Formula 1’s 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix will mainly be remembered for who was disqualified and how that transformed the results.
But before that happened, how well did everyone actually drive?
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: 2nd Finished: 1st
Even in the wet conditions, the Red Bull didn’t look to have the pace for pole position, with Max Verstappen’s three tenths of a second deficit to Lando Norris flattered by the McLaren driver’s scruffy end to the lap.
But from second, Verstappen made a good start and despite being covered off by the feisty Norris, picked up the lead when the McLaren driver made an error.
From there, he controlled the race superbly despite the fact there was the threat of an undercut from George Russell to close out a classy victory.
Verdict: Another first-rate weekend.
Started: 3rd Finished: 5th
Carlos Sainz did a superb job in qualifying, with the Wiliams particularly strong in the full-wet conditions, but a little weaker when it came to intermediate running in Q3.
In that context, he was the star of qualifying by putting a car that was only fifth best into third on the grid with a lap he described as “pole worthy”.
Having held fourth in the first stint, Williams focused on ensuring Sainz won the midfield battle, which meant his pitstop timing was a little conservative.
He slipped behind Kimi Antonelli, Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri, but all things considered his seventh place on the road was as good as it was likely to get for a Williams that was, in dry conditions, the fifth-best car.
Verdict: An excellent weekend.
Started: 4th Finished: 2nd
The Mercedes wasn’t quite so potent a weapon in Las Vegas as it was in 2024, but it had the pace to be in the mix at the front.
Russell would have had a shot at the front row but for a power steering problem resulting in intermittent feedback, notably when it came to its behaviour at corner exits, which was a problem that briefly reappeared early in the race.
He kept Verstappen on his toes up until the Red Bull driver made his pitstop, keeping the threat of the undercut alive, but was unable to do anything to keep Norris behind. Third on the road became second after the McLarens were thrown out.
Verdict: A strong weekend’s work.
Started: 9th Finished: 4th
Given Ferrari’s persistent struggles with the tyres in wet conditions, Leclerc did a good job to reach Q3 and performed far better than team-mate Lewis Hamilton in qualifying.
At the start, he ended up attacking on the high-risk outside line into Turn 1 and was hit by Fernando Alonso, who jinked right to give himself some margin to the various collisions occurring inside him. That meant Leclerc shook out ninth after taking to the run-off.
From there, he drove a good race despite flat-footed strategy costing him what was at one stage de facto fourth place ahead of Piastri, although he came up 0.190s short of being in the right window at the chequered flag to have moved ahead of Antonelli when the Mercedes driver’s five-second penalty was applied.
Verdict: Quick but beating Antonelli to what became third was possible.
Started: 8th Finished: 6th
Isack Hadjar was furious at the timing of the yellow flags and what he saw as Piastri over-slowing at the end of Q3, which cost him a potential starting spot on the third row and meant he ended up behind team-mate Liam Lawson.
However, given the pace of the Racing Bulls that still meant he was in the right area to get the best possible result - which eighth on the road ultimately was given in the midfield fight the Williams of Sainz had the edge. After keeping it clean at the start, Hadjar drove a decent race to close out that strong result.
Verdict: A well-executed weekend.
Started: 7th Finished: 11th
Alonso made the most of the wet conditions to put the Aston Martin into Q3 and although perhaps he left a fraction of time on the table, seventh was a good result in the intermediate conditions.
The Aston Martin didn’t have the pace to fight for points in the dry, which wasn’t helped by Alonso being shuffled back to 10th thanks to the Turn 1 shenanigans - taking a glancing blow from Leclerc along the way.
His race was decent enough, but given the Aston Martin was one of the weaker cars on track even taking the fight to the Haas drivers proved impossible.
Verdict: Did what he could with limited machinery.
Started: 11th Finished: 7th
Sauber team principal Jonathan Wheatley reckoned the car was only the seventh-fastest in Las Vegas, which makes Nico Hulkenberg’s performance a strong one.
He might have scraped into Q3 but for a lock-up into Turn 14 that meant he had to rely on his penultimate lap for 11th place.
After surviving the first corner, he ran 11th then moved into the points when Lawson pitted. That turned into ninth when he didn’t fall to Hamilton’s one-lap undercut thanks to the Ferrari driver’s poor out-lap.
Thereafter, Hulkenberg held firm and finished ninth on the road, moving up two places when the McLarens were excluded.
Verdict: Save for his untidy final Q2 lap, a strong weekend.
Started: 10th Finished: 13th
Pierre Gasly did an excellent job to drag the Alpine into the top 10 in qualifying, although he didn’t execute Q3 itself well on the intermediates and was barely any quicker than he was in Q2.
Points might have been a stretch, but he was denied any chance of finding out if he could have hung on after being turned around at the first corner and suffering diffuser damage through no fault of his own. In the circumstances, managing to finish just on the lead lap was a good effort.
He was also comfortably quicker than team-mate Franco Colapinto when both cars were healthy during the weekend.
Verdict: Quick but unfortunate.
Started: 1st Finished: DSQ
The exclusion has no impact on Norris’s ranking given it was far outside of his control. But while much of what he did was excellent, there were a number of imperfections that cost him when it comes to the ranking.
Though he did a good job to take pole position, his wild ride through Turns 14-16 that started with hitting the first apex kerb too hard meant he left a significant amount of time on the table. And despite being forceful in covering off Verstappen at the start, his misjudgement at Turn 1 that cost two places counts against him.
Overall, his pace was good and a cut above McLaren team-mate Piastri, and second-on-the-road was a decent result that was seemingly exactly what he needed to move to the brink of sealing the championship, but the untidiness in Q3 and at the start is a negative.
Verdict: Rough edges took the shine off weekend.
Started: 17th Finished: 3rd
Considering Q1 was Antonelli’s first proper experience of the wet Pirellis, and his first wet qualifying session, it perhaps wasn’t a surprise that a combination of yellow flags and locking up and taking to the escape road at Turn 12 on his last lap led to his elimination early in qualifying.
However, his race drive after pitting under the VSC on the second lap was well-executed, and although making the hards last to the end wasn’t quite the miracle it would have appeared pre-race the fact that he kept Piastri behind for so long and managed to pip Leclerc to what was ultimately third place by 0.190s was impressive.
The five-second penalty for a jump start was fair given there was movement, although according to Mercedes it wasn’t the consequence of any pedal movement Antonelli was responsible for.
Verdict: Qualifying was the weak point.
Started: 13th Finished: 9th
The wet conditions in qualifying allowed Esteban Ocon to be more of a threat to Ollie Bearman in qualifying than usual - Ocon shading his team-mate as both did a decent job in a Haas that was always expected to be middling in Las Vegas.
He was unlucky at the first corner, having to back out and take to the run-off to escape the chaos, ending the first lap in 12th.
Ocon struggled a little on the brakes, which he felt meant he couldn’t get within DRS range of Hamilton in the second stint, but after finishing 11th he picked up a couple of points when the McLarens were excluded.
Verdict: Good performance but the Haas wasn’t at its best.
Started: 14th Finished: 10th
Bearman survived nosing into the wall after a trip up the escape road in the dreadful Q1 conditions, ending up a fraction behind team-mate Ocon in Q2.
Getting up to eighth at the start gave him hope of finishing in the top 10, but inevitably the Haas regressed to the mean as the race progressed.
He ended up 12th on the road having been overcut by Ocon, but all things considered had a well-executed race.
Verdict: Only Q1 off really counts against him.
Started: 5th Finished: DSQ
While he didn’t look a threat to McLaren team-mate Norris in qualifying, Piastri was unfortunate with the timing of the Turn 12 yellow flag and the ensuing mix-up with Hadjar at the end of Q3. That left him fifth on the grid, when second or third had been on the cards.
The misfortune continued when he was clouted by Lawson at the first corner through no fault of his own, although he at least escaped without damage but with work to do from seventh place.
Lawson’s damage gave him one place and he undercut his way past the slower Sainz, but got stuck behind Antonelli and relied on the Mercedes driver’s penalty to pick up fourth on-the-road prior to the exclusion.
Verdict: Solid but unspectacular.
Started: 20th (pits) Finished: 12th
“I don’t like the word luck, but this weekend feels like it’s really bad luck,” was Yuki Tsunoda’s verdict after the race. And he had a point, given he was very confident with his practice pace.
Qualifying was a disaster through no fault of his own, lapping three seconds slower than Red Bull team-mate Verstappen in Q1 thanks to having sky-high tyre pressures thanks to a blunder the team took responsibility for - team principal Laurent Mekies describing it as giving him “no chance to be competitive”.
An attempt to grab a cheap pitstop under the early VSC and find some clear air didn’t work and he had a frustrating race.
For all that, it’s difficult to give him a sympathy ranking boost any higher as he simply wasn’t able to show the pace when it mattered.
Verdict: Genuinely unlucky.
Started: 12th Finished: DNF
There were moments in qualifying when Lance Stroll had the pace in the wet to have qualified strongly, up there with Aston Martin team-mate Alonso.
However, he pushed for the switch to intermediates, which he called “just stupid”, albeit with the mitigation that he thought he had time to get one more lap in, by which time the tyres might well have been ready.
His race was over almost before it started through no fault of his own as he was torpedoed by Gabriel Bortoleto at the first corner.
Verdict: Unfortunate but also drove the Q2 inters call.
Started: 15th Finished: 15th
While Colapinto didn’t quite have the pace to have joined his Alpine team-mate in Q3, he probably would have put the car on the sixth row but for an untidy run through Turn 14-16 that ruined a final lap when it was on course to be four-to-five tenths slower than Gasly.
His race was an exercise in futility as he sustained diffuser damage when Alex Albon hit the back of him after he checked up for the Turn 1 chaos. That means much of the judgement is based only on his qualifying performance.
Verdict: Not at Gasly’s level in qualifying.
Started: 6th Finished: 14th
Lawson outqualified Hadjar, although it’s likely he would have been eclipsed by his Racing Bulls team-mate but for the yellow flags on the last lap. That said, Lawson also had the disadvantage of being the first to take the chequered flag in Q3, meaning that sixth-place was a strong result after a well-executed qualifying session.
That should have set him up for a good result, but for an error at the first corner - albeit with Russell’s lock-up ahead a mitigating factor that ensured he got no penalty. The lost ground meant he was on a hiding to nothing thereafter.
Verdict: Good weekend ruined by Turn 1 error.
Started: 19th Finished: 8th
Hamilton was all over the place in Q1, and cost himself a final push lap through not being attentive to the difference between the start line and the timing line and incorrectly believing the red lights had come on before he started what would have been a counting final lap. Even so, he felt he didn’t have the pace to escape Q1 despite yellow flags interrupting what stood as his best lap.
His race drive was slightly better, although his inability to pose any threat to Hulkenberg having missed out on any chance of an undercut with a poor out-lap including an off-track moment on his way to 10th-on-the-road made for a somewhat moribund weekend for Hamilton, who was particularly dejected after the race.
Verdict: Not close to the potential of the car.
Started: 16th Finished: DNF
Pace wasn’t a problem for Albon, but that’s not enough to salvage his ranking on a messy weekend of multiple errors.
He hit the wall in Q1, and while that was partly down to communication problems and the misfortune of having to back out of a lap that would have seen him through to Q2 because of a yellow flag at Turn 14 it was still his error on the throttle as he pushed to get to the line in time to have another go.
The reprimand he got for exceeding the speed limit when leaving the dummy grid was partly down to his radio comms failing but clipping the back of Hamilton, earning himself a five-second penalty, ultimately was all on him.
Verdict: Simply too many errors.
Started: 18th Finished: DNF
For the second consecutive weekend, Bortoleto had a nightmare. His Q1 elimination was understandable given it was his first experience of qualifying in such conditions in F1 and he hadn’t used the wet Pirellis before, but he struggled to go with the track improvement after making a promising start.
However, his misjudgement on the brakes at Turn 1 that resulted in him clattering Stroll was a bad error with implications for Qatar given it earned him a five-place grid penalty. To his credit, he was apologetic.
Verdict: Turn 1 blunder was simply too big.
