A very big weekend for the 2025 Formula 1 world championship fight means a potentially predictable number one. But what did Edd Straw make of Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri's weekends or Kimi Antonelli's breakthrough result?
Here's his full worst-to-best ranking of the Interlagos performances.
Want to quiz Edd about his ranking? Head to this post in The Race Members' Club and leave your comments and questions, and he'll reply in his Q&A video that's free for everyone to watch this time as part of the Members' Club's Free 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: 1st Finished: 1st
Two pole positions, two wins and a 24-point championship lead represents a perfect weekend’s work in terms of results.
Lando Norris had a little bit less room to manoeuvre in terms of the pace advantage, particularly in the grand prix, but didn’t put his foot wrong throughout the weekend.
He called it a “perfect weekend”, which is not easy to produce given the grip conditions at times that made it difficult for anyone to extract the potential of the car consistently. Even in a McLaren that was, save for when Max Verstappen and Red Bull got it right on Sunday, a cut above the rest.
Verdict: Completely in control.
Started: 19th (pits) Finished: 3rd
While Verstappen’s fortunes waxed and waned through the weekend with the fluctuating performance of the Red Bull generally he mostly got the best out of a package that veered between decent (the sprint), terrible (qualifying proper) and tremendous (race).
Realistically, there probably was a way out of Q1, but not much further, but fundamentally the risky set-up direction was to blame for his elimination.
However, his race, compromised by the early puncture, was inspired from the pitlane, even though you could also say that had he reached perfection he would have dispatched Kimi Antonelli for second.
Verdict: A typically strong weekend.
Started: 3rd Finished: DNF
Charles Leclerc did what he could with a tricky Ferrari in the sprint, ultimately breaching Fernando Alonso’s defences to finish fifth.
However, he was unquestionably the star performer in qualifying, pulling a lap good enough for third place out of the bag in the tough conditions in Q3.
That might have set him up for a run at a podium finish, only for him to be wiped out by the consequences of the Piastri/Antonelli collision.
While there’s always an element of risk being on the outside when it’s three wide, his car positioning couldn’t have been better and he was just unlucky to be eliminated.
Although his early exit eliminated the opportunity to build a stronger case for a high ranking, his work prior to that moment, including outperforming Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton - albeit with a spin in Q2 along the way - represented a good body of work.
Verdict: Stellar qualifying lap the highlight.
Started: 2nd Finished: 2nd
This has to go down as all-round Antonelli’s best F1 weekend yet thanks to him beating Mercedes team-mate George Russell fair and square and monopolising second place in the four on-track sessions that counted.
On his first visit to the Interlagos track, he dealt with the inconsistent grip in qualifying better than his team-mate, and outraced him when they crossed swords on track in the sprint.
The one downside is that, regardless of what the stewards say, Antonelli did contribute to the collision with Piastri as he had the space to hold a more middling line and took a big risk by squeezing the McLaren so much - albeit one he got away with.
Verdict: His most complete weekend.
Started: 5th Finished: 8thIsack Hadjar did a better job than Racing Bulls team-mate Liam Lawson in the sprint element of the weekend, executing qualifying far more effectively despite their similar underlying pace, but not quite able to nick a point in a car that was a little more competitive than in the preceding races.
After shading Lawson by three hundredths of a second in qualifying, Hadjar initially had the upper hand but just lost out to his team-mate for seventh - with a wheel-rubbing moment between the two on the last lap - thanks to the split strategy that put him on a two-stopper compared to Lawson’s two stop.
Verdict: An all-round well-executed weekend.
Started: 7th Finished: 7th
His struggles in the sprint elements of the weekend drop Lawson behind Hadjar, although he wasn’t really to blame for the SQ1 exit given the queuing problem led to him not getting a second lap in - albeit after a so-so first attempt.
And while he was justifiably irritated with Ollie Bearman for putting him on the grass on lap one of the sprint, he was always heading into a closing gap at Turn 4, resulting in colliding with the Haas and a time penalty that relegated him from 13th on-the-road to 16th.
However, having effectively matched Hadjar in qualifying proper, he pulled off a well-executed one-stopper including a marathon medium stint, albeit with a late scrape with Hadjar at Turn 1 as they disputed eighth place.
Verdict: Strong race drive the highlight.
Started: 9th Finished: 10th
Pierre Gasly felt confident in the Alpine from the start of practice and seemed re-energised by having a car “I can race with and drive more the way I want”.
He distinguished himself in the sprint component of the weekend by having the pace to reach SQ3, only to be thwarted by the yellow flags for Leclerc’s spin and fall in SQ2. Nonetheless, he raced well and passed Lance Stroll in the closing stages to nab a point.
Gasly did make the top 10 in qualifying proper, although perhaps could have qualified a little more strongly as he, like everyone, struggled with the tricky Q3 conditions.
After a feisty start in which he briefly threatened Russell, he settled into the race and although he felt he could have finished a little higher, simply picking up another point was the reward for a well-executed race drive.
Verdict: Finally able to go racing again.
Started: 12th Finished: 11th
Given the Williams was, marginally, perhaps the weakest of the midfield pack - albeit still quick enough to threaten for a points finish - Alex Albon did a good job throughout the weekend at a track where his car, with its aversion to longer corners, was always expected not to be at its best.
He was unfortunate to pick up debris from the Gabriel Bortoleto crash at the end of the sprint, which had a knock-on effect for the rest of the weekend, but even so qualified decently and kept himself in the hunt for points.
Given how close the battle for seventh-through-10th was ahead, there was a route to points and he had the pace for it, but his strategy - particularly running too long before his first stop - proved costly.
Verdict: Decent weekend in a car not at its best.
Started: 8th Finished: 6th
The sprint was a missed opportunity, as Bearman had the pace to make SQ3 but what he described as “strange behaviour” from the differential contributed to his exit in the second stage.
While Lawson was justifiably blamed for the Turn 4 collision that led to Bearman’s spin, the Haas driver was also justifiably given a five-second penalty for putting the Racing Bulls driver on the grass when he moved left in reaction to Bortoleto.
Having starred in Q1 and Q2, Q3 in tricky conditions was disappointing, but having fallen to ninth at the start behind Gasly, Bearman picked off the Alpine and then passed Lawson before undercutting his way past Hadjar at the first stops.
He then broke away from the rest of the midfield pack to take a sixth place that was probably the maximum possible for a Haas.
Verdict: Good overall but with some imperfections.
Started: 11th Finished: 14th
The weekend started well and Fernando Alonso was arguably the star of the sprint elements of the weekend, qualifying fifth and finishing sixth as the Aston Martin showed decent pace.
Unfortunately, a combination of necessary set-up changes and others hitting their stride meant that performance wasn’t repeatable. He perhaps could have made it into Q3 had he got everything out of qualifying, but when it came to the race a combination of the struggle for pace and the risk of starting on the uncompetitive hard rubber made for a long, hard afternoon.
Verdict: Seized his window of opportunity in the sprint.
Started: 6th Finished: 4th
By his own admission, Russell felt off the pace and for the first time this season was conclusively outperformed by team-mate Antonelli across the weekend.
There were no particular errors, and he did a good job in the sprint part of the weekend then a solid job in the main event, but ultimately he was just lacking that edge on a track where he struggled to get comfortable with the grip level. He pointed to the tyres, particularly in qualifying, even trying a set of mediums on his final Q3 run in a failed attempt to extract pace.
Verdict: Tidy, but conclusively second-best Mercedes.
Started: 15th Finished: 13th
Carlos Sainz struggled slightly more with the Williams compared to team-mate Albon, although it’s fair to say that he also had a little more bad luck.
He had no chance in the sprint after a compromised prep lap meant he started the lap in qualifying without the tyres in the right window, hence the big lock-up at the first corner.
After banking some experience in the Saturday race, main qualifying was again a struggle with damage sustained in a first corner sandwich when he got caught in the ‘middle lane’ meaning he ultimately did a good job to take 13th and within touching distance of the points.
Verdict: Tried to make the best of limited car.
Started: 20th (pits) Finished: 12th
While his Haas team-mate Bearman flew, Ocon wasn’t as comfortable with a car that had pace but he found difficult to drive and lacking in balance in qualifying trim.
That’s not unusual as Ocon isn’t always the most comfortable hustling the car in such situations, but it meant he was eliminated in the first stage of qualifying on Friday and Saturday. While traffic played a small part in sprint qualifying, the bottom line is the speed really wasn’t there.
He salvaged 11th in the sprint, then took a fresh power unit and a pitlane start. His race probably would have yielded points but for picking up a puncture that forced him to pit as the safety-car restart happened.
Verdict: Not at Bearman’s level, but unlucky on Sunday.
Started: 10th Finished: 9th
Nico Hulkenberg has built what he calls a “better relationship” with the Sauber in qualifying trim of late and made the most of it by reaching the final stage of qualifying for both parts of the event.
He survived spinning into the barrier at Turn 3 while running 10th in the sprint and restarted with a front and rear wing change, which cost him an outside chance of a point.
Hulkenberg took the more difficult route to points in the grand prix as one of only two drivers one-stopping, having slipped to 13th early on. Although he lost a place to Hadjar late on, given the Racing Bulls driver was on similarly-aged mediums compared to his 35-lap-old softs that was probably inevitable.
Verdict: Sprint crash the one big negative.
Started: 4th Finished: 5th
Despite an encouraging start on Friday, Interlagos unexpectedly proved to be an extension of the low-grip struggles of Austin and Mexico for Piastri.
This means that despite what he called “flashes where I’ve felt very comfortable”, once McLaren had made necessary ride height changes for qualifying the car had moved away from him. The gap to team-mate Norris on pole increased from 0.185s in sprint qualifying to 0.375s in qualifying proper.
The sprint crash was on him, albeit with the caveat that he was caught out by water being pulled across the kerb by Norris, but while stewards gave him a 10-second penalty for his move at the safety-car restart on Sunday Antonelli also squeezed him too much. Even so, there’s always a risk in making it three-wide at Turn 1, and ultimately this moment cost him what could have been a second place.
Verdict: Too messy a weekend for a title challenger.
Started: 14th Finished: 16th
The sprint part of the weekend was a missed opportunity for Stroll, as despite qualifying seventh he was 0.175s slower than Aston Martin team-mate Alonso and then lost a point for eighth when Gasly passed him late on. Although Stroll blamed that on the soft Pirellis “dying”, Gasly was one of the other drivers on the same compound.
His main race was compromised by being booted into a spin by Yuki Tsunoda on the opening lap, although he shouldn’t be blamed for Bortoleto’s crash given he didn't do anything unusual and Bortoleto made the error of leaving his nose in a closing gap.
But given the lack of pace of the Aston Martin, and gambling on starting on the slow hard PIrellis, he was likely always on a hiding to nothing.
Verdict: Respectable but a step behind Alonso.
Started: 16th Finished: 15th
Franco Colapinto didn’t feel on top of the Alpine with just one free practice session, and Turn 2 was a particular weak spot relative to his team-mate Gasly as he was eliminated in SQ1.
Unfortunately, he was one of three drivers caught out by the extra water dragged onto the kerb at Turn 3 in the race and crashed, which led to a chassis change that put him on the back foot for qualifying. The mistake really shouldn’t have happened given he was the third car to have basically the same off.
Colapinto found it impossible to find a good rhythm in the hastily-rebuilt car, exiting in Q1 and then struggling with sliding, and therefore tyre degradation, in the race. That meant a frustrating race of little progress.
Verdict: Well off Gasly’s pace.
Started: 13th Finished: DNF
While not quite as miserable as his Interlagos weekend was in 2024, this was another tough one for Lewis Hamilton.
A brace of eliminations in the second stage of qualifying set him up for mixed results in the races. In the sprint, a great first lap set him on course for a solid seventh place.
However, on Sunday, the first lap proved to be his undoing as he briefly got boxed in then clashed with Sainz at the first corner. The big mistake was inattentively clipping the rear of Colapinto’s Alpine at the end of the lap.
By then, Hamilton’s race was already effectively over thanks to damage but he battled on long enough to serve the penalty he was hit with for the second of those incidents.
Verdict: Pace and the Colapinto clash were unimpressive.
Started: 17th Finished: 17th
Tsunoda went into the event hoping for a repeat of Mexico in terms being only a few tenths off Red Bull team-mate Verstappen both in qualifying and race pace.
Instead, he ended up with “one of the worst weekends” as he was never comfortable with the grip level.
That meant he was eliminated in the first stage of qualifying in both sessions, with the caveat that in main qualifying he was three tenths off fellow Q1 faller Verstappen.
Having used the sprint race as a learning exercise, Tsunoda’s hopes of a recovery on Sunday were all but over when he booted Stroll into a spin on the opening lap while trying to pass Colapinto. The 10s penalty for that was compounded by a mechanic starting to work on the car on Tsunoda’s arrival in the pits, meaning a second one that guaranteed him last place.
Verdict: Not the weekend he needed.
Started: 18th Finished: DNF
With the pressure of an expectant home crowd behind him, which made him appear to be the most popular man in Brazil, Bortoleto had a nightmare weekend.
The 57g impact in the sprint races after losing it when he darted out from behind Alonso (there was no technical problem related to the DRS, it was simply still open as it should be) proved defining as it also kept him out of qualifying proper - having already underachieved slightly in sprint qualifying.
To cap it off, his race only lasted to Turn 10 after ill-advisedly heading into a cul-de-sac while battling with Stroll, something that he later accepted led to be a “racing accident”.
Verdict: His day at Interlagos will come.
