perhaps, but that didn’t make them any less frustrating to the highly self-critical Briton. There was an unnecessary pit entry crash under a red flag at Silverstone, plus other smaller errors as the Ferrari junior got up to speed and gained nine penalty points in the process.

But the Silverstone weekend also proved a turning point in a good way, with Haas’s significant upgrade package boosting Bearman’s confidence aboard the VF-25, especially in qualifying. The following race at Spa was his first points finish in nine races, and after the summer break he was the second-highest scoring driver in F1’s midfield, behind only double podium finisher Sainz. He also tended to have the measure of experienced team-mate Esteban Ocon in qualifying.

Bearman’s finest hour was his dogged Mexican GP performance, opportunistically passing Max Verstappen early on and then soaking up the pressure to resist the world champion and other chasers. It earned him a career-best fourth, and further underlined that when Haas was at its best, Bearman could capitalise on the opportunity.

After a bruising two-race spell at Red Bull, Lawson did enough to secure his Racing Bulls future

Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images

Liam Lawson

As far as ruthless driver swaps go, Red Bull truly outdid itself when it stripped Lawson of his seat alongside Max Verstappen after just two admittedly woeful weekends: he crashed out in Melbourne from 18th on the grid, and qualified dead last for China’s sprint and grand prix.

Helmut Marko and team boss Christian Horner felt Lawson’s two abysmal weekends in Australia and China were so severe that his season was threatening to spiral out of control, while the New Zealander argued that he simply needed a lot more time in the seat, and that a lack of confidence in his own driving was never the real issue.

“I would have liked to have thought that with the right amount of time, I would have got my head around it honestly,” Lawson reflected. “Two races was… I honestly don’t even really remember them. But a lot of things have happened this year that have made me a lot stronger.”

Lawson understandably felt hard done by when he was swapped with Yuki Tsunoda, but the 23-year-old had little time to dwell on such a brutal demotion as he dived headfirst into the next race with his new team at Suzuka, the start of a 22-race spell alongside promising rookie Hadjar. It proved a career-defining stint to secure his future as Red Bull mulled over which of its five drivers to distribute over its four 2026 cars.

Hadjar’s head start on Lawson, by having done the full pre-season and the first two weekends, gave the Frenchman a leg-up at the start. And while Lawson proved the slower of the two over one lap, by an ever-dwindling margin, he did manage to find a stable performance platform and gradually worked his way back to the required form to earn an extended stay at Racing Bulls.

Lawson has now completed 35 grands prix but still hasn’t had the luxury of completing a full campaign for the same team. The 2026 season will hopefully give him that chance, and with it the opportunity to dispel any lingering doubts about his staying power.

Committed, focused and hungry, Bortoleto has rewarded Sauber's faith in him

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli

Gabriel Bortoleto

Bortoleto may have been the reigning F2 champion, but by making his F1 debut for struggling Sauber the Brazilian’s rookie season looked set to slip under the radar. The first Brazilian on the grid in eight years suffered a humbling debut experience in Melbourne, spinning out in difficult circumstances. But the former McLaren junior rebounded admirably, even if Sauber’s lack of competitiveness meant he had nothing to show for it, resigned to finishes outside the points over the first 10 grand prix weekends.

Sauber’s 2025 season started in earnest at Barcelona at the end of May, the scene of a major upgrade package that included a new floor. The updates didn’t dramatically change the C45 but, given F1 2025’s tight midfield margins, that was all it took to lift Sauber into the thick of the midfield battle instead of the tail end. Bortoleto earned his first points with eighth in Austria, and had two more standout performances in Hungary – qualifying seventh and finishing sixth – and Monza, which yielded another eighth place.

While Bortoleto’s maiden campaign was far from perfect, including a gut-wrenching home debut in Brazil that ended in two crashes, he has shown the required pace and the strength of personality to thrive in the highest echelons of motor racing. That was particularly evident in his raw pace against ace qualifier Nico Hulkenberg. While the German veteran grabbed Sauber’s headline result with a long overdue podium at Silverstone, Bortoleto embarked on a run of eight consecutive qualifying sessions beating his team-mate. Hulkenberg recovered to level the qualifying score at 15-15, but was kept honest by a youngster still learning the ropes.

Internally, Sauber has been mightily impressed with Bortoleto’s speed, attitude and relentless work ethic, justifying its decision to pair a veteran with a promising rookie rather than putting another safe pair of hands next to Hulkenberg as it morphs into the Audi works squad. “I think it’s all about the confidence you have in the car, and it has been a great season in that sense to be matching a guy like Nico,” affirmed Bortoleto.

Another mid-season arrival, Colapinto did just enough to secure his future at Alpine into 2026

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Franco Colapintoand
Jack Doohan

As Alpine chief Flavio Briatore demonstrated in 2025, Red Bull isn’t the only organisation in F1 capable of making brutal driver decisions. Rookie Doohan was still getting started when a brace of incidents was enough for him to face the axe, with a high-speed Suzuka crash the most prominent mistake that saw the Australian demoted to a reserve role after round six in Miami.

The truth is that, barring spectacular rookie form, Doohan’s place on the grid had already been undermined by the off-season signing of former Williams man Colapinto, who was able to bring significant backing from South American sponsors. That is no slight against Colapinto’s driving qualities, but with all else being equal it’s also not hard to see why Doohan was on a shorter leash than Colapinto has been since his promotion.

Stepping into a car mid-season was not necessarily a great birthday gift for Colapinto, who turned 22 in May, and certainly not when the car in question is the recalcitrant Alpine A525. While highly experienced team-mate Pierre Gasly was also struggling to get a tune out of the car, Colapinto had a much smaller body of work to fall back on as he tried to cope with the different driving style Enstone’s car required.

Despite a public admonishment from Briatore mid-season, Colapinto did just about enough to keep his seat until the end of the year and managed to get closer to Gasly on pace to extend that stay for 2026. Colapinto finished the season being comprehensively outqualified by Gasly at 17-5 and with zero points to his name, but the latter was understandable given Alpine was the first team to stop developing its 2025 car and put all its focus on 2026.

But as it aims to become a midfield force with Mercedes customer power units, its second seat may well increase in value over the next 12 months. Colapinto will have to progress to make it his own in the long term. And rather quickly, too, before Briatore changes his mind once more.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the January 2026 issue and subscribe today.

A costly crash at Suzuka set Doohan sliding towards the exit

Photo by: Bryn Lennon - Formula 1