A quarter of the 2025 Formula 1 season is in the books, and the championship battle is heating up with Oscar Piastri and McLaren leading the way after the Aussie clocked three consecutive wins. But just as intriguing as the fight at the front is the emergence of a fresh generation of drivers, with six rookies joining the F1 grid this year and shaping the future of the sport.
From promising juniors stepping into midfield teams to more seasoned stand-ins returning with full-time seats, the class of 2025 has had a mixed start. The F1 rookie ranking 2025 is already taking shape, with some drivers grabbing headlines for all the right reasons — while others struggle to find their feet amid fierce competition.
With six races completed, we break down the performance of each rookie so far, based on points, racecraft, consistency, and raw potential.
F1 Rookie Ranking 2025
Check out our ranking of the 2025 F1 rookies below as the season reaches one quarter gone.
Gabriel Bortoleto – 0 points
The lack of points is more reflective of the Sauber rather than Bortoleto’s abilities, given he won the Formula 2 championshio. For the most part, he has been competitive compared to experienced team-mate Nico Hulkenberg on race pace and in qualifying, the duo are tying in the sprint quali head-to-heads, though the German is 4-2 up for the main qualifying sessions.
Issues with the car have let him down when fighting in the midfield, as could be seen in Miami when his car failed when running 15th.
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There is a good platform to build on for Bortoleto and his main focus for the rest of the year is to ensure he remains with a seat next season – he is contracted for Audi’s first year in 2026.
Liam Lawson – 0 points
One of the nightmare stories of the season was the misfortune for Liam Lawson as he began his first full season in F1.
The New Zealander had impressed on two seperate occasions standing in at the sister AlphaTauri/RB team – substituting for the injured Daniel Ricciardo in 2023 before taking over from the Australian permanently at the end of last term.
With 11 races under his belt, Red Bull chose Lawson and not the more experienced Yuki Tsunoda to replace Sergio Perez alongside Max Verstappen but the dream quickly turned into a disaster. A crash in the season opener was followed by Lawson qualifying last for both sprint and grand prix in China and, with no improvement to note in the race, he was dropped for the third race in Japan.
The switch with Tsunoda has seen Lawson remain on the grid but the four race weekends with Racing Bulls have been full of incident for Lawson, who again collided with rivals in Miami – once with Fernando Alonso in the sprint and then with Jack Doohan at the first corner of the grand prix.
He desperately needs a clean run of races to rebuild his confidence. We know the talent is there, now Lawson just needs to be able to show it.
Jack Doohan – 0 points
Australian Doohan had a lot of speculation surrounding his future dominate headlines even before the season started.
After making his debut at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last season as a replacement for now-Haas driver Esteban Ocon, Doohan was faced with the pressure of Franco Colapinto being drafted in as a reserve driver since pre-season, with talk of an in-season switch rife across the first six races.
While Doohan showed flashes of pace, it was a far from clean start to life in F1 – notably two first lap retirements with car damage and a high-profile, high-speed crash in practice at Suzuka, where he left the DRS flap open for Turn 1.
Any driver deserves more time than Doohan had to establish themselves in the sport but the writing was on the wall for a long time, and the results weren’t flawless enough for Alpine to reconsider. Colapinto takes over for Imola.
Isack Hadjar – 5 points
When Isack Hadjar crashed out on the formation lap for the Australian Grand Prix and returned to the paddock a dejected figure, you would have been excused for worrying about the damage that incident could have done to a young driver on their first F1 appearance.
But wow, has the Frenchman put that behind him. His five-point haul so far is no reflection of his performances so far, with strategy costing him on more than one occasion. But he has soundly outperformed Lawson in their four races together and has looked at ease win the F1 environment.
There are cases where he has overdriven slightly and that has cost him, but Hadjar will learn quickly from that. A bright future awaits.
Oliver Bearman – 6 points
Six points for Bearman after a strong few races for Haas but perhaps not the explosive entry to a full-time F1 seat that many expected after the Briton’s substitute appearances last season.
Bearman has done nothing to disgrace himself and his race pace has been comparative to team-mate Esteban Ocon for the most part. But qualifying has been where he has let himself down on occasion and will be the main focus going forward as he tries to establish himself as a midfield contender for regular points.
Ocon, though vastly more experienced, leads the qualifying head-to-head battle 5-1 [grands prix only]. But what is pivotal is that the relationship between the drivers looks positive and Bearman can tap into that experience from the Frenchman for his own gain.
Kimi Antonelli – 48 points
Pole for the Miami sprint made Kimi Antonelli the youngest polesitter in F1 history and is the punctuation point on what has been an impressive start to his F1 career.
Only 18 years of age, the Italian has faced a steep learning curve in jumping in at Mercedes to join George Russell and replace seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton.
But he has been unfazed and solid points scoring so far has seen him settle sixth in the drivers’ standings, just five points adrift of Charles Leclerc in fifth and ahead of Hamilton.
The way he handled his start in the sprint shows he has plenty to learn still, as can be expected, while he is facing the usual rookie struggles with the Pirelli tyres. But as Piastri has shown, when that finally clicks as it has done this year, then true pace can be displayed for the world to see – and it took him 18 months to put that to bed.
It’s fair to say that Antonelli is vindicating Toto Wolff’s decision to put him in the car. Now he has to kick on and prove he can overcome the greenness to put together podium finishes, like team-mate Russell has done so far.
What do you think of our F1 rooking ranking 2025? Leave a comment below and let us know your opinion on the 2025 F1 rookies.
