Time for the big one again. After 24 races, 9 months on the road, 6 Sprint races, 5 questionable McLaren strategy calls and a partridge in a pear tree, it’s time for me to look back on it all with Part 1 of my three-part series reviewing the 2025 Formula 1 Season.
You probably already know the drill by now, I go team-by-team in reverse championship order, breaking down each team’s season, as well as deep dive on their drivers, their strengths and weaknesses, key stats, and ratings, because everyone loves a good rating!
This year, I’ve chucked Sprint Races into the overall counting stats for head-to-heads, and average qualifying gaps were necessary too. Average Start and Finish includes said Sprints too by the way.
Also, because of the nature of how the season played out, the structure’s a little different this year:
Part 1 – Alpine, Kick Sauber, Haas
Part 2 – Racing Bulls, Aston Martin, Williams
Part 3 – Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes, McLaren
Let’s do this. First up… it’s the French. Woo.
Alpine F1 Team
Constructor’s Position: Tenth (22 Points)
Head-To-Head Records (Gasly vs Colapinto*): Gasly 17-5 In Qualifying / Gasly 13-8 In Races
Best Finish: 6th (Britain)
Season In A Nutshell: “…Man.”
*If you’re curious – Gasly was 6-2 in Quali and Races against Jack Doohan
Case study #1 as to why this season is weird. Alpine broke Haas’ record as the best bottom ranked team in F1 history. No-one sitting at the bottom has ever scored as many as 22 points, even more than Haas’ 12 in 2023.
I look at Alpine’s year and it just makes me feel sad. They’re like a simile for American politics, only with Flavio Briatore as the man in charge. We all knew the moment he was brought into by Luca De Meo last season, that he was eventually going to be in charge. You knew deep down there was nothing you could do about it, and it’s turning out exactly as expected. Miserable. And yes, Steve Nielsen is Managing Director of the team now, but does it feel like he’s in charge? Hell, no.
It didn’t initially quite feel like that. Alpine had the breath of fresh air in Oliver Oakes to begin the season. But he resigned citing personal reasons and returned to Hitech in F2/3 after the Miami Grand Prix under strange timing, and Flavio was put in full command. There was the questionable timing of Oliver’s brother William (Fellow Hitech Director) being arrested in Britain for carrying a large amount of cash while Oliver headed to Dubai, but there was no firm link between the two incidents and shit died down quickly.
The driver situation was equally bleak. We all knew from the start where it was heading. Jack Doohan started the season but every media firm reported off the rip that he was on a six-race probation. After generally mediocre results and two rather embarrassing shunts at home and at Suzuka’s Turn 1 at 180mph, Doohan was dropped for Franco Colapinto, who had allegedly been given a five-year contract as a reserve – The equivalent of “Hold this for us, we’ll sort you out later.” Seeing Doohan as early on as the season launch in London having to clap back hard questions about the pressure of his spot was rewarding because he gave it back, but felt futile because you knew the trap was already set.
Alpine as a car was… a one lap specialist at best. Still hampered by the worst power-units on the grid, a chassis that on a good day could still sneak into points contention, but often fell off on Sunday. It’s hard to ignore the lopsided driver quality too, with Pierre Gasly spearheading the team into all 22 of its points, including an outrageous sixth at Silverstone that no-one will talk about because of a rival in green. But Alpine shut down development of the car after that weekend to focus on 2026, and only scored three points for the rest of the year. Most of the time down the stretch, they were dead on arrival from the start of the weekend, the dead last team with nothing to play for.
It also marked the end of an era for the Viry engine department for the French manufacturer. We’ve had Renault power on the grid in some capacity almost non-stop since 1977, but this year marked their last as a factory team as they switch focus to their sportscar division, with Mercedes power-units and gearboxes heading their way for 2026.
That supplier, combined with Alpine’s one bright spot usually being their chassis design should be a winning combination. But do you feel confident about Enstone right now? Given rumours the Otro Capital stakeholders in the team are considering flipping their 24% stake in the team already, I wonder if we’ll be having talks about Alpine’s future on the grid yet again in the not too distant future. Remember, when the going gets tough, Renault quits.
Oh and one more note before I move on – Alpine quietly canned their RaceHer programme in the middle of the season, the programme that gave young girls opportunities and mentoring in karting, and then hired Carmen Jorda as their head of their F1 Academy team, the woman who said that women can’t beat men in racing. This team is grim and backwards.
PS: Who calls team orders when you’re fighting for 17th place in Austin? WHO?!
Pierre Gasly – 18th in Points (22), 5 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 6th / Average Start: 13.4 / Average Finish: 14.6
A genuinely valiant effort I think is the fairest way I can sum up Gasly’s season. 95% of the time, if the Alpine wasn’t dead on arrival at an F1 weekend, Gasly was willing it into contention for points. To get in there five times, as well as in a couple of Sprints too, is a hell of an effort for a team that was bottom of the standings for the whole season, and shut it down half way through. If we were ranking Qualifying, Gasly is 14th on average at the start, way above where he should be given the overall strength of the car. Throw in 11 Q3 appearances with three in the last four weekends and I can’t help but tip my cap to the man. But it was the lack of speed in race trim that made so much of Gasly’s work futile.
He got a little clumsy at times, hitting Carlos Sainz in Hungary, and he was lucky to avoid punishment for taking out Nico Hulkenberg at the end of the year in Qatar, but the good far outweighs the bad on this one. And I have to mention the brilliance of his drive at Silverstone, qualifying in 10th and then keeping his head cool in treacherous conditions to finish 6th, a brilliant result.
Gasly has become the low-class warrior in F1 that you’d usually be more likely to associate with Dragonball Z. He made my Top 10 last year and he was very unlucky not to do so again this year, positions 6-13 this year were incredibly tight. But this man is now THE diamond in a very rough Alpine team. 7/10
Franco Colapinto – 20th in Points (0), Best Finish: 11th / Average Start: 16.4 / Average Finish: 16.1 (18 Races)
As said earlier, when Colapinto was signed as an Alpine reserve off the back of his largely impressive Williams run, we all kinda knew that Briatore was looking for any excuse to run the Argentinian. He had more experience, he impressed in the other shade of blue, and funding was promised via his home country. I think the only reason he didn’t get the full season was because they committed to Doohan early and had to save some PR points.
But how did Colapinto get on? Honestly, I think he was okay given the circumstances. He didn’t get the luxury of the testing that Doohan got and was chucked in off the deep end. Yes, he has the worst average start and finish of anyone in the field, but that was kind of a given. In terms of Qualifying average gap, he was three tenths behind Gasly – Which given the vast levels of experience difference, I think is fine. He was unlucky not to get into the points in Zandvoort and at times, he was with Gasly on track during the worst of Alpine’s form (Austin especially).
It was clearly enough in the eyes of Flavio to retain him for 2026, and ship Jack Doohan off to Super Formula (It’s not looking good, brev). But I’d like to see him kick on with a full off-season so we can properly evaluate where he’s at after his small Williams cameo. But for now, not terrible. We won’t be so kind next year. 4/10
Kick Sauber – Stake F1 Team
Constructor’s Position: Ninth (70 Points)
Head-To-Head Records: Bortoleto 15-14 In Qualifying / Hulkenberg 15-14 In Races
Best Finish: 3rd (Britain)
Season In A Nutshell: Their Best Since The 2012 Breakout
It’s hard not to feel a little bad for Kick Sauber here. 70 points is a gargantuan improvement, it’s 17.5x better than their measly four points from last year. The last time any market saw that kind of inflation it was either AI speculators or Pokemon Cards. In fact, if you look at the previous 5 seasons, 70 points would have put sixth twice, seventh and eighth twice. To come out ninth is rough, but not a reflection of the vast improvement this team made.
Jonathan Wheatley took over as Team Principal, and you could see immediately why he was one of the most respected Sporting Directors on the grid. He became the glue that held Sauber together like he had at Red Bull. Better in the pitstops, sixth in the DHL Rankings. Hulkenberg opened the year with a well measured seventh in changeable conditions and despite a sluggish start, their first update package in Barcelona unlocked a run of six straight races in the points, a double scoring day in Austria (Their first since Qatar 2023), on points, their best season since 2012. When this team was on it, they were serious contenders for chunky points, from both Hulkenberg’s experience, and Bortoleto’s fresh speed.
And of course, arguably THE highlight of the 2025 season has to be mentioned – Nico Hulkenberg’s incredible podium finish at Silverstone. Despite ignoring two calls from his engineer to stop, he timed his stops to perfection, got to the front of the midfield chase group, passed Lewis Hamilton and then held him off on slicks for his first career podium – 237 races into his career. A magical moment for Sauber and their first podium finish since Kamui Kobayashi at home in 2012.
There’s still issues here. The team as a whole was rather inconsistent week to week, even once updates started landing. And in an ideal world, they qualify better, often giving themselves extra work to do on Sunday. But on the whole this is probably their best season since 2012. Hulkenberg was terrific, Gabriel Bortoleto was a little rough around the edges but still showed good speed and promise for the future, the organisation looks like the best its been in years, and it’s a fitting note to close their final chapter as Sauber in the sport, with Audi taking over for 2026.
Peter Sauber got to see this team’s final race in his name. He was there when the team was born in 1991 for its first race, and he was there for its last 34 years later. Some of the sport’s best passed through them, like Kimi Raikkonen, Robert Kubica, Sebastian Vettel, Felipe Massa and Jacques Villeneuve. It was a part of BMW’s history too. In many forms, Hinwil has been a huge presence on the grid, and long may it continue, even with the badge of one of the sport’s biggest on the front instead.
Nico Hulkenberg – 11th in Points (51), 1 Podium, 9 Top 10’s / Average Start: 14.7 / Average Finish: 12.8 / Dre’s Top 10 Drivers of the Year – #7
You know what’s funny, when you look at the more in-depth numbers, Hulkenberg’s had a bit of a weird season. There’s a fair few valid reasons to be concerned. Let’s get them out of the way here – His qualifying was pretty poor this season. 17th on the board for Average Start, with 13 Q1 eliminations and just one Q3 appearance all year in Mexico. He actually lost his head-to-head with Bortoleto across the year, but was slightly quicker on average, by just 0.06 of a second. It’s a fair argument that a 13-season veteran should be handling a rookie a little more comfortably, even one who did show genuine speed like Gabby did.
But you know what Hulkenberg is? He’s the ultimate eye-test driver, and on Sunday’s he came alive. If a race got a little chaotic, or if you knew the Sauber was strong on a track, “Hulkenpoints” became a commonly uttered phrase in our Discord server.
It was a patchy season for Hulk, where points finishes came in bunches as the midfield jostled for developmental position. After his seventh in Australia, he wouldn’t score again for seven races, only to go P5 in Barcelona on that car update, eighth in Montreal, ninth in Austria, and then third in Britain. He probably finishes the year with points in five out of the last six if it wasn’t for the Qatar takeout. I think his Average Finish is in the 10’s if not for four races that weren’t his fault – Being DQ’ed in Bahrain for plank wear, his hydraulics failing on the formation lap in Monza, and having to park it in Mexico for a power-unit issue.
This is the third year in a row Hulk’s made the Top 10, he’s just a superb veteran of the sport who won’t make many mistakes, get your car home, and will maximise his racedays. Audi has a great driver to build around in their early going. 7.5/10
Gabriel Bortoleto – 19th In Points (19), 5 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 6th / Average Start: 14.2 / Average Finish: 14.3
Again, do you know how unlucky it is that Gabi scored 19 points as a rookie and ended up 19th in the standings out of the 20.5 regulars?! The last five seasons, that would have put you in 15th spot, which I think is a much fairer reflection of Bortoleto’s rookie season, which for me, was pretty solid. It’s another classic case of Folger-itis. For those who don’t know, it’s the classic MotoGP story of a rookie being really solid in a vacuum, ie Jonas Folger when he joined Tech3, but gets completely outshadowed by other, even better rookies – Johann Zarco in MotoGP’s case, and two other Rookies that cracked the Top 10.
As said previously, I think Gabi’s raw speed was his strongest trait. He was better than Hulk in qualifying, managing 5 Q3 appearances across the year and actually beating him head-to-head (The maths is weird, he was just behind on average gap, but ahead if you go by medians), but the Sunday form wasn’t quite on the same level. Didn’t stop a couple of headline drives on his own terms – Chasing down his mentor Fernando Alonso in Austria to an eventual P8 and his first points in F1, as well as a brilliant sixth in Hungary by just running a tight, mistake-free race.
There were your classic rookie teething problems, a big crash on debut in Australia, and a clumsy Lap 1 smash in Vegas where he completely missed his braking point and destroyed Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin. That whopper in Brazil in practice derailed his home weekend. Given he only scored one point after Monza, I wonder how much of this was classic European Junior ladder biases and whatnot. But in any case, I think there’s a solid prospect here with room to still improve. 6/10
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team
Constructor’s Position: Eighth (79 Points)
Head-To-Head Records: Bearman 17-12 in Qualifying, 15-15 In Races
Best Finish: 4th (Mexico)
Season In A Nutshell: Expect The Unexpected
Now we’re really into the middle of the midfield barfight. In fact I think I just hit my back with a stool. I sound like a broken record at this point but Haas had 79 points and finished eighth. It’s the most points they’ve had in a campaign since 2018. They had 93 and they were fifth back then. FIFTH.
Haas started the season with genuine concern. They were so off the pace in Australia with worries about lack of stability in high-speed corners that many thought this was going to be a late-stage Guenther Stiener throwback season. So of course in Round 2 in Shanghai they got both cars in the points and Esteban Ocon matched their best ever finish in fifth, making him the highest scoring Ferrari in the championship at the time. Of course.
I made this point because you never quite knew what you were getting with Haas. They were probably the most erratic of the midfield scrappers in 2025. They started out surprisingly well for the team that had the most vocal issues early on, but maybe had to spend too much of its early season upgrade path rushing out underfloor updates. But this is why I like Ayao Komatsu in charge over Steiner, the former tackled it head on, rather than the old Steiner tactic of waiting and putting out a big update package that may not even work. It wasn’t until Austin in October that Haas finished their 2025 updates, and to be fair, a good 40% of their points landed from Singapore onwards, so it made sense.
This included their best ever result, a stunning 4th place in Mexico from Ollie Bearman, who started well after making Q3, took advantage of the mistakes of others, had his team’s best ever pitstop with a 2.2 second run at the end, and then did just enough to hold off Oscar Piastri in the clutch. A stunning performance that highlighted the limitations that Haas still have (They still use hand-me-down pit equipment), and what it could do when it all came together.
Bearman was in general; a highlight of the season. Rough around the edges, but very fast when needed, all the hype he had as a 17-year old Ferrari junior was justified given he had a genuine case for Rookie of the Year in one of its strongest ever classes. Esteban Ocon had his moments too, but there may be some concerns about him in the opposite car.
Haas will likely be frustrated that they didn’t get a higher finishing position for what was their best season in eight years, but the signs are promising they’re still trending in the right direction in what was a very competitive Championship. On a good day they can beat everyone in the midfield and beyond. And hey, Toyota’s now a full blown title sponsor for 2026, that’s nice right? In a similar fashion to last year, it seems Haas are genuinely on the up. Now can they crack 100 points for the first time next year?
Esteban Ocon – 15th in Points (38), 9 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 5th / Average Start: 15 / Average Finish: 12.5
Hmmm. I gave Ocon the benefit of the doubt in 2024 due to some likely mistreatment in his final season at Alpine when compared to Pierre Gasly, but this is a little concerning for me. Ocon’s now sitting at 180 starts. Eight and a half seasons once you check in the Manor time. I don’t think this season is bad in a vacuum, but with Ollie Bearman coming and being marginally better as a rookie, it does raise some interesting questions.
As said earlier, Ocon started out with that big fifth in China, but he generally struggled with Haas’ high speed instability more than Bearman did across the garage. He very much struggled in qualifying too, losing the head-to-head with Bearman by a tenth on average, and only making Q3 three times all season, an average start of 15 was third lowest of any full-timer, only Lance Stroll and Franco Colapinto were lower. Funnily enough though, no driver made more ground by comparison to his average finish, two and a half spots up!
It’s a season that reeks of limitations via struggling to adapt. And while I do excuse a little bit of that, in a year where many high profile names had to do the same, Ocon was probably near the bottom of that list. On a good day, he can still get this car deep into the points, but being shown up by the younger and fresher man may get people talking into this new regulation set. 5.5/10
Ollie Bearman – 13th in Points (41), 9 Top 10’s, Best Finish – 4th / Average Start: 14.2 / Average Finish: 11.8 / Dre’s Top 10 Drivers Of The Year – #8
Yes, at first glance, Bearman’s season is actually quite similar to Ocon’s on raw numbers. But Bearman doing this as a rookie is what makes this so impressive. I say virtually because by FIA rules he wasn’t (He had 3 starts for Ferrari and Haas last year, FIA limit is 2), but given he was an emergency stand-in for all 3 of those starts, I still call him a rookie.
Bearman was always quick – We saw it in those stand-in drives in 2024 (We’ll ignore Brazil). But there were still teething problems as he bedded into Haas properly. He scored points in three of the first four races in 25’, but then went on a rough streak of 10 Grand Prix without scoring, with only a 7th in Spa’s Sprint adding to his scoreboard. According to The Race, this led to him having a rethink on his weekend routine after the break and it showed. Points in six of the final 10 races, including becoming the first Haas driver ever to score in five straight weekends, with that monster fourth in Mexico City the highlight of his career so far.
Being able to better handle the tricky nuances of his car than Ocon did is a promising sign, as well as learning to channel his pace better is what makes his season stand out. There’s still patches there, like in Abu Dhabi to close out the weekend where he bragged a bit too quickly about his pace before getting his wings clipped, but a little Icarus in a man with just 27 starts to his name is understandable. He’s a future Ferrari driver for sure if he keeps on this trajectory.
But he does have one weakness that needs ironing out – Clumsy driving. Bearman has already picked up 12 penalty points in his cup of coffee in F1. He’s still on 10 now and the only reason he dodged a ban was because he dropped two from hitting Franco Colapinto in 2024. Silverstone’s simulated pit-lane entry at full racing speed while under red flag was one of the stupidest things seen on an F1 track in recent years and was lucky he wasn’t parked for the weekend. He has to clean up on track or he’s going to cost his team a precious race. As much as he was a victim in Monza of the shitty guidelines on passing, it’s unacceptable on the whole. Remember, he doesn’t lose any of his points until Saturday’s Qualifying session in Montreal, the seventh round of 2026. 7.5/10
Coming up in Part 2 – A quiet and shy Racing Bulls team, Aston Martin’s one-man army, and Williams making gains, see you then.