The 2025 Formula One season ended in a tight three-way battle for the world championship and everything came down to the last race. McLaren’s Lando Norris came out on top to secure his first title, but Max Verstappen reminded everyone that you can’t truly ever count him out, as he and Red Bull experienced a late-season upswing in performance.
The F1 pack saw substantial change this year, as a new class of rookies joined the paddock, while Alpine and Red Bull made in-season driver swaps, among other tweaks to team driver line-ups.
Lewis Hamilton’s first year with Ferrari turned from hope to misery, as he failed to secure a podium finish over a season for the first time in his F1 career. Meanwhile, Mercedes found stability as George Russell brought strong consistency in the team’s new chapter after Hamilton’s departure, and Carlos Sainz adjusted to his new home at Williams, eventually returning to the podium twice.
The campaign featured plenty of close racing and a few surprises — such as the podiums scored by Isack Hadjar and Nico Hülkenberg — to end F1’s ground effect design era of 2022-2025. The cars and power units are changing next season, with the technical regulation overhaul giving teams and drivers a clean design slate. And F1 will welcome a new team to the grid in Cadillac, as well as welcome back two veteran drivers, Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas.
Before we turn the page to 2026, The Athletic’s experts Luke Smith and Madeline Coleman worked their way through determining their top 10 driver rankings for the year. As always, let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
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“We showed them one final time who’s boss.”
Max Verstappen’s last radio message of 2025 to his Red Bull race engineer GianPiero Lambiase was on the money. Yes, he’d missed out on a fifth straight title in Abu Dhabi by two points. But he went down fighting with a peerless display that summed up the extent of Verstappen’s excellence throughout the season.
A year where it took feats of Verstappen brilliance at Suzuka and Imola to beat the dominant McLarens ended with a surge that almost delivered the Dutchman a title he’d long written off. Whenever there was a win to seize, he did it with confidence. And his spirited drive through the field at Interlagos after a tough qualifying showed what’s great about Verstappen.
He did experience low moments in his year, particularly the clash with George Russell in Barcelona, which he should have avoided. That moment was costly for his championship — the resulting penalty cost him nine points, and he lost the title by two. And there was his spin in the rain at Silverstone, although this wasn’t helped by his car’s low-downforce dry weather setup.
But it’s otherwise hard to fault Verstappen throughout this season, which he rightly regards as his best in F1. He was on the podium at every single race post-summer break, regaining his trust in the RB21 car and returning to his sparkling best results.
Fans will remember Verstappen’s 2025 season as one of the all-time great title-losing F1 seasons.
Photo:
(Mark Thompson / Getty Images)
Qualifying H2H
24-0 vs. Lawson/Tsunoda
(Mark Thompson / Getty Images)
“Does nothing, finishes P3,” was a meme that circulated often on F1 social media in the early part of 2025. But it undersold George Russell’s performances, as this year he once again established his credentials as a future world champion.
Mercedes finally found a more stable car performance window in the last year of F1’s ground effect rules. This change helped it avoid the wild swings faced in earlier seasons. It wasn’t enough for Russell to put up any kind of sustained challenge to McLaren or Red Bull. Yet, he was a constant presence and seized the two race-winning opportunities that arose in Canada and Singapore.
Waiting until October to get his new Mercedes contract sewn up didn’t destabilize Russell this year. He often stressed that, in F1, performance is the only currency that counts. And he kept paying Mercedes back over and over. As rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli got up to speed, Russell spearheaded its efforts to make for a strong start to the post-Lewis Hamilton era.
Russell proved, yet again this year, that he remains one of the very best on the F1 grid. All he needs now is a car capable of mounting a season-long challenge for the title.
Photo:
(Mark Thompson / Getty Images)
Qualifying H2H
21-3 vs. Antonelli
(Mark Thompson / Getty Images)
Ferrari had a lot of pre-season hype, but didn’t meet expectations. The car was tricky, often shifting between being the fourth and fifth fastest on the grid each weekend. Yet, Charles Leclerc managed to extract the maximum, and then some, to bag seven podium finishes this year.
The 28-year-old became a constant in Q3, only missing out once when he qualified 11th at Imola, and he secured one pole position in Hungary. It came as a complete shock to everyone, including Leclerc, given he was only sixth-quickest in Q2. By comparison, his teammate Lewis Hamilton failed to advance to Q3 nine times this season, which included a trio of Q1 exits to end the campaign. Leclerc’s one-lap pace has long been his strength, and it still was this year, it just wasn’t as easy to unlock.
Ferrari decided early on to move its focus to designing its 2026 car. The team was “at a technical disadvantage from the first race,” as Leclerc put it. But even if the performance lacked as a team, Leclerc still managed to have a strong season from his side of the garage. He feels “quite satisfied” with his work — and he should be.
Photo:
(James Sutton / Getty Images)
Best result
P2 x 2 (Monaco and Mexico)
Qualifying H2H
19-5 vs. Hamilton
(James Sutton / Getty Images)
Ranking the F1 world champion as low as fourth in our end-of-year ratings may seem harsh. Yet there are valid reasons why Norris’ crowning year was not the very best outright performance when looking across the whole field.
Let’s start with the good: he’s world champion. For a driver who claimed not to believe in momentum, Norris hit his stride right when it mattered in the closing stages of the season. Dominant in Mexico, controlled in Brazil, and smart and decisive with his moves at the Abu Dhabi showdown. For all the criticism that the pressure was getting to Norris in the first phase of the season, he held his nerve at the end. Emotional wins in Monaco and Silverstone were critical to getting him to that point.
But there were difficult moments for Norris that, by his own admission, forced him to rethink his approach. The crash in Jeddah and the clash with Oscar Piastri in Canada were major mistakes. A few smaller errors also held him back from his McLaren teammate early in the season. His Baku race was also very forgettable, as Norris struggled to escape the midfield following another qualifying error while Verstappen dominated.
Room for improvement? Yes. But Norris’ evolution in 2025 proved he was ready to take action and work harder than ever to achieve his lifelong goal of becoming F1 world champion. And he’s done it. The work starts now to defend the #1 on his car in 2026 and, if this year’s progress is anything to go by, his ceiling could still be higher.
Photo:
(Clive Rose / Getty Images)
Qualifying H2H
13-11 vs. Piastri
(Clive Rose / Getty Images)
Oscar Piastri thrived for the majority of this season, even taking the top spot in our midseason driver rankings during the summer break. Throughout the first half of the season, he minimized his mistakes and displayed the raw speed that made him look like he’d be this season’s world champion. While Norris wasn’t far off in points, Piastri led the standings for much of this year, until the Briton overtook him again after the Mexico City Grand Prix.
The Australian driver’s final victory came at the Dutch GP, and he endured several poor weekends from there, including a significant setback in Baku, where he crashed out on the opening lap after jumping the start and had also crashed in qualifying. He made more mistakes in the year’s second half, facing car setup issues and struggling with his driving on low-grip tracks, where Norris and Verstappen were excelling. Ultimately, the lead in the championship slipped through Piastri’s fingers and he finished the season third overall.
Looking ahead to next season, Piastri needs to find his early season form and work on his low-grip track struggles. He’s already shown he’s capable of a world championship fight, finishing just 13 points behind his title-winning teammate.
Photo:
(Clive Mason / Getty Images)
Qualifying H2H
11-13 vs. Norris
(Clive Mason / Getty Images)
To borrow some Gen Z terminology, Fernando Alonso showed in 2025 that “unc still got it.”
Aston Martin couldn’t break away from F1’s midfield this year. Still, Alonso delivered some amazing performances. At 44, he has lost none of his vigor. As frustrating as the opening rounds may have been, when Alonso went pointless, a much-needed car upgrade in Spain helped improve the on-track results.
Alonso made it into Q3 more often than not and swept teammate Lance Stroll (who reached Q3 just twice) 24-0 in qualifying. Fifth in Hungary was Alonso’s best result, but his most important was the impeccable run to sixth at the last race in Abu Dhabi, which showcased his enduring skill. Those points helped stave off Haas in the constructors’ championship and meant Aston Martin lost to Racing Bulls by a small margin.
Rarely does Alonso have a quiet weekend in F1. With many unknowns ahead for 2026 and big changes at Aston Martin, one thing is clear: the driver in the #14 car will always give it his all.
Photo:
(Hector Vivas / Getty Images)
Best result
P5 x 1 (Hungary)
Qualifying H2H
24-0 vs. Stroll
(Hector Vivas / Getty Images)
It took time for Carlos Sainz to get used to Williams after his Ferrari chapter ended, but the pace was evident. And it took time for the results to come, given the car differences and adjustment of life back in F1’s midfield.
The first half of the season was a mix of bad luck and Sainz not executing well — including a crash under safety car rules in Australia. But the Spaniard found consistency, scoring points in 13 of the 24 rounds (including sprint races). He also secured two podium finishes, with third in both Baku and Qatar, and took another fine third place in the Austin sprint race. But his third-place finish in Qatar stands out. Sainz had expected that weekend to be challenging due to the track’s fast nature and the Williams car’s historical weakness in medium- and high-speed corners.
Before the Qatar GP weekend, Sainz looked back on his season. He noted that it wasn’t perfect, especially around the usual ups and downs of midfield teams. Still, he called it good, saying it had “better moments than I probably even dreamed or wished for.” And it’s a fair assessment. Next season may be a clean slate for all teams, but it’ll be a chance for Sainz to further make his mark at Williams.
Photo:
(Peter Fox/Getty Images)
Best result
P3 x 2 (Azerbaijan and Qatar)
Qualifying H2H
14-9 vs. Albon
(Peter Fox/Getty Images)
Isack Hadjar’s F1 race debut ended in a shocking failure before it’d even started, as he crashed on the formation lap in Australia. Anthony Hamilton, father of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, consoled the rookie in the paddock. But from there, Hadjar’s season improved quickly.
He scored his first F1 points just two races later, with eighth place in Japan. In Zandvoort, he secured the Racing Bulls team’s first podium finish since Baku 2021 — becoming the youngest French driver in history to stand on an F1 podium. And he made no more major errors.
The most impressive statistic from Hadjar’s rookie season, though, is his qualifying performance. He advanced to Q3 16 times in a midfield car and was eliminated in Q1 only twice. Hadjar outperformed his main teammate Liam Lawson in qualifying by a significant 16-6 margin, and was 1-1 against Yuki Tsunoda from their two rounds together at the season’s start.
Hadjar’s performance across his first F1 campaign was enough to secure a promotion to Red Bull for 2026, where he will partner Verstappen. He heads into that chapter without expectations, given the reset around the car design technical regulation changes.
Photo:
(Clive Rose / Getty Images)
Best result
P3 (Zandvoort)
Qualifying H2H
16-6 vs. Lawson
(Clive Rose / Getty Images)
F1 fans know Ollie Bearman is fast. But something he needed to focus on in his first full F1 campaign was building up to deliver when it really mattered over a weekend.
The margin for error was very slim this season, given how closely the pecking order was between the teams. A simple mistake, no matter the earlier pace, could knock a midfield driver out of qualifying or scoring points in the race. The Haas team’s initial struggles with its car meant early results weren’t reflective of Bearman’s potential. And the rookie made errors of his own, which put him on the brink of a race ban as the season’s late stages commenced. Crashing at Silverstone’s pit entry during red flag conditions in FP3 was a big one, earning Bearman four penalty points (12 earns a ban) in one go.
There were signs of what could be possible, such as his four consecutive P11 finishes from Canada to Belgium. Then Bearman stepped up after the summer break. His confidence in the car showed as Haas kept developing during the season. The biggest highlight came in Mexico, when he finished fourth. This equaled the best race result in Haas’ F1 history since 2016.
From Bearman’s 41 points this season, 35 came from the second half of the year, and he ended up outqualifying the much more experienced Esteban Ocon 14-10. Overall, in 2025, Bearman justified optimism for his career trajectory, as long as he can continue to minimise errors.
Photo:
(Cristobal Herrera Ulashkevich / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
Qualifying H2H
14-10 vs. Ocon
(Cristobal Herrera Ulashkevich / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
Finishing a race no higher than sixth and ending the season a lowly 18th in the standings belies the strength of Pierre Gasly’s year. Trapped by a tough Alpine car that lacked upgrades, he still found ways to push it into spots it shouldn’t have been. This showed he had a truly brilliant season as a driver.
Gasly’s shining moment came at Silverstone, when he finished sixth in the wet and wild British GP. But it was over a single lap that he particularly excelled. His tally of 11 Q3 appearances was more than Alex Albon, Tsunoda, Lawson, and Bearman, all of whom had faster cars at their disposal at various points. Small wins (such as scooping two points from the Brazil weekend) took every bit of Gasly’s ability.
This was always going to be a tricky year for Alpine, given how much attention it is putting toward 2026 and its switch to Mercedes power units. If Gasly can keep up this level of performance with an improved car, there will likely be far greater rewards on offer than a sixth place.
Photo:
(GEOFF ROBINS/AFP via Getty Images)
Best result
P6 (Great Britain)
Qualifying H2H
18-6 vs. Doohan/Colapinto
(GEOFF ROBINS/AFP via Getty Images)
