Why Piastri’s No.1 with a bullet and Norris doesn’t even make podium: Ranking every driver so far

Championship position is only so indicative in motorsport.

Rising up the title table needs a combination of talent and machinery. Sometimes those two factors are unaligned.

It’s why there’s more to form than points alone.

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Note: the below statistics do not include sprint qualifying or sprint races, only grand prix session results.

1. OSCAR PIASTRI

Championship: 1st (284 points)

Wins: 6 (2.43 average)

Poles: 4 (2.14 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 7-7 (points: 284-275)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 8-6 (0.045 seconds faster)

It’s impossible to go past Oscar Piastri as the season’s best performer to date.

The Australian, in just his third Formula 1 campaign, leads the championship ahead of his more experienced teammate. On the way to his nine-point advantage have been some crucial box-ticking exercises on his title bona fides: duels with Max Verstappen, defensive drivers, attacking masterclasses and astute examples of race management that had been beyond him in his younger years.

Arguably he lacks Norris’s outright single-lap speed, but he’s compensated for it with rock-solid reliability. He has more front-row starts than any other driver and is yet to qualify lower than fourth. He’s also the only driver to score points in every grand prix.

No-one has executed more consistently than Piastri, and so he leads the title standings and the mid-year rankings.

PIT TALK PODCAST: Lando Norris sliced his title deficit down to nine points after beating Oscar Piastri to victory in Hungary, but with Piastri locked into making two stops, was the Aussie hard done by in defeat? Listen to Pit Talk below.

2. GEORGE RUSSELL

Championship: 4th (172 points)

Wins: 1 (4.79 average)

Poles: 1 (4.43 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 10-0 (points: 172-64)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 13-1 (0.342 seconds faster)

George Russell has confirmed his transition from Lewis Hamilton understudy to works team leader with a superb 2025 season full of standout performances.

The transition was on in the second half of last season, when he banished his reputation for overthinking his winning chances. This year he hasn’t meaningfully slipped up once as Mercedes’s senior driver.

The team has had one shot at victory this year, in Canada. He dominated the weekend, winning from pole position.

That victory was one of six podiums for the year — enough to put him comfortably fourth in the standings only 15 points behind Max Verstappen, who’s had a comfortably faster car for most of the season.

He’s now all but assured to be renewed for at least another season in the season — just reward for one of the year’s top performers.

3. MAX VERSTAPPEN

Championship: 3rd (187 points)

Wins: 2 (4.15 average)

Poles: 4 (3.50 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 11-0 (points: 187-7)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 13-0 (0.569 seconds faster)

It was clear early that Max Verstappen’s title defence was on the back foot, but the reigning champion kept his hopes alive with some typically strong weekend that left no performance on the table.

His perfect execution from pole ahead of the faster McLaren teammates in Japan was a highlight, and he so nearly did the same thing two rounds later in Saudi Arabia.

He didn’t miss in Imola later in the season, the only race so far in which the RB21 has looked like a genuine race winner out of the box.

His only real misstep was his bizarre brain snap in Spain, where he appeared to deliberately hit George Russell over a perceived wrong late in the afternoon.

Now 97 points off the title lead, his hopes of a fifth championship have been extinguished, but that’s not for a lack of speed on his part.

4. LANDO NORRIS

Championship: 2nd (275 points)

Wins: 5 (3.00 average)

Poles: 4 (3.29 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 7-7 (points: 275-284)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 6-8 (0.045 seconds slower)

You can look at Norris’s nine-point deficit to Piastri two ways.

The first is that it could’ve been much larger, with Piastri unlucky to miss wins in Hungary and Great Britain and unfortunate to have finished behind Norris in Imola too — not to mention his slide off in Australia.

The other, however, is that Norris has missed chances to retain the lead he held for the first four rounds.

Mistakes mostly in qualifying but occasionally in races have cost him dearly in his first genuine championship fight.

His unforced error in Canada, for example, cost him at least 10 points for what at the time was fifth place — enough to make the difference on its own.

That said, he’s been more formidable in the last four grands prix, three of which he’s won. He’s back in the game, and if he can maintain his recent consistency, he can fulfil his pre-season promise of taking the title down to the wire.

5. CHARLES LECLERC

Championship: 5th (151 points)

Best finish: 2nd (1) (5.08 average)

Poles: 1 (5.14 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 11-2 (points: 151-109)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 10-4 (0.169 seconds faster)

Recency bias might suggest Leclerc could push higher into the order thanks to that superlative pole position in Hungary, but it’s important to take the totality of his season into account.

While Ferrari’s struggles are paramount in assessing his year, Leclerc has also had some lacklustre races. It’s par for the course for the Monegasque, who is at his sizzling best when the car is close to its sweet spot but who fades a little when it’s misaligned with what he needs.

But there’s no denying Leclerc’s supremacy inside the team. How he would respond to having Hamilton in the adjoining garage was a major storyline ahead of this season, and he’s easily dispatched with the seven-time champion in the first half of the campaign.

6. ALEX ALBON

Championship: 8th (54 points)

Best finish: 5th (3) (8.18 average)

Best qualifying: 5th (1) (10.50 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 7-2 (points: 54-16)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 8-6 (0.033 seconds faster)

This is the fourth season in which Williams must wonder where it would be without Alex Albon.

The Thai star has been born again at the longstanding struggler, which this year has confidently led the midfield since the beginning of the year.

He’d never finished higher than seventh before this year. So far in 2025 he’s finished fifth twice. At 10 points a pop, those results alone underpin the team’s 70-point haul so far this year.

It’s also more than twice teammate Carlos Sainz’s tally.

While Sainz has had several slices of bad luck following his lengthy adjustment to life at Williams, Albon has continued firing on all cylinders, reliably getting the most from his machinery to keep his team in an unlikely fifth in the constructors championship.

7. FERNANDO ALONSO

Championship: 11th (26 points)

Best finish: 5th (1) (10.64 average)

Poles, best qualifying: 5th (2) (10.93 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 8-2 (points: 26-26)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 14-0 (0.320 seconds faster)

There was a moment early in the year at which it looked like the years of disappointment had begun to weigh heavily on Fernando Alonso as teammate Lance Stroll piled on the points.

Really we should’ve known better.

With just a sniff of an improved car after upgrades brought to the Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso has levelled the scores with some vintage performances, not least of which was his masterful control of the midfield in Hungary to finish fifth.

And those early Stroll-boosting results never came at the expense of Alonso’s speed. He’s more than halfway to whitewashing the team owner’s son in qualifying with the biggest time differential between teammates outside Red Bull Racing and Mercedes — in fact in every key metric above Alonso is dishing out a shellacking to his younger teammate.

He might be 44 years old and it might be 256 races since his last win, but Alonso continues to impress.

8. ISACK HADJAR

Championship: 13th (22 points)

Best finish: 6th (1) (11.17 average)

Best qualifying: 6th (1) (10.07 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 7-3 (points: 22-23)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 9-5 (0.164 seconds faster)

Red Bull’s apparent reluctance to promote Isack Hadjar led few to expect much from the Frenchman, but the 2024 Formula 2 runner-up has massively impressed in his minimally hyped debut season to establish himself as a contender for rookie of the year.

Despite sitting 13th in the championship in what’s been on average the sixth-fastest car, he’s been the season’s eighth-best qualifier on average over the opening 14 rounds. That makes him the best midfielder over a single lap, ahead of Albon, Alonso and the troubled Yuki Tsunoda.

He’s been sufficiently convincing that he’s now next in line for the cursed seat at Red Bull Racing should Tsunoda be dispensed with at the end of the year — though as perhaps another feather in his cap, he’s clever enough to have wondered aloud whether that would actually serve the betterment of his career, which could be a long one based on his first 14 rounds.

9. GABRIEL BORTOLETO

Championship: 17th (14 points)

Best finish: 6th (1) (13.64 average)

Best qualifying: 7th (1) (14.43 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 5-5 (points: 14-37)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 8-6 (0.059 seconds faster)

Running Hadjar very close for top-rookie status is reigning Formula 2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto, whose recent upturn in form coinciding with his team’s improvement has turned heads.

Against the more representative bar of teammate Nico Hülkenberg, Bortoleto has shone, particularly in qualifying.

His early season suffered from inconsistency, not helped by Sauber debuting an undercooked car. Fortunately, however, he’s come good in time to capitalise on the team’s game-changing upgrades. Resultantly he’s outqualified Hülkenberg four times in succession and seven times in the last nine grands prix. He’s also collected the team’s only three Q3 appearances.

He’s beaten Hülkenberg in three of the last four grands prix, scoring points all three times to rocket Sauber to sixth in the championship.

Audi bet big on Bortoleto as part of its 2026 foundational line-up. After a shaky start, he looks like an inspired choice.

10. NICO HÜLKENBERG

Championship: 9th (37 points)

Best finish: 3rd (1) (11.15 average)

Best qualifying: 12th (1) (16.14 average)

Teammate head to head, races: 5-5 (points: 37-14)

Teammate head to head, qualifying: 6-8 (0.059 seconds slower)

Nico Hülkenberg ended his excruciating 239-race wait for a grand prix podium at the British Grand Prix, where he mastered the wet conditions to beat Lewis Hamilton to the final trophy.

It’s just reward for what’s been a solid campaign for the veteran German in his second chance at Formula 1.

The future Audi team wanted a veteran in its line-up to guide it forwards, and Hülkenberg has fulfilled that objective admirably. His 37 points put him an unlikely ninth in the championship behind only Albon among the midfielders.

The German has missed few chances to score since the team began turning around its season in Spain, with his four-round scoring run ending only at the mixed-weather Belgian Grand Prix.

While he’s being led in qualifying by his younger teammate, it’s his dependable race-day performances that got him the gig — four times this year’s he’s finished 10 places or higher than he started — and he’s continued producing them to such an effect that Sauber is now an outside chance to finish a remarkable fifth in the championship.

11. LEWIS HAMILTON (6th, 109 points)

Lewis Hamilton’s season has had some highs, the loftiest of which was his sprint win in China — which bumps him up this order — but his form has been too inconsistent and he’s been beaten too consistently by teammate Leclerc to warrant a top-10 spot.

He’s spent spells being way off the pace, including through the Japan-Bahrain-Saudi Arabia triple-header and recently in Belgium and Hungary. His poor result at the Hungaroring, a track for which he holds every meaningful record, stung especially badly.

It hasn’t been quite as bad as some doomsayers suggest — or as Hamilton’s downcast commentary implied last weekend — but it does leave him with much work to do to salvage the season in the final 10 rounds.

12. PIERRE GASLY (14th, 20 points)

Pierre Gasly is making a habit of getting a lot from a little. The Alpine car has been painfully inconsistent, and the team is last in the standings, but Gasly is a constant Q3 threat and regular scorer, just about keeping the team’s head above water.

That said, it’s hard to know just how good he’s doing when his rookie teammates haven’t been allowed to establish themselves thanks to some chaotic driver management decisions.

13. ESTEBAN OCON (10th, 27 points)

Esteban Ocon is ably filling the required role of experienced steady hand at Haas, seizing most of the team’s haphazard and unpredictable opportunities to score.

Bearman has been a strong match for him, equalling him in qualifying and on average finishing in exactly the same 12th on the grid, but Ocon is making the difference by regularly capitalising on narrow windows of chances to drag Haas into the points to keep it safe from last in the championship.

14. OLIVER BEARMAN (19th, 8 points)

Oliver Bearman has been as quick as expected after his various cameos last season and has kept teammate Esteban Ocon honest, but he loses standing for amassing a series of needless rookie mistakes that have punished him on the grid or in races.

His crash fest in Melbourne got him off on the wrong foot. He subsequently accrued two big penalties for ignoring red flags in practice, in Monaco and Great Britain, that can’t be dismissed as simple rookie mistakes and cost him and the team points.

Consistency is key from here to make good on his promise.

15. ANDREA KIMI ANTONELLI (7th, 64 points)

The season’s most-hyped rookie entered the mid-season break with the reprieve of a single point for 10th, just his second scoring round from the last eight.

While Antonelli has enjoyed the highs of sprint pole in Miami and his maiden podium in Canada, that long points drought was a harsh reminder that this clearly talented 18-year-old has been fast-tracked into Formula 1 with the bare minimum requires experience. Mercedes has taken the blame for sending his car down some development dead-ends, but there’s no doubt his plan inexperience is taking its toll.

16. CARLOS SAINZ (16th, 16 points)

Averaging just 0.033 seconds slower than teammate Albon, it might seem harsh to place Carlos Sainz 16th in the order. There are two elements to his position.

The first is that he needed time to acclimatise to Williams — time Albon spent scoring when the car was at its best.

The second is that he’s copped more than a bit of bad luck. That’s not his fault, but it means he’s yet to prove what he’s really capable of at the British team.

We can only rank what we can see, and so far it’s not been much.

17. LIAM LAWSON (15th, 20 points)

There’s every chance that after a few more rounds on his current trajectory Liam Lawson would be higher up this list. When the sport adjourned, he’d at last found some traction at Racing Bulls to drag himself to within two points teammate Hadjar.

But for now his considerable beatings in the qualifying head-to-head count, plus his average qualifying deficit of 2.8 places and 0.247 seconds, count against him — not to mention his two-round shocker at Red Bull Racing.

18. LANCE STROLL (12th, 26 points)

Stroll started the season looking like he might finally have figured out how to get one over the legendary Alonso in the sister car. Instead he’s been on the receiving end of one of the most comprehensive teammate beatings in the sport in qualifying (4.8 places, 0.320 seconds) and in the race (3.5 places).

While they’re equal on points, Stroll’s biggest scores game in Australia and Great Britain in the wet — great drives, to be sure, but not great enough to make up for his underwhelming results in regular conditions.

19. YUKI TSUNODA (18th, 10 points)

It’s impossible not to have at least a little bit of sympathy for Yuki Tsunoda. He’s bee a standout performer in the last few years and was on fire in the opening two rounds of this season before finally getting the nod for a Red Bull Racing drive.

But the RBR seat is clearly cursed by years of wayward development, dooming its occupying driver to a career-threatening belting by Verstappen.

Tsunoda’s gap to Verstappen in qualifying position, qualifying pace and finishing position is the largest of any driver in the sport bar Lawson in those first two rounds in the same seat.

Of course it’s clear that it can’t just be the driver’s fault. We know Tsunoda was an extremely quick driver just a few months ago at Racing Bulls. But you can’t rank a driver based on hypotheticals. In a race-winning car Tsunoda has scored seven points, none of which have been scored in the last seven rounds.

Tsunoda is better than this, but not on the evidence of the last 12 grands prix.

20. JACK DOOHAN (21st, 0 points)

Is Jack Doohan the 20th best driver in Formula 1? Truthfully it would be unfair to answer that question given he was allowed just six grands prix to make a statement — six grands prix, it must be said, during which he raced knowing that Alpine’s unpredictable management was sharpening its axe to swing at any moment.

Those aren’t conditions conducive to a rookie getting the best from themselves.

The Australian’s brief showing in Formula 1 left little impact, but there were clear signs of speed. He was fractionally quicker in Melbourne, and he outqualified Gasly in their final race as teammates in Miami.

It’s a shame we’ll never get to know where that speed could’ve led.

21. FRANCO COLAPINTO (20th, 0 points)

Much of the above applies to Franco Colapinto too. While the Argentine had long seemed destined for Doohan’s seat and while his backing appears to buy him added security, the fact there are already whispers that the team is contemplating replacing him tells you the environment hadn’t much improved.

He’s ranked lower than Doohan only because his statistics are no better than the Australian’s despite him having had longer in the car and having had the benefit of marginally more experience via Williams last year.

But both drivers could and probably should have been higher on the list had they got the stable shot in F1 they deserve.