Ranking the top 10 Formula 1 drivers of 2025

10. Carlos Sainz

Down 6

Once Sainz found his feet at Williams, two podiums were testament to his class

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

It took a while for Sainz to get going at Williams but, once he did, he demonstrated his class as both a driver and a driving force at the team. It had been an inauspicious start in Australia, where he mistimed an upshift behind the safety car and spun out, but was credited for helping team-mate Alex Albon work his way into fifth with his insight on the pitwall.

The points slowly began to trickle in during the early season, but struggles in qualifying and poor luck held him back in the middle part of the campaign. Baku in September was the turning point; Sainz was in the running for pole, and maintained his grid position of second for much of the race.

Only George Russellʼs hard-medium tyre strategy precluded him from managing that. Still, the Spaniard was off the mark with a podium, and he soon began to assert himself ahead of Albon within the team.

A 10th-place finish followed in Singapore despite being thrown out of qualifying for a DRS infringement, he finished third in the Austin sprint, and then converted a top-three qualifying result into fifth in Las Vegas.

By this stage, Sainz was producing stellar performances in qualifying when the car was up to it, and Qatar bore another podium finish – this time, moving up in the order after starting seventh. JBL

9. Andrea Kimi Antonelli

New entry 

Antonelli got through a buffeting first season in F1, a pole and podium finishes vindication for his promotion

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

There were those who sneered at Antonelli and his promotion to Mercedes after a difficult solitary season in Formula 2, for he had a big pair of racing boots to fill: those of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. Circumstances in 2025 have validated Toto Wolff’s faith in Antonelli, on several fronts.

Setting aside all that has transpired in the F1 season, F2 has proved itself to be a ridiculous lottery in which on-track results are little more useful for gauging a driver’s quality than reading the tea leaves. It would have been pointless to leave Antonelli there for another year.

In F1, Antonelli has navigated a challenging year in which a failed mid-season upgrade threatened to destroy his equilibrium. The Australia opener set the tone for what was to come: a spirited, if scrappy, qualifying left him 16th but, during the eventful race that followed in mixed conditions, Antonelli had a harum-scarum run to fourth – fewer than two seconds off his more experienced team-mate.

It was no surprise to see him on a pole for the first time, in Miami, but by his own admission the new rear suspension geometry cost him three months. The races after it was removed in Hungary were confidence-rebuilding exercises – and largely successful ones, too. SC

8. Isack Hadjar

New entry 

Hadjar bounced back from debut devastation, earning himself promotion to the top team for 2026

Photo by: Hector Vivas / Getty Images

The image of Hadjarʼs miserable debut in Australia was powerful, when he was consoled by Lewis Hamiltonʼs father Anthony in the paddock after slipping into the wall on the formation lap – such is the pressure on rookie drivers to perform.

But the rebound was stunning. In China, the Franco-Algerian put his car seventh on the grid and outqualified Yuki Tsunoda, and Hadjar was seventh again in Japan. His first points emerged at Suzuka through finishing eighth.

Called upon by Racing Bulls then-boss Laurent Mekies to improve his qualifying consistency, Hadjar reeled off a string of Q3 performances at the start of the European season, finishing sixth in Monaco and seventh at Barcelona to demonstrate his burgeoning talent.

August’s Dutch GP presented his day of days. After starting fourth, he absorbed lap-after-lap pressure from Charles Leclerc to keep hold of a top-four position. When Lando Norris retired, this was upgraded to a first F1 podium.

With continued strong performances, enabled by a benign-handling VCARB 02 chassis, Hadjar put himself on the map – and his promotion to Red Bull felt very much expected by the end of the season. Just as it has been for his predecessors, it will be a huge challenge for Hadjar, but heʼs got the drive and determination to deal with it. JBL

7. Pierre Gasly

No change

Mixed conditions gave Gasly the chance to shine in an Alpine that was often less than user-friendly

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

It was a case of out of the frying pan, into the ire when Gasly extracted himself from the Red Bull machine at the end of 2022 and took up residence at an Alpine team in a state of seemingly permanent chaos. Gasly has been privy to a revolving door of team management and senior technical staff, but one constant has been his performance level.

It’s long been known that Renault’s hybrid power unit is the weakest on the grid, hence the ruthless decision to drop it next season. But the deficiencies in the engine bay only go some of the way towards accounting for the shortcomings of the A525, which looked neat enough around some circuits without being especially fast, and has been bedevilled by bouncing problems all year.

Raising the rear ride height to mitigate that kills downforce, so it’s little surprise Gasly and his team-mates were bit-part players.

When Alpine ditched Jack Doohan for Franco Colapinto, more of a known quantity, it provided more context for assessing Gasly’s level. Gasly has done a better job of extracting results from a car that is manifestly difficult – and in mixed conditions he has shone. Sixth in the wet at Silverstone was a highlight but he was remarkable, too, in ghastly conditions during qualifying in Las Vegas. SC

6. Nico Hulkenberg

Up 2

Veteran Hulkenbergʼs experience reflected in his exceptional racecraft

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli

After 15 years in the Formula 1 sphere, it felt inevitable that Nico Hulkenberg would never get a podium – and even less so, after moving to a down-on-its-luck Sauber for 2025. Yet the teamʼs great strides aerodynamically across the season and Hulkenbergʼs wealth of experience finally coalesced at Silverstone, where the German veteran claimed a hugely popular third place in wet-torrential-dry conditions.

Hulkenbergʼs impressive season didnʼt live and die with just that result, however. Heʼd already clinched a seventh-place finish in Melbourne in similarly poor conditions. While outqualified by rookie team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto on a regular basis in the early part of the season, Hulkenbergʼs racecraft was on a different plane; he just needed to click with the C45 over a single lap.

Not that qualifying really mattered; his Silverstone third place came after starting 19th, and his fifth at Barcelona followed another Q1 exit.

He continued to chalk up points into the late season for Sauber in a heavily congested midfield battle. Fourth on the grid for the Austin sprint went begging, but he at least took solace in eighth in the full race. In fact, Hulkenberg didnʼt make a Q3 appearance until Interlagos in November – testament to the strength of his race performances this year. He seems to get better with age. JBL

5. Oscar Piastri

Up 1

Piastri is quite philosophical about the season’s conclusion – the lessons learned will only make him stronger

Photo by: Mario Renzi - Formula 1 - Getty Images

“Obviously I would have wished for a slightly different ending,” said Piastri after the Abu Dhabi season finale, “but I think this year I’ve learned a hell of a lot about myself as a race car driver, as a person. I think if I had been presented with this season at the start of the year, with the pole positions and the wins and the podiums, I definitely would have been pretty happy with that.

“And, even in the tough moments, I’ve learned a lot about myself and how I can be stronger in the future. So ultimately there’s a little bit of disappointment but I can be very proud of the season I’ve had and plenty of lessons to take to the future.”

Piastri took the lead of the world championship in April with victory in Saudi Arabia but it unravelled after Monza in September. Whether you choose to believe the conspiracy theory that he was deliberately being hobbled by McLaren, or the more persuasive rationale that the need to induce rear-end slides to help the car turn on low-grip circuits simply doesn’t compute with his driving style, the second phase of the year was problematic and cost him the title.

Still, three seasons into his F1 career, Piastri showed world championship capability – but also that there’s more work to do. SC

4. Lando Norris

Down 1

Could Norris have made less of a meal about clinching the drivers’ crown? He’s just happy he did it his way

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Although Norris held on in Abu Dhabi to clinch his first world title, there’s a feeling that it could have been wrapped up much sooner. Some of the mitigating factors were down to McLaren’s mistakes, others due to bad luck, but Norris was not entirely flawless either.

A strong start to the year with victory in Australia was soon dampened by a run of mistakes and iffy performances across the early-season flyaways – qualifying errors in China, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia cost him the championship lead to team-mate Oscar Piastri.

A suspension change for Canada gave Norris more front-end feeling, although points were left on the table in Montreal after his clash with Piastri late on. So he had to dig deep and change his approach to Saturdays, and the results started to come from the Austrian GP.

A string of good form, including three wins in four, was brought to a shuddering halt by his Zandvoort oil leak, and a missed Baku chance, as Piastri floundered, kicked the can down the road.

The title would have been done and dusted in Qatar, even with McLaren’s pit malfeasance, had the team not suffered a double Las Vegas disqualification for excessive plank wear. Arguably too many off-days early on, but Norris deserves credit for turning it around. JBL

3. Charles Leclerc

Down 1

Leclerc’s commitment to Ferrari – and wringing the absolute maximum from his car – never wavered

Photo by: Hector Vivas / Getty Images

Another largely wasted season, another year closer to 30 for Leclerc. Ferrari’s golden boy will be greying at the temples ere long and yet there seems no end in sight for Maranello’s perpetual cycle of ‘interim seasons’.

A lesser driver would have begun phoning in the excuses, but Leclerc just dug in and extracted whatever was in the car. Week in, week out, you could stand trackside and watch him wringing the recalcitrant SF-25’s neck. Not for nothing does he occupy the same plane as Gilles Villeneuve in the hearts of the tifosi.

Only in the China sprint has the SF-25 looked like a winning car. Team-mate Lewis Hamilton had the upper hand there, as at Silverstone, but for the rest of the season Leclerc was the one bringing home the results, including several swashbuckling podiums. Second behind Lando Norris in Monaco, pressuring the McLaren while they were bottled up behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, was a strong headline result, but his best days involved gritty drives under pressure.

He laid down a marker by keeping Norris behind him to claim third in Saudi, again with George Russell in Spain, and then with Verstappen in Belgium. But his combative performance in the US topped all these. SC

2. George Russell

Up 3

Russell has thrived in the role of team leader. That team now has to give him the car to complement his talents

Photo by: James Sutton / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

When Russell joined Mercedes, he perhaps expected a continuation of the team’s dominant streak across the first stage of the turbo-hybrid era; what he likely didn’t expect was Mercedes finding life tough with ground-effect aero amid the current generation.

Thrust into a team leader role after Lewis Hamilton departed, Russell hasn’t been weighed down by the added responsibilities one iota – actually, he’s thrived. Having opened the year with two podium finishes, the Briton was impressive in securing second – his third podium in the first four GPs – in Bahrain. Here, he managed a wealth of electrical problems to hold off a recovering Lando Norris.

His victory in Canada was a showcase in his comfort leading a race, where he soaked up spikes of pressure from Max Verstappen, but you could argue that his Singapore success was even better. It was an unexpected win, since Mercedes hadn’t anticipated its W16 would be so amenable in the Marina Bay sweatbox, but Russell was serene in front. It easily dispelled the disappointment of dropping his car into the wall in 2023.

Even on the rare occasions when he didn’t get qualifying quite right, as seen in Baku, his ability to make a long stint on hard tyres work to his advantage brought him back into play. Think what he could do with a proper frontrunning car… JBL

1. Max Verstappen

No change

Yes, you’re number one: Verstappen’s fightback into championship contention was hugely impressive

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

His mood might have swerved all over the place, like a shopping trolley with an errant pair of front wheels, but Verstappen seldom put a wheel wrong when it counted in 2025.

He knew going into the year that his car was going to be sub-optimal – Red Bull’s performance over the second half of 2024 very much suggested a downward trend line, and testing indicated that the RB21 hadn’t shaken some of its predecessor’s bad habits. Outside the cockpit, the ongoing factional warfare within the Red Bull organisation was energy-sapping.

Verstappen’s response was a twin-pronged assault that bamboozled his rivals. While conspicuously not involving himself in the Red Bull civil war – in public at least – he gave the impression of one who had in effect already given up their world championship ambitions; even at the final round of the year, having dragged himself back into contention, he waved off questions about his chances by saying, “I’ve already got four trophies at home”.

On track, though, he gave the opposite impression of one who was disillusioned and demotivated, attacking at every turn. Remarkable as his late-season run of victories and podiums were after Red Bull finally unlocked more pace from the RB21, Verstappen laid the foundations for that renaissance with pugnacious, determined earlier wins against the odds.

Without those triumphs at Suzuka and Imola he would have had too much to do – even so, he was 104 points adrift after round 15 of 24.

Those early-season moments were classic cases of Verstappen maximising every vulnerability of his rivals: an error-strewn Japanese GP by both McLaren drivers, Oscar Piastri leaving the door fractionally open at Imola’s first corner. To Verstappen, a fraction is just enough, and he will attack with tenacity and fury.

Only his moment of madness with George Russell in the Spanish GP detracts from a remarkable season and one of the most incredible comebacks of all time. SC

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. 

Maximum attack: Verstappen keeps his foot in at the start of the Mexican Grand Prix

Photo by: Clive Rose / Formula 1 via Getty Images