Liam Lawson leads Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar at Suzuka. Photo / Red Bull
Liam Lawson leads Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar at Suzuka. Photo / Red Bull
With a third of the 2025 Formula One season gone, Telegraph Sport compiles its first driver rankings of the year.
While you can look at the official standings to see the headline numbers, we have delved a little deeper to assess how each driver is performing, awarding points for eachrace weekend (20 points for the best down to one for the worst) and totalled up over the season so far.
20: Jack Doohan, Alpine – 25 rating points
The Australian showed flashes of speed in his six-race stint at Alpine before being dropped. The primary problem was that they were never converted into anything meaningful on Sunday. The secondary issue was his all-too-frequent crashes.
There should be some sympathy for Lawson, who was harshly dropped from Red Bull after just two races. You suspect his confidence has been battered after that brutal demotion. He has been too distant from teammate Isack Hadjar since returning to Racing Bulls.
Championship points: 4 (17th)
Qualifying record: 2-0 loss to Verstappen, 6-1 loss to Hadjar.
Liam Lawson in the Racing Bulls garage. Photo / Red Bull
18th: Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber – 47pts
Given a debut season in the slowest car, this has not been a terrible start for the Brazilian. Qualified well in Miami before his retirement. He is certainly showing enough promise, especially in qualifying, but it is now about improving his performances.
Championship points: 0 (21st)
Qualifying record: 6-4 loss to Hulkenberg
17th: Lance Stroll, Aston Martin – 50pts
Stroll picked up a useful haul of points in the opening two rounds but has largely been poor since, Miami sprint aside. His 11th place in the standings flatters him greatly. He has qualified behind teammate Fernando Alonso nine times out of 10 – often quite comfortably. Amazing to think he has made a career this mediocre last nine seasons.
Championship points: 14 (11th)
Qualifying record: 9-1 loss to Alonso
16th: Yuki Tsunoda, Racing Bulls/Red Bull – 61pts
Tsunoda is this high largely because of a fairly strong start at Racing Bulls in the first two rounds. At Red Bull, he is an improvement on Liam Lawson but that is a preposterously low bar. Not implausible for him to be swapped with Hadjar by the season’s end. A difficult situation in a difficult car, but should be doing better.
Championship points: 10 (13th)
Qualifying record: 2-1 win over Hadjar, 7-0 loss to Verstappen
15th: Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber – 69pts
It has been hard for Hulkenberg to stand out because of the quality of the Sauber. Other teams have been up and down but in four rounds it has been the slowest car and in two more the second slowest.
This has made it hard for the German to show his natural talent over a flying lap. In any case, it is not as though the Sauber has been a good race car, either, a fairly fortunate sixth at Melbourne aside.
Championship points: 6 (15th)
Qualifying record: 6-4 win over Bortoleto
14th: Pierre Gasly, Alpine – 74pts
After five rounds, Gasly placed in the top 10 in our rankings, but poor showings in Miami and Monaco especially, where he rear-ended Tsunoda, have dropped him back six places. Up to then, he was getting close to the maximum from his inconsistent Alpine.
Championship points: 7 (14th)
Qualifying record: 6-2 win over Doohan, 2-0 win over Colapinto
It is hard to remember a time when the Spaniard would have ranked as lowly over a prolonged period. To have no points after eight rounds is a shock. He has been hampered by his car which, until Imola, was the eighth fastest. It has given him very few chances to show his abundant skill. Luck has played a part in this, but errors have crept in too.
Championship points: 0 (18th)
Qualifying record: 9-1 win over Stroll
12th: Carlos Sainz, Williams – 77pts
It took Sainz a handful of races to fully settle in at Williams, but since then he has been a match for a strongly-performing teammate in Alexander Albon. Sainz looked to have the edge over one lap recently and would have scored a lot more than the 12 points he has with better luck.
Like his teammate’s season so far (and indeed his team’s), Bearman’s 2025 has been up and down. There have been errors, but that is to be expected from a rookie. The high point is a run of three top-10 finishes in a row from China to Bahrain. Needs to improve his one-lap pace to make Sundays easier.
Championship points: 6 (16th)
Qualifying record: 7-3 loss to Ocon
10th: Esteban Ocon, Haas – 79pts
Ocon has scored more points than Bearman by 20 to six but his lows, especially when the car has not been to his liking, have been particularly low. Now he is getting used to the Haas VF-25 he is starting to make that experience show. Fifth in China and seventh in Monaco show he still adds value to a team as he approaches a decade in F1.
Like many of the other rookies this year there have been a few crashes for Antonelli. He is yet to finish ahead of teammate Russell in a grand prix, or in any race, but has out-qualified him twice out of 10 sessions. Has scored points steadily and consistently, only genuinely struggling in Bahrain and Monaco. His Miami sprint pole shows that he is the real deal.
Championship points: 48 (7th)
Qualifying record: 8-2 loss to Russell
Mercedes AMG F1 driver Kimi Antonelli. Photo / AFP
8th: SLewis Hamilton, Ferrari – 92pts
Gone are the days when Hamilton would be almost guaranteed a slot in the top three of any driver rankings. After a rocky start – China sprint race aside – he has started to edge closer to Leclerc in qualifying, though has not beaten him over one lap since Shanghai. Plenty of room for improvement at Ferrari, but also for Hamilton. Not the driver he once was.
That Hadjar is the top-ranked full-season rookie among the 2025 crop (and along with Bortoleto the only true debutant this season) says an awful lot about how impressive the Frenchman has been. His season began by crashing out on the formation lap in Melbourne but he has since finished 11th, eighth, 13th, 10th, 11th, ninth and then sixth. In the last four rounds alone he ranks in the top three by our system.
Championship points: 15 (10th)
Qualifying record: 2-1 loss to Tsunoda, 6-1 win over Lawson
Liam Lawson leads Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar at Suzuka. Photo / Red Bull
6th: Charles Leclerc, Ferrari – 110pts
Could Leclerc have done a great deal more with this problematic Ferrari beneath him? Certainly not by a lot. He has so far claimed the only two grand prix podiums by the Scuderia and it is fair to say he has outclassed his more decorated teammate. That should not be a surprise, but it is a great shame that he cannot fight with the two McLarens and Max Verstappen.
Since his move from the Red Bull stable, the exceptional Albon had been hamstrung by the quality of his Williams machinery. He had been able to stand out only on occasion, mostly over one lap.
Not in 2025. With an improved FW47, Albon has excelled at nearly every race, reaching Q3 or SQ3 eight times out of 10. The only race he did not finish in the points was Bahrain. Astonishingly consistent and quick.
Championship points: 42 (8th)
Qualifying record: 6-4 win over Sainz
4th: Lando Norris, McLaren – 120pts
In 2023 and 2024, Norris was comfortably the main man at McLaren because of his consistency. On occasion, Piastri was quicker but the instances were rare, especially in qualifying. In 2025, that has been turned on its head, with Norris enduring a mistake-strewn start as the Australian thrives.
Some of that has been down to the tendencies of the MCL39 when pushed to the limit, but it is up to Norris to find a solution. His win in Monaco will be a big boost, but he must improve in qualifying to win the championship.
The former Mr Saturday was Mr Consistent in the opening six rounds, as the only driver to finish every sprint and grand prix in the top five. The Mercedes has never been in genuine contention for victory, but Russell managed to sweep up whatever was left, taking four podiums in the same period. That run ended with two difficult weekends in Imola and Monaco, but almost all of that is down to problems with his car. As with Leclerc, it is a shame he is not really in the championship fight.
Championship points: 99 (4th)
Qualifying record: 8-2 win over Antonelli
2nd: Oscar Piastri, McLaren – 137pts
Piastri’s improvement from the end of 2024 has been significant. Firstly, he has addressed the significant qualifying deficit to Lando Norris (he lost 20-4 last year), and secondly, the tyre management issues that held him back in his first two seasons have been eradicated.
There is still the occasional vulnerability, as shown in Monaco, but he seems unfussed and unfazed by the pressure of fighting for a title. He has also shown himself to be Verstappen’s equal in close combat.
Championship points: 161 (1st)
Qualifying record: 6-4 win over Norris
1st: Max Verstappen, Red Bull – 142pts
There is no doubt that Verstappen is the best driver in F1, as he probably has been for all of this decade. It is just as well the Red Bull has its problems – if it was as good as the McLaren, Verstappen would be walking the championship.
Any performance references to his teammates are largely useless because both Lawson and Tsunoda are not in his league. If the RB21 gives him a sniff of pole position he takes it. He is currently channelling Michael Schumacher in the 1990s.
