How team bosses, drivers, Motorsport and fans ranked the top 10 F1 drivers from 2025

Max Verstappen has emerged as the best Formula 1 driver from the 2025 season, according to team principals, drivers themselves, as well as Motorsport, Autosport and their readers.

All current team bosses and racers were asked by F1 to submit their top 10s, applying the 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 points system to create separate standings. No representative from Red Bull and Ferrari took part in the vote, with Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hulkenberg, Yuki Tsunoda and Lance Stroll also skipping it.

Motorsport's sister publication Autosport and its F1 writers Stuart Codling and Jake Boxall-Legge established our own ranking, while Autosport readers' race-by-race average ratings were aggregated into a top 10.

In all four instances, Verstappen was placed at the top, but behind him it was quite tight between Lando Norris, George Russell, Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc. The new world champion was slightly more successful than Mercedes' lead driver, his McLaren team-mate, and Ferrari's top performer.

Those five were widely considered as the best five drivers of the season, though team principals ranked Leclerc lower than Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz on average. The Spaniards were part of numerous midfield contenders for the top six, where Hulkenberg featured twice too; Isack Hadjar was the only midfielder to be included in all top 10s.

Hamilton, Liam Lawson, Esteban Ocon, Stroll, Tsunoda and Gabriel Bortoleto failed to feature in any top 10 – as did part-timers Jack Doohan and Franco Colapinto.

Top 10 2025 F1 drivers

	Team principals	Drivers	Autosport	Autosport readers
1st	Verstappen	Verstappen	Verstappen	Verstappen
2nd	Norris	Norris	Russell	Piastri
3rd	Piastri	Russell	Leclerc	Norris
4th	Russell	Piastri	Norris	Leclerc
5th	Alonso	Leclerc	Piastri	Russell
6th	Sainz	Sainz	Hulkenberg	Hulkenberg
7th	Leclerc	Alonso	Gasly	Antonelli
8th	Bearman	Albon	Hadjar	Hadjar
9th	Hadjar	Bearman	Antonelli	Albon
10th	Hulkenberg	Hadjar	Sainz	Bearman

Applying the current points system when aggregating those four rankings, one can then look at a global top 10 inclusive of team bosses, drivers, journalists and fans alike.

		TEAMS	Drivers	Autosport	readers	pts
1st	Verstappen	25	25	25	25	100
2nd	Norris	18	18	12	15	63
3rd=	Russell	12	15	18	10	55
3rd=	Piastri	15	12	10	18	55
5th	Leclerc	6	10	15	12	43
6th=	Hulkenberg	1		8	8	17
6th=	Sainz	8	8	1		17
8th	Alonso	10	6			16
9th	Hadjar	2	1	4	4	11
10th	Antonelli			2	6	8
11th	Bearman	4	2		1	7
12th=	Gasly			6		6
12th=	Albon		4		2	6