The 2025 Formula 1 season comprised 594 race drives, if you include the sprints and account for occasions where cars did not start, with 20 drivers on the grid and a total of 30 races.

We’ve picked out the best and the worst by each driver.

This factors in their performance and execution relative to the machinery, as well as myriad other considerations, including mistakes or the lack thereof. And remember, best and worst are comparative terms so even some drivers’ weakest Sunday performances weren’t necessarily that terrible all things considered.

Here’s our choice of the best and worst of each of the 21 drivers who raced in F1 this year.

Jack Doohan

Best: Bahrain (14th)

This was the race Doohan came closest to points in and he was on target to score for a good proportion of the race. It was only when he struggled on hard tyres in the final stint that he got shuffled backwards - getting a track limits penalty for good measure.

Worst: Australia (DNF)

Having shown promising speed in qualifying, but unlucky with the timing of a yellow flag, he then lost it on a white line in the wet on the first lap of the race and crashed heavily. 

Franco Colapinto

Best: Netherlands (11th)

This race came during the period of the season when Colapinto was on a good upward curve. He came close to scoring his only point of the season, and might well have passed Esteban Ocon for a point with a little more time.

Worst: Spain (15th)

Colapinto describes this as a weekend where he was really struggling. While team-mate Pierre Gasly put in one of Alpine’s strongest performances, Colapinto was nowhere and spent the race stuck in traffic in the lower order.

Gabriel Bortoleto

Best: Mexico (10th)

While his standout weekend was Hungary, where he finished sixth, an excellent qualifying performance played a big part in that. In Mexico, he relied on relentless pace and an incisive late pass to earn a hard-fought point.

Worst: Brazil (DNF)

Bortoleto’s nightmare weekend at home in Brazil culminated in getting over-aggressive on the first lap and heading into a cul-de-sac and, as a result, the wall, while looking for a way past Lance Stroll.

Pierre Gasly

Best: Britain (6th)

This was a similar level of drive to the one Nico Hulkenberg produced for his famous podium, albeit without the perfectly-timed first tyre stop. The result was a strong sixth place when the Alpine was better than it usually was thanks to the number of faster corners at Silverstone.

Worst: Qatar (16th)

At a circuit where the Alpine was relatively competitive given, as mentioned above, it was at its happiest in quicker corners, Gasly lost a points shot to a combination of an early mistake that gave him floor damage, then a collision with Hulkenberg that he was partly culpable for. 

Yuki Tsunoda

Best: Australia (12th)

That Tsunoda’s strongest race drive was in one of his two Racing Bulls outings rather than once in the Red Bull is revealing. He was sixth when the rain returned, and passed Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, only to be left out on slicks and plummet out of the points as a result. 

Worst: Austria (16th)

Tsunoda combined struggling for pace at the Red Bull Ring with eating his tyres, which made him the only driver who had to stop three times. Just to make matters worse, he also got himself a 10-second penalty for clattering into Colapinto.

Lance Stroll

Best: Hungary (7th)

While he did the heavy lifting in qualifying, and lost a place to Bortoleto early on, this was a good, solid, well-executed race drive on a weekend where Stroll wasn’t giving away much to Aston Martin team-mate Fernando Alonso in terms of pace.

Worst: Qatar (17th)

A non-running 17th was an appropriate reward for a race of underwhelming pace compounded by a self-inflicted pitlane speeding penalty earned because he failed to hit the limiter button at the right time.

Esteban Ocon

Best: China (5th)

Ocon produced a handful of outstanding race drives in 2025 but China, where he headed the midfield pack and was promoted to fifth after the Ferraris were thrown out, stands out. Not only was he quick but he also pulled off an on-the-grass pass to get ahead of Kimi Antonelli.

Worst: Italy (15th)

It says a lot about Ocon’s season that this is the pick - as generally his Sundays were of a decent standard. Even at Monza, he looked solid enough at times, but clumsily forcing Stroll off track was a needless moment of inattentiveness that earned him a penalty.

Liam Lawson

Best: Azerbaijan (5th)

While overshadowed on the results sheet by Carlos Sainz’s podium, Lawson’s drive to fifth was arguably more impressive given the pace of the Racing Bulls. He covered Antonelli in the first stint, and although he lost the place in the second stint he didn’t put a foot wrong and kept Tsunoda’s Red Bull behind.

Worst: Australia (DNF)

The extent of Lawson’s struggles with the Red Bull RB21 was laid bare by his struggle for pace as he made no progress in the midfield before eventually crashing.

Ollie Bearman

Best: Mexico (4th)

What elevated this above other candidates was the moment Bearman got ahead of Max Verstappen, an opportunity presented to him by Lewis Hamilton’s move but consolidated with outstanding judgement in carrying the maximum speed into Turn 7 without quite breaching track limits.

Worst: Hungary (DNF)

This was actually a reasonable enough drive, Bearman hanging on in the points despite tyre degradation troubles. However, he ran wide at Turn 4 and damaged the floor, not for the first time in the weekend, and retired as a consequence. 

Isack Hadjar

Best: Netherlands (3rd)

There were several things that marked out Hadjar’s Zandvoort drive over and above the eye-catching result. First, the way he covered the threat of Leclerc, second, the fact he didn’t put a foot wrong, and third, his relentlessly good race pace. 

Worst: Australia (DNS)

It doesn’t get much worse than crashing on the formation lap of what should be your first grand prix. “Embarrassed and sorry” was Hadjar’s verdict after losing it on the throttle at Turn 2 and hitting the wall in Australia.

Nico Hulkenberg

Best: Britain (3rd)

Hulkenberg produced a number of hugely impressive race drives during 2025, but Silverstone stands out because of his sound judgement in timing the switch to slicks and the excellent pace, which turned what might have been a good-but-less-spectacular finish into a remarkable one.

Worst: China (15th)

Having started the race within touching distance of the points, a mediocre start, then an off and trip through the gravel at Turn 3 while scrapping with Alonso gave Hulkenberg’s Sauber damage that condemned him to a long, hard afternoon. 

Fernando Alonso

Best: Singapore (7th)

This was a hard-fought ‘midfield win’ as not only did it require Alonso to produce consistently good pace, but also to make some decisive passes along the way - not helped by a 9.2s pitstop.

Worst: Australia (DNF)

Alonso’s race was going reasonably well in 10th place when he crashed exiting Turn 6, which he blamed on gravel pulled onto the track by another car.

Carlos Sainz

Best: Qatar (3rd)

Sainz had strong pace on the high-speed sweeps of Qatar, but also had to nail it in the closing stages to ensure he stayed clear of Lando Norris and Antonelli and held on to a podium. 

Worst: Australia (DNF)

His unfamiliarity with the Mercedes power unit led to a kick of torque under the safety car firing him into the wall. If crashing under the safety car, regardless of circumstances, isn’t your worst race of the year then you would be having a dreadful season.

Alex Albon

Best: Miami (5th)

This is elevated to the top of the pile of Albon’s many strong drives in the first half of the season by the opportunistic pass on team-mate Sainz that gained him a position. Beyond that, his pace was strong in the Williams throughout.

Worst: Azerbaijan (13th)

Getting stuck down the order early on was largely down to his poor qualifying, but the half-hearted and vague lunge on Colapinto that earned him a penalty and eliminated any chance of a proper recovery was inexcusable. 

Kimi Antonelli

Best: Brazil (2nd)

While he was fortunate to survive the contact with Leclerc that he played a part in initiating by squeezing Oscar Piastri, everything else about his race was excellent. What marked it out, on top of his pace edge over Mercedes team-mate George Russell, was keeping Verstappen at bay late on.

Worst: Austria (DNF)

Antonelli’s pace would likely have been pretty good in the race at the Red Bull Ring, had he not made a terrible misjudgement and torpedoed Verstappen at Turn 3 on the opening lap and removed himself from it - in what stands as his big rookie mistake of the year. 

Lewis Hamilton

Best: China sprint (1st)

In a season when even many of his better results had asterisks against them, the China sprint stands out as an example of the kind of in-control drive that Hamilton used to deliver week-in, week-out. In command from pole, he never looked like losing victory.

Worst: Brazil (DNF)

Hamilton combined not being very quick, even factoring in the damage he sustained, with having clashes with both Sainz and, most cackhandedly, Colapinto on the first lap of the race. That led to him parking up after 37 laps.

Charles Leclerc

Best: United States (3rd)

In a season full of races where he flattered the Ferrari, Leclerc’s Austin Sunday performance stands out given how long he managed to keep Norris’s faster McLaren behind, both in the first stint and the second after undercutting his way back past - only losing second late on.

Worst: Britain (14th)

A misjudged jump to slicks on the formation lap meant things started badly, and it got worse from there with an untidy race culminating in driving into Sainz’s Williams at Stowe. Even Ferrari’s wet struggles don’t account for how poor this drive was.

George Russell

Best: Singapore (1st)

A superbly-executed win from pole position. Along the way he had to keep Verstappen covered, and managed the tyres effectively to ensure he was always in control.

Worst: Britain (10th)

It’s testament to the strength of his season that Russell was genuinely quick in the race at Silverstone. However, he twice leaped to slicks too early - on the second occasion leading to an off-track moment - which compromised his result.

Oscar Piastri

Best: Spain (1st)

Although winning from pole position can look straightforward, this was an example of a race drive when Piastri had to cover the looming threats first of Verstappen and then Norris. In particular, the way he managed the middle stint stood out.

Worst: Azerbaijan (DNF)

It’s rare for Piastri to make significant in-race errors, so for him to produce two of them in the space of a minute in Baku was unexpected. First, he jumped the start and dropped to last, with a penalty as a result, then he crashed while impatient to regain ground.

Max Verstappen

Best: Brazil (3rd)

Starting from the pitlane after the Red Bull proved to be all over the place in qualifying, but crucially with set-up changes that transformed it, he charged up to third in a race that was complicated, albeit positively in some ways, by a puncture that forced him to pit on the seventh lap.

Worst: Spain (10th)

Verstappen described his Spanish Grand Prix red mist, which was the result of a series of frustrations, as “the only point of criticism” for his season. Hitting Russell’s Mercedes when he was ordered to let it past earned a penalty that turned fifth-on-the-road into 10th.

Lando Norris

Best: Austria (1st)

There were other races where Norris was in control, but Austria stood out because, unlike in Brazil and Mexico late in the season, he had to cover the threat of Piastri at the Red Bull Ring and outdo him in battle. 

Worst: Canada (18th)

Norris’s pace was a little stronger than Piastri’s and his race drive was a good one. But it was undone by one disastrous moment when he misjudged his closing speed on Piastri while chasing fourth place and drove into the back of the other McLaren.