The 2025 season is finally over. Lando Norris was crowned champion, beating Max Verstappen by just two points. Some drivers surprised positively, while others disappointed.
Overall, after 24 rounds, it’s time to rank the F1 class of 2025 for the final time.
1. Max Verstappen
Verstappen looked like the fastest driver throughout the year, but he absolutely cemented it with his late-season performances. He finished on the podiums for all of the last 10 races. During this streak he also took 6 wins, in addition to his 2 early season wins. Considering that his teammate was barely able to score points, this has to be considered one of the best performances in racing history. Sadly for Verstappen, he came short in the championship battle by just two points. The good news is that he now clearly enters the debate for being the greatest ever driver.
2. Charles Leclerc
This has quietly been one of Leclerc’s best seasons in Formula One. He essentially dominated his highly-rated teammate for the entire year. Leclerc had 7 podiums compared to Hamilton’s 0. Additionally, Leclerc would often pressure the top drivers in a car that shouldn’t be able to do so. He was one of the more entertaining drivers to watch this year, and if Ferrari ever pull it together and create a great car, there’s no doubt he will deliver.
3. Lando Norris
His season has been both praised and criticised. Obviously, there were some good moments and some bad ones, but Norris is ultimately the 2025 world champion. Considering how many points he lost due to events outside his control (Dutch GP, Austin sprint, Vegas DSQ and various bad McLaren decisions), it’s actually impressive he still made it. Norris had several great drives, particularly in Monaco, Mexico and Brazil. When he wasn’t winning races, he would usually still make the podium, and that kind of consistency gave him the title.
4. Oscar Piastri
It’s a shame that Piastri had his late-season collapse. He had performed extremely well the entire year up until the Italian Grand Prix. At this point, he was the clear title favourite. What then followed was a terrible streak between Azerbaijan and Las Vegas. Thankfully, Piastri showed his talent again at the final two rounds. He was just 13 points off Norris in the end, so it was a very good season overall. Piastri made a huge step up from last year. If he can put together a fully consistent season next year, he can win the championship.
5. George Russell
A super fast driver who has become very consistent as well. But there weren’t too many highlights from Russell, even his wins looked fairly easy on tracks that simply suited the car. He scored a lot of points, but in a way it also seems like he wasn’t pushed to his own maximum. Hopefully Antonelli can develop quickly enough to push Russell next year. Ranking fifth may surprise some fans, as many believe Russell is the third best driver in F1. But Leclerc had a much larger gap down to Hamilton than Russell did, indicating that Russell is a bit off Leclerc’s pace as well.
6. Carlos Sainz
Sainz had a great deal of bad luck in the early and middle parts of the season. By the end of the year, his talent was finally put on full display. He beat Albon solidly in qualifying sessions but lost in the head-to-head race matchups. Yet, Sainz had the best peaks and was the only midfield driver to score two podiums (something his replacement at Ferrari couldn’t even manage)! Based on Sainz’ previous proximity to Leclerc in terms of race performance, his overall level is very clear – currently sixth best in F1.
7. Alex Albon
He was essentially a top five driver in the first half of the year. Then his performances began to drop, likely because the other midfielder and backmarker teams caught up with Williams and surpassed them. It’s difficult to say whether Albon or Sainz was the best Williams driver, as they performed at their best at different times of the year. Overall, it was close, but being the seventh best driver of 2025 is no shame for Albon. It’s the best he’s ever been.
8. Fernando Alonso
Alonso started off slowly but eventually found some pace. Thoughout the middle of the season, he was incredible, and he also finished the year with an impressive drive in Abu Dhabi. One of the best statistics of the year is that he went undefeated against Lance Stroll in qualifying. Sure, it’s just against Stroll, but still remarkable that Alonso had that level of pace and consistency in qualifying at his advanced age. If Aston Martin produce a top car next year, he can fight for wins.
9. Lewis Hamilton
This has to be the worst year of Lewis Hamilton’s career. He didn’t make the podium once, even though teammate Leclerc did multiple times. Strangely, Hamilton showed solid pace in the beginning of the season and proceeded to drop off later in the year, with some truly horrific qualifying performances by the end of the year. You could argue Hamilton should be ranked worse than ninth, but looking at the entire season, he did have some good moments. But the 7-time world champion certainly has to improve next year if he has any ambitions to continue at Ferrari (or any other top team for that matter).
10. Oliver Bearman
Bearman already gave a glimpse of his talent last year, yet it was surprising to see how quick he actually is. His season started with some ups and downs, but following the summer break, he really got some top results. And not due to luck – Bearman’s results were fully merited, and he ended up beating his more experienced teammate. That makes him the highest ranked rookie on our list, and the only new driver to go straight into the top ten.
11. Nico Hülkenberg
Many predicted Sauber to be the worst car of the year, but that wasn’t really the case. At least not in Hülkenberg’s hands – the experienced German managed to score points quite frequently and he even managed the best result of his career at Silverstone. It was great to finally see him on the podium. In terms of qualifying pace, he surprisingly lost to Bortoleto. But he was much better in races. Perhaps Hülkenberg is finally prioritising race setups. In any case, he still has a lot of upside, even at his current age, so the Hulk is among the best drivers in the midfield.
12. Pierre Gasly
There’s only so much you can do in the worst car. Gasly did well to score on some occasions, because in most instances, the opportunities were just not there. He had many great qualifying performances throughout the year. And perhaps the Frenchman should be ranked higher than twelfth. But he had a really bad streak after the summer break where he looked like he’d lost all motivation. Aside from that, it was a pretty good year by Gasly.
13. Esteban Ocon
This was a down year for Esteban Ocon. Perhaps he wasn’t that motivated, or perhaps the Haas didn’t suit him. It wasn’t a bad performance as such, but we know that Ocon can do better than this. He was slightly behind rookie teammate Bearman, which was a disappointment, and their matchup will be interesting to follow next year. Ocon is an okay midfielder, but if he doesn’t get back to his 2021-2023 level, he could quickly fall behind some of the talented young drivers that will certainly rise in the rankings in the years to come.
14. Kimi Antonelli
The young Italian was clearly not ready for F1, and he probably shouldn’t have been placed in the second fastest car right from the go. Antonelli was expectedly far off George Russell’s pace the entire season. But he did have some highlights: Miami, Canada, Brazil and Las Vegas, most notably. We know the potential is there, and Antonelli is likely a top 5 driver in the future, but it will take him a few years to get there.
15. Isack Hadjar
It’s difficult to rank Hadjar. He had many good races and beat his teammate quite clearly. This is impressive for a mere rookie. At that same time, he had his share of bad races, as he was completely off the pace on some weekends. The car was really good when looking at onboards and telemetry. A solid, experienced driver could likely have finished eighth in the standings driving the Racing Bulls, so Hadjar’s season ultimately wasn’t as great as some fans think it was. But he was a rookie, and he will certainly improve from here, so Hadjar could become a midfield-level driver or a number two for a top team over time. Coincidentally, he will get that number two driver next year already.
16. Gabriel Bortoleto
Bortoleto showed some promise and won the qualifying head-to-head against Hülkenberg. In the races he missed out on some opportunities and frequently dropped back, as we saw in the final round in Abu Dhabi where points were certainly on the table. He also had some terrible races, with the absolute low-point being his home race in Brazil. It wasn’t a good season results-wise, but Bortoleto still showed some promise and that puts him ahead of some other drivers.
17. Lance Stroll
Obviously Stroll should have left F1 a long time ago, but daddy owns the team, so he stays. It sucks for the fans, as it would have been better to get actually talented drivers into the sport. Stroll does have experience however, he knows all the tracks at this point, so sometimes he makes it into the points. But there’s no further upside at this point and he was clearly beaten by Alonso this year. Especially in qualifying where he wasn’t even ahead of his teammate once.
18. Liam Lawson
He failed miserably in his two early races for Red Bull, but he never should have been put in that seat in the first place. After returning to Racing Bulls, things got better. Lawson scored 38 points and had a few highlights (Austria, Azerbaijan) but overall he was clearly beaten by a rookie teammate. Lawson is far from being a bad driver, but in today’s strong field, he is also far from the top.
19. Franco Colapinto
Colapinto had a stretch from Hungary to Mexico where he was about equal with Gasly. Sadly, the Argentinian did not show much upside at any point and didn’t log a single points finish, despite Gasly scoring a few times. Colapinto is still young and inexperienced, so he could improve next year. But this season was just so uneventful for him, hence the low ranking.
20. Yuki Tsunoda
Tsunoda accepted the near-impossible challenge of driving Red Bull’s second car for the majority of the year. It cost him his career as rarely made it into the top 10 and was generally far away from Verstappen. A disappointing year, and Tsunoda probably knows that his campaign would have gone much better had he stayed at Racing Bulls.
21. Jack Doohan
Doohan didn’t get a fair shot in F1 with just one appearance last year and six this year. Maybe he could have been a good driver if he had more team support and a full year to develop, but we’ll never know. His 2025 performances were nothing special though, so he must be ranked last.