2025 was a season for the ages, offering up long-awaited maiden podiums, rookie superstars, plenty of nail-biting moments and an unpredictable three-way title fight that saw Lando Norris join the illustrious list of champions. The trio of title contenders put on some of the best performances of their careers so far, but who impressed our judges the most across all 24 rounds? Check out the final leaderboard below…
How it works
Throughout 2025, our five-judge panel assessed each driver after every Grand Prix and scored them out of 10 according to their performance across the weekend – taking machinery out of the equation
Our experts’ scores were then averaged out to produce a race score – with those scores then tallied up across the season on our overall Power Rankings Leaderboard (at the bottom of the page)
He may have missed out on a fifth consecutive world title, but our judges handed Max Verstappen the best average score of the season, with his spectacular comeback in the later races making its mark. A perfect score of 10 after the United States Grand Prix, in which he took a clean sweep of Sprint pole, Sprint win, Grand Prix pole and Grand Prix win, showed how far he had progressed in harnessing his Red Bull’s tricky-to-manage performance. Add to that the fact that he claimed more pole positions and victories than any other driver, in spite of the team’s numerous troubles, and Verstappen beats his rivals to the top spot.
Building on his maiden title challenge in 2024, Norris took a host of lessons into this season and was quick to learn from his errors, staying calm under immense pressure to beat both Verstappen and his team mate Oscar Piastri to his first World Championship. He readily admitted that he lost some faith early on as the Aussie took control of the standings, but stunning drives in Austria and Mexico and a composed performance in Abu Dhabi earned him high scores.
Thanks to his superb run of form in the first two-thirds of the season, Piastri takes third spot marginally behind Norris. An impressive streak of eight rounds on the podium between China and Spain established him as a serious contender for the title in just his third year in F1, before he later suffered a frustrating run of six rounds outside of the top three. He bounced back to remain in mathematical contention with a mighty drive in Qatar, but had a slim chance of becoming champion.
It wasn’t the easiest year to be a Ferrari driver as the team elected to switch focus to 2026 as early as April, leaving Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to get by without any aerodynamic upgrades. But the Monegasque driver still found chances to shine, taking seven podium finishes and one pole position before ending the season on a positive note, challenging Norris for third place in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. While he admitted that he felt “very disappointed” with Ferrari’s overall performance, Leclerc continued to make the most of a frustrating situation, earning him fourth on our judges’ 2025 leaderboard.
George Russell has well and truly established himself as the leader at Mercedes since Hamilton left, becoming the only driver outside of the three title contenders to win not just one but two Grands Prix, in Canada and Singapore. The performance of the W16 eluded the team at times, but when they got it in the right window, Russell was always prepared to make the most of it. He may still be waiting to get fully stuck into a championship fight himself, but he was able to add a further seven podiums to his tally in addition to the two victories and looked more than ready to consistently compete at the front of the pack.
Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar narrowly missed out on the top 10 in the standings, but he undoubtedly made an impression in his first season in the top tier. Finishing level on points with the experienced Nico Hulkenberg, the Frenchman made regular appearances in Q3 and converted P4 to a remarkable podium finish at the Dutch Grand Prix – the team’s first since 2021. Perhaps the biggest indicator of Hadjar’s strong year is his promotion to Red Bull, where he will drive alongside four-time champion Verstappen next season.
While it was his team mate Carlos Sainz who secured a pair of top-three finishes, Alex Albon’s unrelenting consistency at the start of the season played a significant role in helping Williams to claim P5 in the Constructors’, marking their best result since 2017. Spending four seasons with the team, he has been a key figure in delivering frequent points this year, with his highlight being multiple P5 results in Australia, Miami, Imola and the Netherlands.
Aston Martin are yet to rediscover their 2023 form that earned them multiple podiums at the hands of Fernando Alonso, but the former champion nevertheless impressed once again this season. After a rough start saw him retire from three Grands Prix – thanks to a crash in Australia, brake issues in China and engine trouble in Monaco – he broke into the points on 10 occasions in total, with a personal best of P5 at the Hungarian Grand Prix. It’s no secret that the team have been focused on taking advantage of the 2026 regulations, but Alonso has still managed to deliver strong results whenever he had the chance.
The 2025 class of rookies certainly hit the ground running, and Haas driver Ollie Bearman was no exception. Taking his first points in only the second round, he made a habit of charging through the field as he converted P20 to P10 in Bahrain and drove from the pit lane to sixth at the Dutch Grand Prix. The Briton’s season was marred by a number of incidents that racked up his penalty points, but he made history with an exceptional fourth place finish in Mexico, matching Haas’ best race result since they entered F1 back in 2016.
Kick Sauber went for the tried and tested combination of a veteran driver and rookie for their 2025 line-up in preparation for the Audi takeover in 2026. It proved to be a wise decision, with Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto increasing the team’s points total by 64 compared to last season. The German got off to the perfect start at the opener in Australia, crossing the line in seventh to claim more points than Sauber achieved in the entirety of 2024, and further upgrades enabled him to regularly feature in the top 10. His hard work came to a head at the British Grand Prix where, after a whopping 239 race starts, he secured his maiden podium from 19th on the grid and was handed a near-perfect score by our judges.
Missing out
Sainz and Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli narrowly missed out on the top 10, with the pair ending the season on an average of 6.8. Both experienced the highs of multiple podiums as the Spaniard finished third in Azerbaijan and Qatar, while Antonelli thrived in Canada, Brazil and Las Vegas, but misfortune and errors also led to their team mates outscoring them.
