Here are the driver rankings for the 2025 F1 season. As usual, the results are generated by the mathematical model. The model assesses how impressive a driver’s results are, given the strength of their teammate(s). This means that a ranking of drivers can take place regardless of how strong their car was.

1. 2025 F1 Pre-Season Predictions
2. Most One-Sided Match Ups
3. F1 2025 Driver Rankings
4. E Tier: 2025 Driver Rankings
5. D Tier: 2025 Driver Rankings
6. B Tier: 2025 Driver Rankings
7. A Tier: 2024 Driver Rankings
8. S Tier: 2024 Driver Rankings
9. Summary of Results

2025 F1 Pre-Season Predictions

We’ll start by comparing the model’s predictions for the 2025 season with the actual results.

McLaren

Red Bull

Ferrari

Williams

Aston Martin

Rookie Driver Predictions vs Reality

Of the 5 teams with two established driver, the model predicted the correct winner 4 times. (The exception being Williams.) The predictions post also contained information on what results for the rookies would be considered impressive, given their teammate. Now let’s see how they did compared to those graphs:

Key:

Green Line -> Minimum F1 level

Grey Line -> Strong midfield performance

Yellow -> GOAT candidate

(Blue -> Equal to teammate）

Mercedes

The guess of Russell scoring 300 points seems prophetic given his final score of 319. Antonelli’s results indicate a driver definitely at F1 level, but with a mixed F1 season. Given he showed some flashes of raw pace, further improvements will be expected next year.

Alpine

There’s not much to say here…both Doohan and Colapinto both ended the season pointless! The graph also highlights how terrible Alpine’s season was in general, given they’re all bunched into the lower-left corner.

Haas

To quote from the pre-season post: “Just matching (or almost matching) Ocon over the season would be a great sign of things to come.” Given this, the season should be seen as a big success for the young Brit. The model rates him the best rookie by far and already performing at the level of a good midfield driver.

Racing Bulls

Lawson’s brutal sacking after 2 races means Racing Bulls effectively became a comparison of rookies. This renders the prediction graph pointless unfortunately.

Kick Sauber

Bortoleto was impressive at times, particularly in qualifying, and results again suggest he is F1 worthy. However, he was still heavily outscored by his more experienced teammate.

Most One-Sided Match Ups

Drivers in top teams are much more likely to score similar points in terms of percentages. (However they’re also likely to have a larger absolute points difference.) As such, it can be hard to see how comparatively close teammate match-ups are just from the graphs above. The model corrects for this factor to work out how conclusively one teammate beat another. They are listed below from most dominant to most evenly matched. (With a subjective description to help interpret the results.)

RESULTS Dominance Level	Team	lead driver	secondary driver
Extremely Dominant	Red Bull*	Verstappen	Lawson
	Red Bull	Verstappen	Tsunoda
Dominant	Mercedes	Russell	Antonelli
	Alpine*	Gasly	Doohan
	Alpine	Gasly	Colapinto
Clear Edge	Ferrari	Leclerc	Hamilton
	Kick Sauber	Hülkenberg	Bortoleto
Small Edge	Aston Martin	Alonso	Stroll
	Racing Bulls*	Hadjar	Tsunoda
	McLaren	Norris	Piastri
	Williams	Albon	Sainz
	Haas	Bearman	Ocon
	Racing Bulls	Hadjar	Lawson

F1 2025 Driver Rankings

As the criteria for a formal ranking is half a season, I’ve only listed 20 drivers. However, I’ve included provisional rankings for Doohan for reference. His ranking should be taken with a pinch of salt, due to the lack of data. Similarly the 2 Racing Bulls drivers have limited data due to their lack of established teammates.

E Tier: 2025 Driver Rankings

20) Yuki Tsunoda

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
23%	20th	↓12 (8th)	↓12 (20th, 21%)

Tsunoda sits in a lowly tier by himself. Whilst Verstappen’s teammate struggling is hardly new, never has a driver struggled so much for so long. Tsunoda scored just 7% of Red Bull’s total points and rarely looked like a worthy teammate.

Of course there are multiple caveats. Being Max’s teammate is a nearly impossible task. His performance is rated higher than Lawson’s even more doomed Red Bull stint. And his two races at Racing Bulls were seen as competent (despite some misfortune negatively affecting his rating there.) There were also some high points, including outqualifying Max for the Qatar sprint race. But all too often he see-sawed between disasters and weekends that saw “potential”, without that potential ever really being fulfilled.

Ultimately the model rates drivers by how impressive their results, and Tsunoda comes up woefully short. Not only is he the worst ranked driver, but it’s by some margin. In fact, the model rates it as the least impressive full F1 season of the 21st century.

D Tier: 2025 Driver Rankings

19) Liam Lawson

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
52%	19th	N/A	N/A (19th， 39%）

After a disappointing start at Red Bull, Lawson’s ‘demotion’ presented an opportunity to reestablish his reputation. His ratings did improve, with some stronger drives in the middle of the season. (The top 6 finishes in Austria and Azerbaijan were well deserved). However, he wasn’t able to consistently outpace Hadjar despite the additional experience.

The end of season dip is largely due to Tsunoda’s continued struggles. This is because the model almost exclusively ties his rating to the Tsunoda whilst they were teammates.

18) Isaac Hadjar

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
58%	18th	N/A	N/A (18th, 46%)

Hadjar’s looked impressive in Australia practice before crashing on the formation lap. However he went on to have some genuinely strong results in the early season. The model considered him a top 10 driver early doors, before a mid-season fightback from Lawson blunted his rating.

The pair were closely matched for the rest of the year, despite Hadjar having less experience. He ultimately scored more points than either Lawson or Tsunoda across the season. He also had some very notable season highlights. This gave Red Bull enough faith to promote him to Red Bull for 2026.

So why is he ranked so low? As with Lawson, his rating is unfortunately very closely tied to Tsunoda’s. This is seen by the decline of both Hadjar and Lawson towards the end of the season. (It is unusual for both driver’s ratings to decrease, as they are assessed relative to each other. Both of their ratings are therefore highly uncertain.) If Hadjar can do a decent job vs Verstappen next season, both his and Lawson’s 2025 ratings will quickly improve. But for now the model has little to go on.

N/A) Jack Doohan

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
58%	19th	N/A	N/A (70%)

Doohan was dropped after just 6 underwhelming races. As discussed in the mid-season review, his rating is seen as pretty competent given his lack of experience and the uncompetitive Alpine car.

Although his replacement is ranked higher, the difference is not particularly significant. Doohan even has a slightly higher qualifying rating than Colapinto.

17) Franco Colapinto

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
61%	17th	N/A	N/A (16th, 67%)

Colapinto’s rating for the season is surprisingly flat. His season seemed to have very few genuine highlights and at times he seemed invisible. This contrasts both with his 2024 mid-season swap and with his fellow rookies.

The lack of points is not entirely his fault, but Gasly showed that the car was capable of reaching the fringes of the top 10. Whilst the statistics show he managed to outqualify Gasly 5 times, it was never when the car was a midfield contender.

His most notable success was seeing out the season, with early rumours of a replacement coming to nothing. Ultimately Franco will need to come back stronger in 2026, which he should do with the benefit of pre-season testing.

16) Gabriel Bortoleto

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
62%	16th	N/A	N/A (6th, 105%)

In the mid-season ratings I commented that Bortoleto’s score was low, but on an upwards trend that would likely continue. This turned out to be correct, with 3 points finishes in 4 races boosting his rating just after mid-season. Belgium and Hungary in particular were both impressive. In both weekends he barely put a foot wrong, and earnt the right to get support from teammate Hülkenberg.

I also suggested in the mid-season review that his high qualifying rating was likely to fall. However no such drop occured. The Sauber pair were evenly matched in head-to-head (12-12). However, Bortoleto almost always got the better of the two when the car was more capable. (In Q3 it was 5-1 in Bortoleto’s favour.)

In races it was a different story though, with Bortoleto was outscored significantly. As with the other rookies, his points ranking is likely to improve next year as he finds more consistency.

15) Kimi Antonelli

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
63%	15th	N/A	N/A (15th, 73%)

Antonelli’s races can largely be split into 2 groups. In many races he matched (or almost matched) Russell. In several others he was completely nowhere. This is forgivable in a debut season, but he’ll need more consistency in 2026 to keep his reputation intact. Still he had some impressive high points, with a Sprint Pole in Miami and 3 podiums to his name.

In qualifying he ended up 21-3 down on Russell, but the model considers his results to be decent considering his teammate. The fact that he overcame his mid-season slump to have 4 consecutive strong races is also hugely encouraging. This late run places him as the 2nd best rookie of the year, which suggests the season was a muted success overall.

C Tier: 2025 Driver Rankings

14) Lance Stroll

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
72%	14th	↑2 (16th)	↑1 (17th, 64%)

Stroll’s ranking is up 2 places from 2024, but he is rated the 2nd worst established driver (after Tsunoda). Some strongish drivers in the early season, combined with a little luck, saw him have a rare points advantage over Alonso. However, this was quickly eroded as the season progressed.

Stroll spent most of the races being largely anomalous. His qualifying H2H is a 24-0 whitewash in Alonso’s favour, although on more than one occasion the gap was very small. In fact, his qualifying results are considered a slight improvement on 2024.

13) Nico Hülkenberg

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
80%	13th	— (13th)	↓1 12th (85%)

As Hülkenberg’s teammate was a rookie, there was little way for the model to assess his season. What is clear is that he was the more consistent and higher scoring Sauber driver in 2025. His reputation as a qualifying specialist took a bit of a knock, but he had several impressive drives from towards the back of the grid. The highlight of his season highlight was of course the unforgettable podium at Silverstone.

Hülkenberg’s switch to Sauber/Audi was built upon preparing for the future. We will have to wait until at least 2026 to see if it was a worthwhile gamble.

B Tier: 2025 Driver Rankings

12) Fernando Alonso

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
87%	12th	↓3 (9th)	↓3 (11th, 87%)

Alonso’s early season had a combination of bad luck and off-races that lead to a pretty poor rating. Spain saw the start of a run of 6 points finishes in 7 races, which lead to his rating jumping upwards. From there it inched further upwards still. Despite this, the end result of 12th is still quite underwhelming for someone of his prestige.

Alonso had several races where he got the best out of his midfield machinery to score solid points. These included the season finale, where his performance was understandably overshadowed by the title decider. He also achieved a total whitewash of Stroll in qualifying. But ultimately his domination of Stroll was less clear than in previous seasons, particularly in race trim. His relentless consistency also seemed less present than in previous seasons.

Indeed, this is the first season that Alonso has been rated outside of the top 8 by the model. Age is an obvious factor: he’s now 44 years old. His performance rating has also been trending downwards for several seasons now. However the model still sees him as a highly competent driver overall.

11) Pierre Gasly

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
88%	11th	↓6 (5th)	↓3 (9th, 91%)

Whilst Gasly has struggled to generate headlines in a poor Alpine car, he has largely dominated both his rookie teammates and kept his reputation intact. Most of his strongest performances came in the first half of the year, including Bahrain and Spain. His performance in the wet in Britain was also a case of clearly outdriving the car. Gasly showed proved an unlikely Q3 semi-regular, with 10 appearances across the year.

Given he was paired against two rookies, Gasly’s ratings fluctuated a lot in the early season as the model used the data from 2024 for Doohan and Colapinto. From then on it stabilised, with the only notable change being a dip towards the end of the year. This is almost certainly due to the collapse in the model’s confidence in Tsunoda’s abilities. This dampened its rating of Gasly’s career as a whole by a small amount.

10) Esteban Ocon

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
90%	10th	↓1 (11th)	↓2 (12th, 83%)

Another driver paired against a rookie, with a rating that is therefore unnaturally stable across the year. Being beaten by a rookie 14-10 in qualifying and 41-38 in points is a little disappointing. However Ocon had the edge for much of the season and the overall margin was quite tight between them.

9) Lewis Hamilton

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
90%	9th	↑1 (10th)	(8th, 93%)

The model considers Hamilton’s season to be very slightly disappointing, but hardly a disaster. (Remember 100% is considered to be a typical Hamilton season.) His ranking actually improved compared to 2024. (Although his rating slightly down.) The most obvious source of disappointment is in the car itself: Hamilton joined a team that was fighting for the constructor’s championship in 2024.

There are other reasons that the model is more forgiving than many when looking at Hamilton’s season. Firstly, Leclerc is considered to be an extremely strong teammate, even more so than Russell. Secondly, the model considers it unlikely that Hamilton is currently at his peak, given he’s now entered his 40s. This doesn’t improve his rating, but does mean the model isn’t surprised at seeing Hamilton slide into the bottom half of the top 10. (See above for Alonso’s ratings slide over the years.)

The lack of a Grand Prix podium is on paper pretty startling given his teammate managed 7. However, comparisons with his replacement (Antonelli) and the driver he replaced (Sainz) should be taken in full context. Both had dry spells in 2025, and Hamilton ultimately ended up the top scorer out of the trio. We also shouldn’t forget Hamilton’s convincing Sprint win in China, where he showed he’s still got it when things click.

Hamilton ended the season with a poor qualifying run, but he still made Q3 on 15 occasions and outqualified Leclerc 5 times. Given Leclerc is one of the fastest F1 drivers of all time, this output is not too bad.

8) Carlos Sainz

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
91%	11th	↓4 (4th)	↓2 (7th, 105%)

A season of two halves for Sainz. He took time to acclimatise to the new team and suffered from some disastrous early weekends in Autralia, Bahrain and Miami. He was also surprisingly crash prone, with some costly incidents (not always of his own making). This negatively impacted his points scoring chances (and driver rating) even when his speed looked good. Indeed, in the mid-season rankings, his was a lowly 15th.

As you can see from the graph, his rating has been on a near constant upwards trajectory from race one. His recovery was even more extreme than Alonso’s.

Sainz was at his absolute best in the final 3rd of the season. In the final 10 races he managed six Q3 appearances and 2 podiums (+ a sprint podium), compared to Albon’s zero. Indeed his weekends in Azerbaijan, Vegas and Qatar were top tier. With a couple more races he surely would have outscored Albon overall. He also convincingly beat Albon in qualifying.

The season as a whole feels like a lost opportunity, with both his race and qualifying ratings being down on last year due to the slow start. He’s well placed at the team going into 2026 though.

7) Oliver Bearman

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
95%	7th	N/A	N/A （10th, 88%）

Not only was Bearman the only rookie to get close to his (established) teammate, he even beat him. This is actually very rare in modern F1 (even more so when considering his additional DNFs). Talented rookies usually show flashes of extreme pace versus established drivers but fail to score consistently. (Examples include Button, N.Rosberg, Raikkonen, Hülkenberg, Norris, Piastri and Antonelli.)

That’s not to say that Bearman was always a bastion of consistency though. At several points he made major mistakes (including Australia, Britain, Hungary and Azerbaijan). Similar to Antonelli, he had a mid-season wobble before a convincing recovery. However, the model considers his overall level to be higher. And his high points were as good as anyone’s. Highest of all was Mexico, where he raced both Piastri and Verstappen without ever looking like he didn’t deserve to be there.

The most likely scenario is that Bearman will be even stronger next year. Ferrari should do their best to keep hold of him.

As the field spread between the ratings is quite large, so I have adjusted the y-axis upwards for the final 6 drivers.

6) Alex Albon

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
96%	6th	↑6 (12th)	— (13th, 85%)

Despite the model’s bleak predictions for Albon against Sainz, he was in top form during the first third of the year. Seven points finishes in the first eight races gave him a healthy, and ultimately unassailable points lead over Sainz. Three consecutive DNFs followed, but he picked up again with regular points until the Italian Grand Prix. At this point he was rated higher than Russell and almost as high as Norris.

The final third of the year was generally poor, with no points from the final 8 Grand Prix. During this period his rating decreased, but not by too much. This is because the season as a whole was still seen as above average for him. Whether he can outscore Sainz again in 2026 remains to be seen.

5) George Russell

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
100%	5th	↑2 (7th)	↓1 (4th 116%)

Given his teammate was a rookie, the model is only able to approximate Russell’s level based on his previous seasons. However, this looked like his strongest year in F1 to date. The Mercedes was typically the 3rd fastest car, so his return of 2 wins and 9 podiums is impressive. 23 Q3 appearances and 23 points finishes also point to a consistency that wasn’t there in his earlier seasons. And whilst Antonelli was right with Russell over several races this year, all the major H2H stats are heavily stacked in Russell’s favour.

Had the Mercedes car been just slightly stronger, one would suspect he would have been in the championship hunt.

4) Oscar Piastri

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
106%	4th	–↑2 (6th)	↑2 (5th, 113%)

While Piastri’s championship challenge ultimately fell short, this was undoubtedly his most strongest season yet. It’s hard to remember now, but going into the season he’d only won two Grand Prix.

After a costly error in Australia, Piastri won 4 of the next 5 races and was impressive throughout. When Norris’ speed returned in the middle of the year, Piastri was still the more consistent driver. After Italy, he had a healthy championship lead and 14 podiums in the last 15 races.

But from there on his championship campaign fell apart. (This is also where his rating starts to decline.) In the last 9 races he only finished ahead of Norris at the title decider, and didn’t beat Verstappen at all. Taking the season as a whole, he lost out to Norris by a narrow margin. The model thinks there are only 2 other drivers that could do that on current form…

A Tier: 2024 Driver Rankings

3) Lando Norris

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
115%	3rd	— 3rd	↓1 (3rd, 118%)

After a convincing win in Australia, Norris was finished behind Piastri in the next 6 Grand Prix. From there his rating inched upwards for the remainder of the season. More often than not he was the faster McLaren driver, and he was the only title contender to suffer a mechanical DNF.

Brilliant wins in Monaco, Austria and Brazil showed he deserved to be in the championship hunt. His opening in Mexico showed he had matured from 2024 and improved his race starts. He also kept his nerve in the closing stages whilst relentlessly chasing down Piastri’s points lead (and looking over his shoulder at Verstappen.)

Even in his “struggling” phase in the seasons first half he was generally good. Although that’s not to say he was perfect though. Errors in qualifying were a common theme in the early season, and his late crash into Piastri in Canada was entirely avoidable

As for whether Norris “deserved” the championship… the model thinks that in most F1 seasons the best driver did not win the championship. In addition, Norris has been considered the 2nd or 3rd most competitive driver for several seasons now. So he’s as deserving as most other F1 champions.

2) Charles Leclerc

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
116%	2nd	— (2nd)	↑2 (2nd, 132%)

All the evidence suggests that Leclerc’s season was just as good as those that came beforehand. He outscored and out-raced his prestigious teammate, although this was mostly in line with the model’s predictions. He also put his car in places it had no right to be at several points during the season. The podiums in Saudi Arabia and Belgium were particularly exceptional.

His ratings over the season were relatively “choppy” compared to the other top ranked drivers. This was mostly reflective of the nature of being in a car that was sometimes semi-competitive, and other times mired in the midfield. Despite this, Leclerc was ranked 2nd for almost the entire season and was never consistently threatened by his champion teammate.

S Tier: 2024 Driver Rankings

1) Max Verstappen

RATING	RANKING	CHANGE FROM 2024	QUALIFYING RANKING
151%	1st	—	— 1st (145%)

Once again Verstappen was in a league of his own. He is rated the best driver for (almost) the entire season. Max’s domination over both Tsunoda and Lawson was very real and almost unprecedented. However, he needs to share the credit for his championship charge with his team for out-developing McLaren across the season. (And avoiding disqualifications and mechanical DNFs that blunted McLaren’s campaigns.)

But perhaps the most surprising thing about his rating is how it continues to develop. In 2021 I wrote about how his season was exceptional and reaching a new peak… but almost every season since then the model is revising his ability up further. In 2024 he dominated Perez with 74% of Red Bull’s points. This year it he scored 93%! Even within the 2025 season his ratings was on a near constant upwards march.

In fact the only dip in his rankings this year came after Austria, from a crash in which he was entirely blameless. (The model does not assign blame for collisions, but unless a driver is crashing semi-regularly a dip usually largely corrects over the next few races.)

In the entire season, the only obvious error was his completely unnecessary collision with Russell in Spain. It’s hard to say if this was Verstappen’s strongest year ever (the model thinks 2023 and 2024 were at least as good.) However, just being in contention is praise enough.

Summary of Results

World champion Norris is ranked 3rd. However, it is actually rare that the world champion driver is also the highest ranked.

Who Was The Best Qualifier in F1 2025?

All of the qualifying rankings and ratings are listed in each driver’s summary. Below is all the qualifying results on one graph. Unsurprisingly Verstappen still comes out on top, and the ratings largely correlate with the race ratings . The most notable difference is Bortoleto and Sainz are considered much stronger in qualifying than their race results suggest. Meanwhile Albon is considered to be weaker.

Thanks for reading. I post new articles around once a month. If you’re looking for some F1 fun during the off-season give my cryptic F1 quiz/maze a try! Please consider subscribing to get email updates, as my posting schedule is not particularly regular!

• F1 2025 Mathematical Driver Rankings
• An F1 Trivia Quiz: If is F1 backwards
• F1 Drivers of the 2020s Ranked
• F1 2025 Mid-Season Mathematical Driver Rankings
• Why The Monaco F1 Circuit Is Unique