Ranking every F1 driver’s 2025 season so far with Oscar Piastri second and Lewis Hamilton behind two rookies

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Oscar Piastri holds a slender lead in the Formula 1 world championship heading into the summer break. The McLaren driver has picked up six victories from the first 14 Grands Prix.

Piastri is only nine points clear of teammate Lando Norris, who was triumphant last time out in Hungary. With Max Verstappen the best part of 100 back in third, his reign looks to be over.

Here, F1 Oversteer ranks all 21 drivers who have raced this season from worst to best, based on their performances so far. Jack Doohan and Franco Colapinto both feature after Alpine’s early driver swap.

21. Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull (Championship: 18th)

Yuki Tsunoda is far from the first driver to see their reputation crumble alongside Max Verstappen. There are clearly mitigating circumstances, but it’s hard to put him any higher when he’s on the longest scoreless run in Red Bull history. There have been too many horror-show weekends for Tsunoda, and if his output was doubled, the team would be last in the standings.

20. Jack Doohan, Alpine (Championship: 21st)

Doohan arguably deserved more time, and Alpine may have set him up to fail by allowing the speculation to become deafening. But an incident-laden start, combined with a general lack of pace, was enough ammunition for Flavio Briatore to make a change.

19. Franco Colapinto, Alpine (Championship: 20th)

Damningly, he only just edges his predecessor. While he’s beaten Pierre Gasly in four competitive sessions – a slight upgrade – Colapinto needs to stop crashing so regularly if he is to secure his seat until the end of the year. A single championship point would also ease the pressure considerably.

18. Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls (Championship: 15th)

Liam Lawson will be considerably higher in the end-of-season rankings if he continues on his current trajectory. He’s scored points in four of the last seven races, including an outstanding P6 in Monaco. It understandably took him a while to recover from his historic Red Bull axe, though, and he’s still been beaten by rookie teammate Isack Hadjar in a healthy majority of sessions.

17. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin (Championship: 12th)

Lance Stroll is particularly difficult to position in this list. 26 points is a good haul – as many as Fernando Alonso has managed – but he’s trailing 14-0 in qualifying. With a record like that, it’s hard to justify putting him much higher.

16. Oliver Bearman, Haas (Championship: 19th)

Haas rookie Oliver Bearman outperforms his championship position here, and that’s because he’s been somewhat unlucky. He recently finished 11th at four straight races, an agonising run but one that should breed confidence for the second half of the season. Two heavy penalties for red flag infringements ruined his Monaco and Silverstone weekend, but they were textbook rookie errors – his record against Esteban Ocon is in line with expectations.

15. Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes (Championship: 7th)

The opposite to Lawson, Kimi Antonelli has slid down the table in recent weeks. He justified Mercedes’ hype with a record-breaking Sprint pole in Miami and podium in Canada, but he’s scored one point in the last four rounds – below the standard required for a Silver Arrows driver.

14. Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari (Championship: 6th)

Has Lewis Hamilton ever been so low this deep into a season? It looked like he was making progress after the biggest transfer in F1 history, but he’s come apart in the last two races, culminating in an extraordinary admission that Ferrari should replace him at the Hungarian GP.

13. Carlos Sainz, Williams (Championship: 16th)

Carlos Sainz marginally edges the driver who took his seat. Alex Albon has comfortably outscored him, but the gap isn’t as big as the championship table would make it appear, and Sainz has had some vintage moments, including three straight P6s in qualifying between Saudi Arabia and Imola.

12. Esteban Ocon, Haas (Championship: 10th)

You could make a case that Ocon has received less publicity than any driver this year. But after a somewhat tumultuous final year at Alpine, that’s welcome for a driver who has quietly gone about his season and scored enough points to keep Haas in touch with their midfield rivals.

11. Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin (Championship: 11th)

Fernando Alonso endured a slightly alarming barren run at the start of the season, with Stroll capitalising on the opportunities presented to an underperforming Aston Martin. But that was always likely to be temporary, and a season-best P5 in Budapest marks out Alonso as a driver to watch after the summer break.

10. Pierre Gasly, Alpine (Championship: 14th)

Alpine are the slowest team in Formula 1 right now, and they should be grateful that they managed to tie Pierre Gasly to a new deal last year. Amid turmoil on the other side of the garage, he’s delivered 20 points, including a mighty P6 at Silverstone.

9. Nico Hulkenberg, Sauber (Championship: 9th)

Nico Hulkenberg might have expected to be more dominant against rookie teammate Gabriel Bortoleto. But after ending the longest wait for a podium that the sport has ever seen, he’s on for a top 10 finish that would exceed the expectations of every single individual in the paddock.

8. Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber (Championship: 8th)

The big mover in the run-up to the summer break, manager Alonso called Gabriel Bortoleto the best rookie of his generation. That was after a career-high P6, his third return in four Grands Prix. The results weren’t coming beforehand, but he was comparing well to Hulkenberg, and he now leads their overall head-to-head 17-13.

7. Isack Hadjar, Racing Bulls (Championship: 13th)

Despite Bortoleto’s surge, Isack Hadjar remains the rookie of the year. He’s one of only five drivers on the grid to reach Q2 at every single race – a testament to his consistency. The target from here must be converting his scintillating qualifying speed into more regular points finishes.

6. Alex Albon, Williams (Championship: 8th)

Albon is the lead midfield driver in the standings and in this ranking. He’s closer to the top four teams (Antonelli is 10 points ahead) than he is to his week-to-week rivals. The former Red Bull driver was craving an opportunity to show what he could do against a driver like Sainz, and he’s taken it magnificently.

5. Lando Norris, McLaren (Championship: 2nd)

Perhaps a little harsh on Norris, who currently has the momentum in the championship race. But he’d already be leading if he hadn’t made a series of mistakes at high-pressure moments, including a crash in Saudi Arabia qualifying and a collision with Piastri in Canada.

4. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari (Championship: 5th)

As the F1 world focuses on his teammate’s collapse, Charles Leclerc’s performances have been underrated. It’s not so much thrashing Hamilton – George Russell beat him at a similar rate last year – it’s the fact that he’s keeping the season respectable for Ferrari. Even before his shock pole last time out, he’d scored all five of the team’s podiums.

3. George Russell, Mercedes (Championship: 4th)

Russell has been robotically efficient this year, and it’s even hard to imagine a driver like Verstappen doing much better in the Mercedes car. Only the two McLaren drivers have scored more podiums than the Canadian GP winner, who almost never drops out of the top five.

2. Oscar Piastri, McLaren (Championship: 1st)

While Norris will feel that he’d be on top without the aforementioned errors, it’s worth remembering that Piastri squandered at least 16 points with his heartbreaking Australian GP spin. Since then, one can’t really pick any holes in his driving. In just his third year, he looks like a complete package, and even when he appears a little off the pace in qualifying, he invariably rallies in the race.

1. Max Verstappen, Red Bull (Championship: 3rd)

Never have Red Bull been so reliant on the talents of Verstappen. One only needs to look at onboard footage of the erratic RB21 to appreciate the scale of his achievement this year – two wins, four poles, five podiums. The Dutchman is top of this list precisely because his teammate is bottom.

He won’t win the championship this year (he may not win another race), but Verstappen remains the best driver in F1.