The 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix crowned a new Formula 1 world champion - but how high does Lando Norris climb in the weekend's rankings?
Here’s Edd Straw’s best-to-worst ranking of all 20 drivers’ performances. Agree or disagree? Leave questions or comments for him on this post in The Race Members’ Club and he’ll reply in his Q&A video later this week.
How do the rankings work? The 20 drivers will be ranked in order of performance from best to worst on each grand prix weekend. This will be based on the full range of criteria, ranging from pace and racecraft to consistency and whether they made key mistakes. How close each driver got to delivering on the maximum performance potential of the car will be an essential consideration.
It’s important to note both that this reflects performance across the entire weekend, cognisant of the fact that qualifying is effectively ‘lap 0’ of the race and key to laying the foundations to the race, and that it is not a ranking of the all-round qualities of each driver. It’s simply about how they performed on a given weekend. Therefore, the ranking will fluctuate significantly from weekend to weekend.
And with each of the 10 cars fundamentally having different performance potential and ‘luck’ (ie factors outside of a driver’s control) contributing to the way the weekend plays out, this ranking will also differ significantly from the overall results.
Started: 5th Finished: 4th
It’s entirely in keeping with Ferrari’s season that Leclerc produced a superb weekend in terms of personal performance, but still fell short of the podium.
While his team-mate fell in Q1, albeit only lapping 0.231s slower, Leclerc not only made it to Q3 but somehow wrangled the lairy car to fifth on the grid despite claiming earlier he almost aborted a key lap multiple times given how bad it was.
After jumping the slow-starting Russell, he did what he could to menace Norris in a Ferrari that was working much better in race conditions, but realistically there was never a route to third place that didn’t rely on outside assistance or an error.
Verdict: Gave Ferrari a better result than it deserved.
Started: 6th Finished: 6th
An emphatic ‘midfield win’ for Alonso in the final weekend of the season, as Aston Martin not only showed good pace but hung onto it in the race. That didn’t look likely after a tricky Friday, but overnight set-up gains put him into a strong position in qualifying, even though he perhaps left a tenth on the table in Q3.
After running ahead of the slow-starting Russell early on he was inevitably repassed by the Mercedes, but controlled that midfield fight for the rest of the race - at times frustrating Ocon behind in the process.
Verdict: Couldn’t have achieved more in terms of results.
Started: 1st Finished: 1st
Verstappen did everything possible to maximise his championship chances by winning from pole position, again excelling in a Red Bull that was certainly fast around Abu Dhabi but difficult to extract the pace from.
His execution was flawless, setting two laps good enough to top qualifying, the first with a tow from Tsunoda, and after holding onto the lead at the start he didn’t put a foot wrong. There were no spoiler tactics on Sunday, but the race situation ultimately didn’t lend itself to that and he had to be content with victory.
Verdict: Never looked like putting a foot wrong in the strongest car.
Started: 8th Finished: 7th
After Friday, Ocon appeared destined for a bad weekend, admitting he was “at the lowest point” and having to accept “I’m driving bad” given the lack of pace. However, he was boosted by a car rebuild overnight that he felt transformed the car after his recent struggles.
That translated into a strong qualifying performance as he reached Q3 for only the third time this season. He then turned eighth in the first stint into seventh as the struggling Bortoleto faded - but was not able to find a way past Alonso. But he did keep the faster Ferrari of Hamilton behind, which he justifiably felt represented overachievement.
Verdict: Finished a tough year on a high.
Started: 3rd Finished: 2nd
Given he was always the outsider, Piastri gave it a good go in Abu Dhabi and posed a genuine threat to Norris in qualifying before falling just 0.029s short in Q3.
He got on with it in the race, as despite starting on hards he pulled off a good pass on his team-mate around the outside of Turn 9 - albeit in the knowledge there was a pre-arrangement not to resist such an attack if it came - before setting about threatening Verstappen.
The tyre choice meant he had to have a long first stint, one that might have handed him victory with a well-timed safety car, but after making his second stop the pace offset was never anything like what was needed to have caught Verstappen.
Verdict: A good weekend that kept him in the title mix until the end.
Started: 3rd Finished: 3rd
Norris’s mission was unusual in Abu Dhabi given a finish anywhere in the top three was effectively a victory given it guaranteed him the world championship. Getting passed by Piastri at Turn 9 on the opening lap cut into his buffer but thereafter he never looked like losing any more ground as he kept Leclerc covered - save for the moment when he passed Tsunoda off track, which stewards justifiably deemed to have been effectively a consequence of the Red Bull driver’s illegal moves on the straight.
Third in a McLaren was nothing to write home about in the context of the race itself, hence his position in this ranking, but it was everything in terms of the championship.
Verdict: Not a day for heroics, he did exactly what he needed to do.
Started: 4th Finished: 5th
While Q3 yielded the best possible result, it wasn’t the best possible lap as Russell admitted to having pushed a little too hard at the business end of the session.
A poor start meant he dropped behind Alonso and Leclerc, and although he soon repassed the Aston Martin the car didn’t have the pace to threaten Leclerc, with right-front tyre troubles a huge limitation.
That meant there was no way to do better than fifth, which was more than enough to ensure that Mercedes was safe in second in the constructors’ championship.
Verdict: Other than slight Q3 imperfection, a strong weekend.
Started: 7th Finished: 11th
Returned to Q3 for the first time since Monza in early September courtesy of a superb Q2 lap that put him fifth, although couldn’t quite emulate that in the final segment of qualifying. However, at best that would have allowed him to jump ahead of Alonso.
He held eighth in the first stint, but was plagued by an unexpected bouncing problem there had been no trace of earlier in the weekend, which the team suspected was a car problem.
While points escaped him, in that context finishing 11th was a good result as he would surely have scored with a healthy car - but the fact he was stymied in the race and that the nature of the issue is as-yet unconfirmed by the team means it’s impossible to put him higher.
Verdict: Car problem in race cost him.
Started: 12th Finished: 13th
Sainz could have made it through to Q3 given he only missed out by a few thousandths, but overall the Williams wasn’t a strong force in the midfield. In that context, he put it roughly where it should have been in both qualifying and the race, and had the edge over team-mate Albon.
He kept himself on the edge of the points fight, but ultimately didn’t quite have the pace to stay in contention.
The only real negative is that it was close enough for him to have made Q3 with a tiny time gain and that might have changed his race prospects.
Verdict: A decent weekend in the machinery.
Started: 9th Finished: 17th
Hadjar showed his class by squeezing a Racing Bulls that wasn’t that strong into Q3. He was unable to replicate his Q2 pace in the final part of qualifying, although he’d have had to find more still to improve his starting position.
After running eighth in the first stint ahead of Ocon, he pitted on lap 14, after which the car’s relative lack of pace started to show. “I knew I would get overtaken by everyone” was his summary, and as the Racing Bulls regressed to the mean both he and Lawson ended up ahead of only the Alpines in what proved to be only the ninth-fastest car.
Verdict: Reaching Q3 was an overachivement.
Started: 18th Finished: 9th
Had decent pace but was frustrated that “we tanked it ourselves” in Q1 after being sent out at the back of the queue and losing tyre temperature that he couldn’t regain given outlap traffic. He started on softs and was the first to pit on lap seven, making significant undercut gains but needing a second stop.
He climbed from 18th to 11th in the final stint but fell a few seconds short of getting involved in the Stroll/Bearman battle ahead only to be promoted to ninth after the flag when both were hit with time penalties.
Verdict: Q1 strategy hurt him but he executed the race well.
Started: 19th Finished: 20th
With some justification, Gasly declared himself “so happy this is over” after toiling to 19th place in the race. That pretty much amounted to a class win given the Alpine was clearly the weakest car even though the Racing Bulls weren’t far up the road.
There was a sense of futility to the final weekend for Alpine and you couldn’t blame Gasly for not bringing his A-game, and even if he did it wouldn’t have changed the result - so the main success was getting a difficult 2025 over and done with.
He did, however, outperform team-mate Colapinto, which was about the only thing he could do.
Verdict: Didn’t have the machinery to catch the eye.
Started: 11th Finished: 12th
Bearman had the underlying speed for an outstanding weekend, expressing delight with the feel of the car on Friday. However, he rued using two sets of softs in FP3 as that led to his momentum being interrupted by running old rubber on the first Q2 run, before a decent final run but one on which “one or two tiny mistakes” cost him, with the 0.018s between him and Ocon making the difference between advancing and elimination.
He finished 10th on the road, moved up to ninth when Stroll was penalised, then dropped to 12th when hit with his own penalty for more than one change of direction approaching Turn 9 on the final lap. While he argued he was within acceptable bounds, the quick succession of adjustments late on, which failed to stop Stroll passing him around the outside of the corner, did overstep the mark.
Verdict: Promised much but, by fine margins, didn’t deliver.
Started: 13th Finished: 18th
Lawson’s underlying pace was in the ballpark of Hadjar’s, lapping eight hundredths slower on his way to Q2 elimination - Lawson describing his approach as too conservative.
He made a good start to clear sixth-row duo Sainz and Bearman before Turn 1 and spent the early laps in 11th. However, that came at a cost as on lap three he chopped too late across Bearman on the run to Turn 9 and was hit with a penalty for erratic driving, later admitting “I moved quite late so it was probably my bad”.
The extra five seconds at his pitstop lost him ground and, given the lack of pace of the Racing Bulls, beating the Alpines and slashing the deficit to Hadjar ahead, who had stopped seven laps earlier, represented a good final stint.
Verdict: Good pace, but Q3 was possible and penalty unnecessary.
Started: 15th Finished: 10th
Stroll wasn’t in the same class as Alonso so ended up at the bottom of Q2, albeit only lapping 0.236s behind his team-mate - which given how tight the competition was here was still a big deficit.
He drove a decent race with a good initial stint on hards, although the switch to mediums probably came slightly late as he ran out of time to climb higher than ninth on the road.
Unfortunately, some late moves while defending against a Sainz counter-attack gave him a five-second penalty that initially dropped him to 11th before Bearman’s penalty promoted him back into the points.
Verdict: Qualifying and the needless penalty don’t help ranking.
Started: 17th Finished: 16th
The Williams was probably the eighth-best car in Abu Dhabi, although Albon was again second-best to Sainz in the intra-team fight - with the deficit just over two tenths in Q1.
That wasn’t helped by the overtake button not working in qualifying, which has a small benefit in terms of helping tyre prep but not enough to explain the shortfall.
The race itself was perfectly respectable after he gained a couple of places on the first lap, but the pitstop timing was caught between two stools and he was never able to threaten the points, not helped by a five-second penalty for speeding in the pits.
Verdict: Always seemed on the back foot versus Sainz.
Started: 16th Finished: 8th
It says a lot about how badly Hamilton’s season has trailed off that recovering to eighth felt like it represented a successful race. The reality is that a mistake on his final Q1 lap meant he didn’t improve and was eliminated in a car good enough to be a mid-Q3 runner.
His race, which started with a good launch, was executed decently enough with an early stop after starting on softs, moving to hards then taking mediums and spending the final stint unable to find a way past Ocon’s Haas.
The FP3 crash didn’t help his weekend, although he was largely a passenger in that after the rear hit the ground entering Turn 9 and robbed him of rear grip.
Verdict: Even the race recovery wasn’t much to write home about.
Started: 20th Finished: 20th
Given the Alpine was the slowest car, all Colapinto could do was measure himself against Gasly - something not helped by the recent return of his struggles with combination-entry corners that he hinted might be related to some of the parts used since his Interlagos crash.
It didn’t go well in qualifying, where he was stymied by losing his laptime to track limits violations on two of his three runs before putting in a more conservative final lap to at least get a time on the board, which ended up being last by 0.442s.
His race pace was much closer than that to Gasly, with the pair finishing seven seconds apart on much the same strategy.
Verdict: Second-best Alpine on a futile weekend.
Started: 14th Finished: 15th
Antonelli’s recent progress came to a stuttering halt on a difficult weekend in Abu Dhabi where he said he “really struggled in the car”. He fell in Q2 and was baffled by the lack of rear end, with trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin saying that "he started to get the odd snap, which in turn caused high temperatures and compounded these issues”, suggesting Antonelli had over-reached a little.
The Mercedes did not look after the right-front Pirelli well in the race, a problem that afflicted both cars, with Antonelli unable to make any significant progress in a long, tough race - not helped by slipping to 17th at the start.
Verdict: A meek ending to an increasingly-strong rookie campaign.
Started: 10th Finished: 14th
There were flashes of speed from Tsunoda, who was within three tenths of Verstappen in Q2, but he didn’t cover himself in glory in other ways. Having offered Verstappen a tow on the first Q3 runs, he then blew his fresh-tyre run with a track limits violation. That prevented him being higher up the order and a more active piece on the championship-decider chessboard.
When he did come into play as Norris bore down on him after stopping, Tsunoda’s puzzling decision to make more than one change of direction not only meant his resistance was irrelevant but also earned him a penalty.
In his defence, his strategy was compromised and he had the pace to have had a solid run to a lower-points finish with a normal race, although tyre overheating was a problem.
Verdict: Again didn’t get close to the potential of the admittedly tricky car.
