Top 5 F1 drivers of the 2025 season (feat. Lando Norris) 

The 2025 F1 season saw Lando Norris being crowned as the world champion, and the Brit broke a 17-year lean period for McLaren, becoming the first world champion for the team since Lewis Hamilton.

In a 24-race world championship, it's often important to understand when you want to peak and when you want to preserve your energy. As the season progresses, it does appear that this becomes a battle of attrition, and that's where the elites shine.

Often, drivers who maintain that impressive level of performance over the 24-race period excel at the end. So, with the 2025 F1 season now done and dusted, who were the top 5 best drivers of the season? Let's take a look.

#5 Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

Oscar Piastri's 2025 F1 season was the one with two halves. The first half saw him as not only a worthy title contender but also as someone who had stepped up in a manner that was causing issues for a lot of the top contenders. He was metronomic in the way he was performing, and he wasn't having too many dips either.

Then came the period post-Italian GP, and the Aussie was just lost. He made errors, he wasn't comfortable in the car, and he was getting consistently outpaced by Lando Norris, and from being a championship frontrunner, he capitulated completely.

The driver finds himself P5 in these rankings, but it's safe to say that he was ranked much higher at the midway point of the season.

#4 Lando Norris (McLaren)

Lando Norris finds himself in P4 for the 2025 F1 season. It's not often the case that a driver who wins the championship is ranked this low, but a part of it comes down to the British driver arguably not having the best run early in the year when the car was not to his liking. He messed up a lot of qualifying sessions that cost him quite a few points as well.

The second half of the season was far more complete from Lando, he made sure that he didn't leave much on the table, and a lot of points lost by him in the second half were not his fault, essentially. Overall, though, he'll take home the Championship and hopefully build on it in 2026.

#3 George Russell (Mercedes F1)

The 2024 F1 season should have been enough to put George Russell as one of the elites in the sport, but the Brit truly stepped up in 2025 when Mercedes saw in him a leader who could take the team to a title if the car is the right one.

Two wins and two pole positions were a nice little reminder from the Brit that the German team is in good hands after Lewis Hamilton's departure.

#2 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

Charles Leclerc finds himself second on this list, as the 2025 F1 season was arguably the one where the driver just had the measure of not only his teammate, who is ironically a 7x F1 champion, but also of the field.

There were moments where Charles Leclerc put his car in Ferrari in places it had no business being in and just proved that the only thing between him and an F1 title is the right car and the right team.

#1 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

At the top of the list, it has to be Max Verstappen. The Dutch driver did appear to be taking it a bit easy midway through the season when he felt that the title was out of the picture. He would then step things up remarkably post-summer break. When the Red Bull finally kicked things up another gear, so did the 4x champion, as he wouldn't finish off the podium even once in the second half of the season.

The 2025 F1 season was a perfect reminder of why Max Verstappen is revered as much as he is in the sport. Another season where he proved to be the benchmark for the rest of the grid.