In a better car and with much improved team dynamics - LH seemed to be at odds with those around him for most of the season. I think he needs both to function.
Audi will be dependant on Ferrari next year for the powertrain as they will be using their engines/gearbox etc. as a customer.
Sorry, edited to say it is Cadillac who will use Ferrari customer engines not Audi in 2026.
Yes. Really terrible season, totally destroyed by Charles, 6th season beating by his teammate, and behaved like a sulking teenager. Appalling really.
Just give him the fastest car and a weak teammate and he’s away.
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Surprised by @davidhendon 's singling out of Antonelli as the best rookie, I thought it might be fun to do a poll and see if there’s any consensus.
The candidates:
- Isack Hadjar: After a shaky start consistently outperformed his more experienced teammate in both qualifying and the race. Showed improvement during the season as well and became a consistent point scorer making few mistakes.
- Gabriel Borteleto: Outqualified his very experienced teammate, who’s known to be a great qualifier. And importantly showed good improvement throughout the season, it doesn’t look like he’s reached his ceiling.
- Andrea Kimi Antonelli: Got a sprint pole and a podium, but also made a few (rookie) mistakes and was generally far behind his teammate. Does show potential, but could have been more consistent and closer to his teammate.
- Oliver Bearman: Outperformed his experienced teammate in both qualifying and races. Also showed good racecraft on occasion. Did make a few too many (rookie) mistakes to my liking.
- Jack Doohan: Only here for completeness really, I don’t think he belongs in this list. The only rookie that to me hasn’t shown any potential and shouldn’t be in F1 next year. But included here, so let’s see if anyone disagrees.
Rookie of the year:
- Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls)
- Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber)
- Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
- Oliver Bearman (Haas)
- Jack Doohan (Alpine)
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voters
Overall Isack Hadjar is the standout for me. Then there’s a small gap to Bortoleto and Antonelli, and Bearman again behind those two. It looks like the poll above is actually in my order of preference, not sure if I did that subconsciously, or if it’s simply coincidence.
And, as I said multiple times before, I find we’ve seen a bizarrely good class of '25. I can’t remember that many excellent rookies in a single season, most seasons I was happy with just one. Any of these, excluding Doohan, deserves a competitive car next season if you ask me.
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P.S. feel free to leave a comment as to why you consider your favourite the best of his class. Also if you simply disagree with my summary at the top for any reason.
I also consider Franco Colapinto as a rookie this year too he only started racing halfway through last year so this year his first full season.
I think they have all been good enough to keep their seats. Antonelli has had the best car of the bunch but he has made the most of it and kept Russell on his toes.
Hadjar has been good it will be interesting if his promising start can survive being Max’s teammate and driving (I am assuming in a front running car). Most others have crumbled. If he can keep up with Max he will be doing very well indeed.
In preference it is between Hadjar and Bearman for top spot with Antonelli close by.
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Its quite difficult because I thought Hadjar did a fantastic job all season, he is class, as are all those rookies. I think you need also to take into consideration the car and their teammate. So although I voted Hadjar, its by no means clear cut.
I think Antonelli had the toughest job because very strong teammate in a car replacing Lewis so totally in the spot light at 18.
Bearman did fantastic in a second tier car with very strong established teammate and totally got the better of him and some exellent results.
Bortoleto, again, had a top teammate, and an ever improving car, still slighty behind the Haas, some great drives but form dipped slightly at various points.
And Doohan was unfortunate, given huge pressures of only 5 races to impress by the idiot Flav, he is totally despicable, in the worst car there. I think, given time, he would have done a good job, he has great speed when allowed to.
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For me it has to be Bearman or Bortoletto. Both showed great promise in under performing cars.
Antonelli seemed to come good towards the end of the season but I’m not yet convinced of his consistency. Hadjar is a strange one for me. He has the skill but he also has an aggressive edge which could make him vulnerable when he under performs against Max. Control of temper tantrums could be key to his success.
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Preempting Autoscourse, What about putting all 20 in order for the season, here is mine.
- Max
- Lando
- Oscar
- George
- Charles
- Nico Hulkenberg
- Hadjar
- Sainz
- Antonelli
- Alonso
- Bearman
- Albon
- Gasly
- Bortoleto
- Ocon
- Lawson
- Hamilton
- Tsunoda
- Stroll
- Colapinto
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Fair point. By that logic I should have included Liam Lawson as well, but unfortunately it looks like I can’t edit the poll to add these two.
It has already been done for us. The final point standings are the arbiter who has been the best in order.
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I disagree there. The best driver might not have the fastest car and vice-versa.
And your vote for rookie confirms that, the driver who got your vote has two other rookies in front of him in the final standings.
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I don’t think so. A list of rookies is one thing but to rank the whole field we already know the accurate list over the whole season. Anything else is too subjective although in that respect similar to ranking rookies.
To get in a particular car you have to be good enough and once in there you have to be good enough to take advantage over the season and the points you accumulate is the evidence of how well.
Teams like Redbull have been quick to ditch those that have to come up to expectations.
Unfortunately F1 is very far from where you end up in the championship is how you performed. Now more than ever, there is high quality throughout the field, put anyone of the top 17 in a superior car and inferior team mate and they win the championship but in an inferior car they show their real quality. No names mentioned. Thus my ratings and anyone else who cares to.
It was the closest season of the entire field in history and a great season too. I just hope next season doesn’t have one team a second faster and the field spread by 3seconds like most of F1 history.
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The points table for the season is the only objective measure of how well the team and driver did in the season everything else is just subjective opinion.
I agree a driver in a poor car can show their skills but it just means they could outperform the car and gain more points than someone who is just average.
Tsunoda is an example of the opposite effect. He at least for the 2nd half of the season was in a good car and his team mate capitalised very effectively on that but Tsunoda did not, so a poor driver in a good car.
An average driver in a good car may get lucky and get on the podium or even win a race but that is very different to the whole seasons performance. It takes a good driver in a good car to do that and put together a performance that is season long as the top 3 did and Norris becoming champion.
A career over a number of seasons is another matter too and the very best drivers accumulate multiple championships if they maintain motivation and a seat in a good car. The likes of Schumacher, Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso and of course Max (in the modern era) have been able to sustain high performance over several seasons.
The good thing about the current line-up of drivers is there is at least 4 probably 6-7 of them that could win races or indeed a championship just now. The potential mix up of form in the cars next year with new regs is an interesting prospect who may emerge as a front runner. The only snag is that with major rule changes there tends to be team or two that gets a big initial advantage with the others playing catch-up. When teams have had time (even seasons) to get things right the field starts to bunch up like this year.
Very pleased that Lando won, although slight tinge of disappointment that Oscar didn’t. Perhaps his head dipped a bit and he was obviously rather annoyed at some the team decisions like last week not pitting, very diplomatic of course but you could see his face reflected his true feelings
Interesting BTW that papaya rules were out the window for this race. I guess they figured with Norris up front Piastri didn’t have a chance anyway so better have him improve Norris’ chances. I wonder to what extent it was voluntarily.
Hadjar was the best rookie for me, consistent improvement.
Crafty
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2025 was a good season. The margins between teams were very small. This is the case, beacause it was year 4 of the same regulations. The smaller teams caught up somewhat to the big teams.
I fear next year, the field will be much more spread out. It will be the first year of new regulations. The bigger teams will start better than the smaller teams. It will take a few years for the field to tighten up, as the small teams catch up. THis is why they should keep the same rules for many years. The races would be more competitive.
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It should be no surprise that some kind of team orders in certain scenarios would come into play in the last race. McLaren are not so stupid to slavishly follow “the drivers are free to race” strategy. It would have been a failure to have the best car and not get the constructors and drivers championship or indeed hand the championship to another team’s driver due to not wishing to give team orders.
As it turns out it was hardly necessary. I expect Piastri was asked to pass Lando and pressurise Max using the durable hard tyre in the hope that Max would use up his mediums early while Norris could preserve his following on. This tactic could have helped both Piastri and Norris but Piastri was not fast enough relative to Max to achieve that. If it had worked out it would have given Piastri a chance to win the race but Lando would still have won the championship.
The tactic probably needed Max to also try and back the pack up more to stand a chance of working more which was what was expected but it looks like he was just interested in winning the race rather than anything else.
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