The stats speak for themselves when judging the openness of the 2024-25 Formula E season: 15 drivers stood on the podium - with every team represented - at least once, with eight different winners in 16 races (even if two names dominated that particular category).
But that openness is indicative of big fluctuations in form - so who came through with the most consistent, or most impressive, campaign and who had very little to shout about?
We tasked Sam Smith with ranking the entire full-time 2024-25 Formula E field from worst to best. Here's the result:
22 David Beckmann
Cupra Kiro
Points: 1
Championship position: 23rd
Best result: 10th (London II)
Former Porsche and Andretti reserve Beckmann was a surprise choice to replace Sergio Sette Camara just before the season started at the Cupra Kiro team, under new ownership and armed with Porsche powertrains.
Clearly with at least a Porsche nudge into Kiro, Beckmann at least had some knowledge of the Porsche 99X Electric car and the hope was he would bring as sharp a challenge to Ticktum as Sette Camara had previously. He didn't.
At no stage did Beckmann look like really pushing his highly rated team-mate consistently and the replacement of Sette Camara was clearly a mistake from a competitive viewpoint.
Beckmann did show flashes of potential, but in qualifying he got badly smashed up by Ticktum with a 13-3 blitz. When Ticktum started being heroic from Tokyo onwards, Beckmann faded into the background. That was despite a solid drive in London, which at least saved him from a true wooden spoon zero-score, the only really tangible positive from a bruising season.
21 Zane Maloney
Lola Yamaha Abt
Points: 0
Championship position: 24th
Best result: 11th (Shanghai II)
It is very difficult to properly appraise Maloney because he didn't get the bulk of the testing with the new Lola Yamaha T001 challenger, nor did he have the experience of his team-mate Lucas di Grassi, who scooped all of the 32 points scored by the new-look team.
Additionally, if there was any ill luck to dish out at Abt then Maloney usually got it. No points at all doesn't look good but he came very close on numerous occasions and his performances were full of fight, meaning he still impressed despite the paucity of results.
The promising aspect for Maloney will be his qualifying record against di Grassi, who still has a rapid turn of speed at almost 41 year of age. Maloney just lost out, 9-7, but he did enough to get another season at the team. Although interest from Andretti, a team he's tested for previously, was also starting to ramp up in the final races of the campaign - so perhaps he isn't absolutely nailed on to be in blue and yellow next season after all.
20 Sam Bird
McLaren
Points: 31
Championship position: 18th
Best result: 4th (Sao Paulo)
It would be easy to portray Sam Bird as a spent force or washed up former ace who had seen better times but 2025 did not offer such a clear-cut stereotype for one of Formula E’s best across-generations racers.
Yes, Bird was handsomely beaten by his inexperienced team-mate Taylor Barnard. He is the first to acknowledge that. In fact, the way he digested it from a very early stage was a credit to his professionalism and all-round outlook. There is a reason why Bird is seen as one of the most popular drivers in the paddock by his peers.
But there was no getting away from the fact that he also didn't deliver anywhere near enough this season. The reasons for that, as is usual in Formula E, were splayed out in multiple frustration channels. Penalties, skirmishes and pure bad luck all played their part.
What it meant for Bird, as he looked to be heading for an epic top-six finish in London before being clobbered by Robin Frijns, was that a farewell photo opportunity with his rivals just before the final race of the season will likely be the only pleasant memento before signing off from a largely unpleasant final season.
That point is unfortunate because across the board Bird has had a wonderful career in Formula E and will always be considered as one of its most consistently strong racers and winners.
19 Norman Nato
Nissan
Points: 21
Championship position: 20th
Best result: 6th (Homestead, Shanghai I)
Nato returned to Nissan after being replaced by Oliver Rowland two years ago, the champion driver with whom he would share a team in 2024-25 but little else in terms of points or outright performances.
To be fair to Nato, he was brought back into the fold relatively late, in September, and had little in the way of actual track time prior to the Jarama group test in November. Still, the fact that Nissan clearly had the best package for the first half of the season perhaps mitigates excuses on his side of the garage.
Yet there were mistakes from the team that certainly affected Nato, most obviously his excellent Sao Paulo run in which he should have had a podium at least had it not been for a systems error that spiked his power and resulted in a penalty.
Then there was Homestead, where he took a brilliant pole, led comfortably, and was in line for the win until he was one of the victims of the red flag/attack mode timing misfortune.
Nato had other flashes of form but crucial mistakes at vital times (a qualifying crash in Tokyo as one example) really affected his momentum.
He will get another go next season and knows himself that a strong start is an absolute must, as is 60-70 points as a minimum in the Nissan Gen3 Evo car that Rowland exploited so devastatingly in the first half of the campaign.
18 Robin Frijns
Envision Racing
Points: 23
Championship position: 19th
Best result: 7th (London I)
If there was an accolade for the unluckiest driver on the grid then Frijns would be the clear recipient of it. A multitude of unfortunate events befell the Dutchman, to a level which left him exasperated and baffled as to why a good proportion of his races were affected - or ended - by such random events.
The ultimate mockery came at Berlin, where Frijns's fire extinguisher was activated when a ball of rubber hit the external cable. It was at that point Frijns probably thought that the racing Gods were having a cruel laugh at his expense and that actually all he could do was try to keep smiling - something that the brilliantly deadpan Frijns somehow did all season.
It is quite likely that Frijns's Formula E journey has ended now. It's misleading to say he hasn't been the same driver since he badly broke his hand at Mexico City in early 2023 because we have seen in the World Endurance Championship that he is occasionally one of its quickest drivers with BMW.
But in Formula E it just hasn't happened and he will be forever remembered as a driver who should have scored many more race wins than the two he claimed for Envision Virgin Racing back in 2019.
17 Nico Mueller
Andretti
Points: 48
Championship position: 15th
Best result: 4th (Homestead, Jakarta)
Was it unreasonable to expect so much from Mueller at Andretti in 2025?
If there was a jury on this one it would still be largely weighing it all up, because indeed much more was expected by the team and by Mueller himself, especially in the context of his fabulous performances in a largely recalcitrant Abt Mahindra in 2024.
But actually, Andretti had a poor season compared to its recent strengths displayed in Jake Dennis's title-winning 2023 season and more fitfully in 2024. It certainly wasn't at the top of its game and seemed to be hurt more this season than in previous campaigns by limited on-track testing opportunities.
The cooling relationship with Porsche also didn't help the team and, more indirectly, Mueller. But ultimately he just made too many mistakes and most atypically his shunt quota went way over what he and Andretti knew was acceptable. His Monaco misadventures at Ste Devote and then Massenet were particularly pitiful.
There was of course some poor luck too, notably in the first Monaco race when his Pit Boost failed and compromised a probable first Formula E victory run.
There were decent results also, a pair of fourth places in Homestead and Jakarta. But nowhere near enough for this to be called anything other than a disappointing season for Mueller, which will probably be his first and last for the American team.
16 Lucas di Grassi
Lola Yamaha Abt
Points: 32
Championship position: 17th
Best result: 2nd (Homestead)
Di Grassi fought back from a disastrous 2024 - he was last in our full-time driver ranking - to show much more poise this time around with a new project that required all his leadership and development know-how. It mostly paid off, showcasing on more than one occasion why di Grassi deserves to continue his Formula E journey well into a second decade.
The 2016-17 champion appeared to be much more refined in battle this season, perhaps sensing that the more laps completed the better in the long run for a project that only turned a wheel for the first time in June 2024.
There were, as forecast, many frustrations, reliability issues, technical penalties and a lot of soul searching during the course of the season. But when the Lola package ran cleanly it ran well and was a genuine midfielder on more than one occasion; and when conditions and luck allowed there were decent points-scoring opportunities.
This happened four times: at Homestead, when di Grassi capitalised on others' misfortune to take an excellent second, and then in Tokyo, Shanghai and London.
His 32-point total was hugely embellished by the events of Homestead but Lola was in position to execute there, irrespective of the circmustances that played out. Therefore, much kudos for their collected tenacity should be dished out when appraising that first season.
15 Jake Hughes
Maserati MSG
Points: 48
Championship position: 16th
Best result: 3rd (Jeddah II)
There was something ominous about Hughes ending his first race with Maserati MSG in the barriers in Sao Paulo in the opening exchanges after getting caught up with Mueller's Andretti-Porsche. While far from his fault, the accident was ultimately a metaphor for a campaign that initially appeared to be turning around at Jeddah, with an excellent third place, but then petered out in a medley of team mistakes, incidents, poor reliability and wrong time/wrong place incidents.
The fact his race one in London was ended via his team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne getting a snap of oversteer and clouting Hughes's suspension, involuntarily breaking it, summed up the kind of miserable time Hughes had.
Then there were two races compromised by poor team preparation around the Pit Boost equipment in Tokyo and at Shanghai, and a complicated technical issue at Jakarta that compromised his race. His fighting fourth place in the wet Shanghai race apart, the final three-quarters of the season otherwise harnessed just a single point.
So, with these factors in mind there is a sense that it is very harsh to place Hughes so low because he rarely got a fair crack at a team where heads and standards clearly and maybe understandably dipped because of its messy off-track situation and uncertain future.
Hughes plugged on gamely but he was fighting a losing battle. Still, some mega qualifying performances, including Berlin (fourth) and London (eighth), showed potential new employers that the flair is still there and that Hughes therefore deserves to still be on the grid next season.
14 Stoffel Vandoorne
Maserati MSG
Points: 62
Championship position: 14th
Best result: 1st (Tokyo I)
Vandoorne's clear highlight was an audacious win in Tokyo, where he and the team executed a daring early Pit Boost stop and an agile early energy spend to somehow get within the state of charge window and go off strategy so brilliantly.
It was smooth and intelligent, much like Vandoorne's driving, which has suffered in some of the pack-racing madness of recent years.
The 2021-22 champion needed a big result like that but he also got others, such as in Jeddah and London where clean and efficient races were something he converted into good points scores of seventh and fourth respectively.
The chaotic events off track for the Maserati MSG team didn't help Vandoorne's preference for calmness within the group but he didn't let it affect his season, from the outside at least.
Contracted by Stellantis for next season, there is doubt as to whether he can be on the grid after Nick Cassidy's capture by Stellantis and Barnard's by Penske. Whatever happens, Vandoorne is a driver, like team-mate Hughes, who deserves a lot better than what he got this season amid a messy time for MSG.
13 Edoardo Mortara
Mahindra
Points: 88
Championship position: 9th
Best result: 2nd (Jakarta)
Now firmly a Formula E veteran, Mortara is using his elder statesman image to help push a resurgent Mahindra to new heights that 18 months ago it could only dream of.
A massive back and front office contribution to Mahindra's excellent fourth place teams' championship finish, Mortara has been a valuable asset, especially in conjunction with performance director Jérémy Colançon, who arrived at Mahindra at a similar time to his former charge at Maserati MSG.
Mortara's peaks included Jakarta and Berlin podiums but by rights he should have had another second place in Tokyo in May, but for a problem getting all of his attack mode on the crucial final push.
Another podium was up for grabs a day later had it not been for too-brawny a move on Barnard. Therefore, Mortara should really have exceeded 100 points this season without a few reliability and self-control moments that backfired.
12 Sebastien Buemi
Envision
Points: 84
Championship position: 12th
Wins: 1 (Monaco II)
Buemi's resurgence hasn't been quick or spectacular but some of his performances this season, notably in Monaco and London, brought flashbacks of his peak.
It was probably his best season with Envision and took a lot of grit after a first three-quarters of the 2024 campaign that left him looking like a driver who was on his way out of Formula E. The fact he fought back from that evaluation must have been sweet but it was earned through sheer hard work and determination from the famously diligent and professional champion.
The belief that Buemi could get close to 100 points, which he did with a final total of 84, was always there, even in some of the darker times such as the five-race stretch from Mexico City to Monaco where he didn't score at all. Then came the opportunity in a wet second Monaco race, which he took supremely.
That drive was further evidence that Buemi can carry on up to, and possibly into, the Gen4 era. As an experienced asset, he is very valuable to Envision and with his race engineer Connor Summerville, who has increased engineering responsibilities in the team now, Buemi will be a really smart dark-horse shout for more latter-career success in 2026.
11 Nyck de Vries
Mahindra
Points: 92
Championship position: 8th
Best result: 2nd (Monaco I, London I, London II)
The fact that de Vries outscored his very equally matched team-mate Mortara by four points, having competed two less races, was a credit to his tenacious habit of never knowing when he was beaten.
The immense performance across the final two races at the ExCeL last month, where 36 points were captured was a big chunk of that, but across the board de Vries was the standout Mahindra driver this season.
In qualifying, de Vries won out 9-5, something that should not be underestimated as Mortara still has a very rapid turn of speed over a single lap. De Vries's racecraft flirted with the line - and sometimes crossed it - and the acceptability of that sometimes was hard to digest. His chop on Dennis in Jakarta was the clear and needless nadir of this.
That said, de Vries works hard to make the opportunities happen, as was so evident in London and his execution of the chances was utterly clinical.
Also, slightly under the radar highlights such as a top-drawer qualifying lap and second place in Monaco and a dogged fourth in Jeddah helped make 2025 a potential primer for an even more spectacular 2026.
10 Jake Dennis
Andretti
Points: 93
Championship position: 7th
Best result: 2nd (Berlin II)
Dennis's last two seasons have been similar in the sense that he's often been a force on inherent pace but in consistently getting into frontrunning positions he's been some way off his 2023 peak season.
How much of that is driver and/or team is up for debate but several question marks exist as to whether Dennis's time at Andretti has run its course and whether he should split to head for a manufacturer seat at Jaguar, Nissan or Porsche in the future.
His 2025 season pointed to that in many ways, although Dennis must also take his slice of the blame for a season of modest achievement. A victory should have come at Jakarta but a wild de Vries, and then a mistake on Dennis's part, with the disengagement from the limiter, ruined his race.
But when on song, Dennis was still a big threat and this was evidenced by excellent runs in Jeddah, Monaco, Berlin and London. That was all allied to generally a stronger qualifying than in 2024 but Dennis did seem to be on the backfoot slightly to the factory drivers when it came to fully understanding the new Hankook rubber.
9 Jean-Eric Vergne
DS Penske
Points: 99
Championship position: 6th
Best result: 2nd (Shanghai I)
For someone who prides himself on consistency, Vergne had a few wobbles in 2025 and flitted between the classic JEV of smashing out podiums and big points to a slightly clumsy character who careered needlessly in to the back of Mitch Evans in Jakarta and flew off the road multiple times at Homestead, which was hands down his worst performance of the season.
Those incidents apart, Vergne was also again strong at many other events - yet a win still eluded him for the second season on the bounce.
Is this his power waning or was it circumstantial? It's hard to say, but Vergne got on well with new engineer Kyle Wilson-Clarke and had a productive relationship with new team-mate Maximilian Guenther, with the pair close together in the points standings (albeit with Guenther taking the two wins).
Vergne could move to Stellantis' sister MSG set-up and a probable Citroën-branded car next season. The feeling in some quarters is that a change of environment might just do him the world of good after a second season without a victory.
8 Dan Ticktum
Cupra Kiro
Points: 85
Championship position: 11th
Wins: 1 (Jakarta)
A breakthrough half-season for Ticktum is the realistic way to term a generally positive campaign that started tepidly, rose to a tremendous peak mid-season, and then dissipated a bit with irate posturing and damaged cars at the end in London.
Ticktum needed to prove that with a good powertrain at his disposal special things could happen. And he delivered, and indeed overdelivered, at Tokyo, Shanghai, Jakarta and London.
A podium, a pole or a win were things Ticktum could only dream about this time last year when only the saviour of the team by the Forest Road Company rescued a dire situation in which Ticktum's very career was on the line.
But the early promise was only lukewarm and by Monaco there was a feeling that if anything was to happen it had to happen soon. Kiro threatened to win in Monaco but a team mistake, a Ticktum mistake, and then a rant that went toe-to-toe with his Jeddah explosion threatened to forever have him typecast as nothing more than an erratic, slightly loveable curio.
Then came Tokyo and a qualifying lap that took everyone's breath away. Unfortunately, it also took a chunk of his Porsche away in the final sector. But a point had been proven and Ticktum's prior posturing as the best thing since sliced racing drivers rang true.
The follow-up drive to third was both patient and classy, and then in Jakarta he capitalised when others self-destructed to take his and the Kiro entity's maiden win.
A brilliant first place in qualifying for the London season finale was some compensation for an otherwise messy home event, but over the course of a first proper season in which he had a decent mount beneath him, he proved several points. And along the way, despite a few spikes of verbal-shrapnel, he was engaged, focused and determined to make a major point, which he succeeded to do.
7 Maximilian Guenther
DS Penske
Points: 85
Championship position: 10th
Wins: 2 (Jeddah I, Shanghai I)
Guenther arrived at DS Penske in the late summer of 2024 hungry and intent on adding to his reputation as one of the fastest drivers and, on his day, one of the deadliest race executors in Formula E.
One of the ways to do that would be to beat team-mate Vergne quickly. He did that with a win at Jeddah and added a further victory at Shanghai, although consistent points went more towards Vergne - but only really through unusually high unreliability for Guenther.
He also beat Vergne 10-6 in qualifying and had it not been for technical failures in Tokyo and Shanghai (astoundingly the same issue), and then again in Berlin, Guenther could and really should have been in the fight between Antonio Felix da Costa and Barnard for fourth in the final standings.
There were fewer mistakes in 2025, although his most public one was a major error when he hit da Costa while sniffing out a possible double win on the first lap of the second Jeddah race.
Guenther really impressed the DS Penske team with his commitment, focus and pace. So, it is telling that the high likelihood is that Vergne and not Guenther will be making way for Barnard next season.
6 Mitch Evans
Jaguar
Points: 74
Championship position: 13th
Wins: 2 (Sao Paulo, Berlin I)
There will be some who will raise an eyebrow at Evans, who finished 13th in the standings, his lowest ever position in Formula E, being sixth on this list. But the facts are that Tokyo apart, where he crashed in qualifying, Evans's ludicrous streak of 11 non-points finishes was more often than not down to poor reliability, incident or circumstance, most of which he couldn't influence at all.
This was definitely not his best season driving-wise but certainly it wasn't 13th-in-the-championship level, not anywhere near it. Commitment and guile when it mattered were powerful traits right through his performances yet again. It was just that they were neutered by a variety of misfortunes.
Evans charge from last to first in Sao Paulo was brilliant but relied on some fortune too. Then his dominance in Berlin was excellently dispatched, so these were the clear highlights.
But the frustrations, pent up from the majority of the previous 14 races, boiled over in London and with some justification. There he had to watch team-mate Cassidy, the driver leaving Jaguar, being significantly (and justifiably in terms of the championship positions) favoured. That won't have been easy to take, especially in light of their shared championship implosion at the same venue a year before.
There are still question marks about his future at Jaguar beyond next season, when ironically he could be looking at his best-ever chance of that elusive title if his and departing team-mate's pace in the second half of the 2024-25 season is anything to go by.
5 Taylor Barnard
McLaren
Points: 112
Championship position: 4th
Best result: 2nd (Jeddah II)
Ian James, Gary Paffett and Albert Lau at McLaren knew they had someone special on their books when Barnard muscled his way to points in only his second race in Berlin last May.
But Barnard's flying start to this season, with three podiums and a pole in the first four races, surprised even that combined, experienced trio. What it also did was fly a big 'for sale' sign over his head when it became known around the time of the Jeddah double-header that McLaren was in trouble and likely to exit Formula E.
He didn't let this faze him at all and he kicked on superbly with another two podiums in Tokyo and at Shanghai, displaying intellectually adept moves in battle in both races and a strong-arm nature that surprised - and, occasionally, severely pissed off - his peers.
A bit of a dropoff in the final races was more of an irritation than a depression, and the 21-year-old came away clinging onto his hard-fought fourth place despite a late charge from da Costa.
The sheer fact that Barnard beat one Porsche and one Jaguar driver, both drivers from DS Penske's experienced line-up, and champions Jake Dennis and Sebastien Buemi, was one of the more remarkable feats ever witnessed over the course of a Formula E season.
4 Antonio Felix da Costa
Porsche
Points: 111
Championship position: 5th
Best result: 2nd (Sao Paulo, Mexico City)
One of the early-season favourites and this writer's tip for championship glory, da Costa will be disappointed with his campaign.
But when held up against the probing light of what might have been he needn't be so hard on himself. And despite falling just short of fourth in the standings, da Costa just pips Barnard in this ranking because of his more consistent points scoring.
That it was done in a team that was split right down the middle from da Costa's point of view, between himself and team-mate Pascal Wehrlein, makes the double-title success for Porsche all the more remarkable.
Da Costa started excellently with two second places in Sao Paulo and Mexico City and at that stage looked like a dead cert for at least a title challenge. Then came Jeddah, where he was wiped out by first Evans and then Guenther.
He was the moral winner at Homestead but only with points for third place after getting shafted by the red flag. Still, at this stage he was just 15 points off Rowland, three ahead of Wehrlein, and well in contention.
Then a mishmash of so-so race results played out but da Costa, Monaco apart, was usually a factor at the front of races. But while he had a period of missing big points, Rowland delivered and in a nutshell that is where both Porsche drivers' title ambitions ended.
Strangely for da Costa, after such a rollercoaster year of highs and lows in 2024, this year was much steadier. No win to his name for the first time since 2017-18 feels strange to write, so it must be even stranger to experience for the man himself.
Whether he stays at Porsche or not, and remarkably the jury is still out, da Costa still feels like a driver with plenty of winning left in him.
3 Pascal Wehrlein
Porsche
Points: 145
Championship position: 3rd
Wins: 1 (Homestead)
In the context of the reigning champion ending race one of his title defence upside down after an unfortunate coming together with Cassidy, a close third-place finish in the final points doesn't seem so bad.
But make no mistake, Wehrlein and Porsche have a strata of disappointment running through their season, and the win at Homestead was the only real source of enjoyment. That, combined with Ticktum's Jakarta victory, meant that Porsche was on wins alone well below Jaguar and Nissan and also beaten by Stellantis, which took three victories.
Wehrlein was mighty in qualifying through most of the year, with an average starting position of 4.9 and pole for the opening two races in Sao Paulo and at Mexico City, plus a third in Berlin. There were also five fastest laps, in addition to the win, and five other podiums.
But again, there were races where he went missing, notably in Monaco, Jakarta and the second Berlin race - where the title was ultimately decided. Some wrong calls on strategy and a propensity to get involved in battles he didn't need to be in were still evident in his racecraft.
But generally, Wehrlein had another strong year and perhaps the biggest accolade he has in his five seasons at Porsche is the fact that he has never been beaten by a team-mate. Next season he may well have another one and whoever it maybe you wouldn't fancy their chances against one of Formula E's top performers.
2 Nick Cassidy
Jaguar
Points: 153
Championship position: 2nd
Wins: 4 (Shanghai II, Berlin II, London I, London II)
A season like no other in Formula E for Cassidy. It was almost the complete opposite of early-set champion Rowland's, but Cassidy further enhanced his reputation as a benchmark in Formula E with an outrageously strong finish to the season.
But even prior to that Cassidy was having a very strong campaign and driving some epic races, he just wasn't rewarded as well as he is so used to being. His season began badly with the Wehrlein shunt in Brazil and then no points until a stoic fifth in the second Jeddah race.
But the disappointments continued up until the second part of the Shanghai weekend, which was also the race in which he took the first of his four wins, before signing off the season with a memorable hat-trick in Berlin and London.
The way Cassidy executed all his wins was immense but the London finale specifically was a total crushing of the opposition after a clever rope-a-dope technique early on bunched the field up before he split.
Off the track, Cassidy often perplexes many with a sometimes closed-off presence. It's nothing more than concentration and personal energy management. Get him away from the pressure of the track and he's an absolute joy. This is important because it partitions off the noise he doesn't need to hear that doesn't contribute to what matters for him: winning.
Also off the track, Cassidy weighed up his future seriously around March/April time. He had offers and big interest from pretty much every team; why wouldn't he? His final choice of Stellantis was a little surprising but it will also allow him a crack at Le Mans and the WEC in the future too.
Cassidy was so good this season it's almost too close between him and champion Rowland to define a top dog. There is a very strong case for stating that the Kiwi was the best on the grid in 2025 and indeed, the fact he had to fight and push his team further than ever is another major tick in the positive box.
If there is such a thing as a photo finish in this assessment, the two are level - but a forensic zoom-in has one of them ahead by the last millimetre of his fringe!
1 Oliver Rowland
Nissan
Points: 184
Championship position: 1st
Wins: 4 (Mexico City, Jeddah I, Monaco I, Tokyo I)
A champion with two races to spare and a four-time 2024-25 race winner, with a garnish of three-second places and two pole positions, is a season fit for a king. That Rowland's coronation came via a battered car and a penalty in London didn't matter much. The title was won long before.
A lasting image of Rowland for this writer was at Tokyo in May when he left the paddock, swinging his daughter between himself and his wife, with a fourth win from nine races and a gargantuan 60-point lead. Life was good and even though in his heart he knew it wasn't done, what he did know was that if he lost it from there then it would have been his own stupid fault.
There were inevitable wobbles, such as clouting Guenther and Vandoorne in Jakarta and Berlin respectively, though the first of those didn't really warrant a penalty. Nevertheless, the infamous golfing yips were starting to rear their heads - but Rowland had one last classy performance in his locker in the second Berlin race and he took delight in showcasing it.
Rowland's season was so all-consumingly strong from Sao Paulo (a race he should have won but for a power overspike penalty) to Tokyo that his rivals were just battered into submission. His decision making and his clinical application of strategy was so focused that his rivals simply didn't stand a chance.
The best example was probably Mexico City, where a late safety car meant that the final 70 seconds of attack mode that he had needed to be used smartly as he went hunting for Porsches. He came back with the heads of Dennis, Wehrlein and da Costa as he blitzed all three in less than a lap.
It was a statement of intent which, from that point on, told his rivals who was the 2025 boss.
