A pretty static Japanese Grand Prix produced a surprise winner, but that wasn’t the only star underdog performance that caught Edd Straw’s eye for his Formula 1 driver rankings.
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
The Red Bull isn’t a no-hoper, but it’s a difficult car to get the most out of and at Suzuka was not as quick as the McLaren. Max Verstappen still produced a brilliant qualifying lap to eclipse the McLaren drivers.
That overachievement meant he could control the race from the front to take a victory that had seemed out of the question given the car problems he complained of throughout practice.
Verdict: Pole lap of the gods key to victory.
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Started: 4th Finished: 4th
There’s very little to say about Charles Leclerc’s weekend, save for the fact he did an excellent job and with the Ferrari team made some decent progress with the car.
While his qualifying lap wasn’t perfect, it put him ahead of the quicker Mercedes of George Russell and that put him in the right place to control fourth place throughout the race. And he had a clear edge on team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Job done.
Verdict: A quietly accomplished weekend.
Started: 7th Finished: 8th
Isack Hadjar settled into the track well on his first visit to Suzuka, defying the “nightmare” of the seatbelt-induced pain that afflicted him in Q1 to qualify seventh.
He converted that into eighth in the race, and slipping behind the quicker Ferrari of Hamilton in the first stint was unavoidable even on a track where passing is difficult.
The reward was his first points finish in F1, keeping the closing Alex Albon at arm’s length late on despite being “completely destroyed” physically.
Verdict: Win and pole in F1’s ‘Class B’.
Started: 10th Finished: 10th
Ollie Bearman surprised himself, his Haas team and the watching world by making it to Q3 in a car that he wasn’t confident would make Q2, but he didn’t nail the Q3 lap itself.
That potentially cost him a position or two, but even so it set him up for what he called a “boring” race to a second consecutive points finish.
Bearman also contributed by doing the evaluation work on Haas’s upgraded floor on Friday.
Verdict: Probably his most complete F1 weekend.
Started: 9th Finished: 9th
Albon was second-best of the midfield pack in both qualifying and the race, and although the Williams potentially had the speed to have beaten Hadjar it was visibly trickier to extract that pace than in the Racing Bulls car.
In that context, Albon did a good job and continued to have the edge on new team-mate Carlos Sainz, albeit by a reduced margin as he kept a vice-like grip on ninth through qualifying and the race.
Verdict: Drove well but perhaps could have gone one place better.
Started: 2nd Finished: 2nd
Although Lando Norris said he was happy with his qualifying lap, there was doubtless enough time on the table.
Struggling with the front end on entries to the slower corners, that cost him with time shipped lost under braking into the final chicane swinging the pole battle away from him.
Norris nonetheless shaded his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri and covered him in the race despite being under pressure in the second stint.
Verdict: Had the machinery to win.
Started: 5th Finished: 5th
Getting a little too clever on tyre-prep on his final Q3 run ultimately cost Russell, leading to the moment at Turn 2 that ensured he ended up behind Leclerc’s slower Ferrari on the grid.
That meant that in the race he was stuck behind the Ferrari throughout, which was understandable given the difficulty of overtaking but gave him plenty of time to reflect with frustration on his slight underachievement in qualifying.
Verdict: Q3 misjudgement cost him top-four.
Started: 3rd Finished: 3rd
Piastri’s Suzuka weekend closely mirrored McLaren team-mate Norris’s - the main differences being that it was an error in Turn 2 - a struggle for him generally - that cost him pole position and that he was ultimately on the wrong side of a close battle with his team-mate in both qualifying and the race.
Verdict: Fractionally on the wrong side of the McLaren battle.
Started: 6th Finished: 6th
In terms of performance and execution, this was comfortably Kimi Antonelli’s strongest F1 weekend yet.
It didn’t come easily given he was lacking in confidence on Friday but he made a big step on Saturday, which demonstrates his intelligent and methodical way of working.
It also showed he’s willing to listen, particularly to reserve driver Valtteri Bottas, turning the good grid position into sixth place and fastest lap.
Verdict: His most complete weekend yet.
Started: 16th Finished: 16th
Nico Hulkenberg was frustrated not to make it to Q2, with his tyre preparation compromised on the outlap and a moment at Degner 2 costing him.
He ran 15th initially before Sainz inevitably passed him, with Esteban Ocon also getting ahead later in the stint - a place Hulkenberg later got back on strategy.
Misplaced concerns about the hard tyre life led to his first stop being a couple of laps later than it should have been, meaning he finished behind Jack Doohan.
Verdict: Decent in a limited Sauber.
Started: 12th Finished: 11th
After a promising Friday, Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin’s pace faded on Saturday with the reversal in wind direction cited as the potential cause.
Considering the pace of the car, Alonso qualified and raced decently, overtaking Pierre Gasly on the first lap to get to the brink of the top 10. But that was as far as he could go, with 11th a decent enough result for the machinery.
Verdict: Decent job in middling car.
Started: 11th Finished: 13th
With the Alpine working reasonably well at Suzuka, except on the straights, Gasly drove well in qualifying but couldn’t overcome the time lost through the power deficit of the Renault engine. That’s despite being the fastest of the midfield runners in the tricky first sector.
From 11th on the grid, he tried to find a way around Bearman at the start but that left him vulnerable to Alonso’s attack, which ultimately meant he dropped to 12th after an unsuccessful attempt to get back ahead at Spoon Curve. He was then undercut by Yuki Tsunoda.
Verdict: Quick but first lap didn’t work out.
Started: 17th Finished: 19th
Although Gabriel Bortoleto was the second-best Sauber driver, his pace stacked up well to his vastly experienced team-mate Hulkenberg and he got within a tenth of a second of making Q2.
Unfortunately, being a little too aggressive on the clutch meant he made a bad start, dropping to the back.
From there, he was always up against it but showed good pace even though the only place he gained was thanks to Lance Stroll two-stopping.
Verdict: Bad start damages ranking on impressive weekend.
Started: 14th Finished: 12th
Tsunoda’s first Red Bull weekend can’t be deemed a success given the results, but he undoubtedly had the pace to be in Q3 and qualify in the top six.
His final run in Q2 got away from him with the moment exiting the chicane to start the lap, and a bigger snap in Turn 2, which left him down the grid and, like everybody else, unable to make progress.
That makes his weekend a qualified success as the underlying speed looks stronger than what predecessor Liam Lawson or, in the second half of 2024, Sergio Perez produced.
While it’s Tsunoda’s first weekend in the car with no testing, and what he did suggested he might well go on to make a success of this, the fact he didn’t execute when it mattered hits his rating.
Verdict: Promising signs despite poor results.
Started: 8th Finished: 7th
For the first time, Hamilton diverged on set-up from Ferrari team-mate Leclerc and complained of understeer in qualifying, which cost him particularly in the sweeps of sector one.
He opted for an inverted strategy, starting on hards and switching to mediums, which gained him nothing although he did at least pick off Hadjar in the first stint to gain a place. He also referenced a non-specific deficit in his car “losing just over a tenth a lap”.
Verdict: An anonymous weekend.
Started: 15th Finished: 14th
On paper, this looked like a continuation of Sainz’s early-season struggles. However, he was more comfortable in the Williams and his pace was closer to team-mate Albon’s as the half-tenth deficit in Q2 proved.
However, it was enough for him to fall the wrong side of the Q3 split, with a three-place grid penalty for impeding Hamilton caused by the pitwall not warning him of the Ferrari’s approach relegating him to 15th on the grid.
From there, it was impossible to make gains beyond the one place he moved up thanks to Lawson’s strategy, with two chicane cuts in the race suggesting he wasn’t entirely comfortable.
Verdict: Performance is improving.
Started: 13th Finished: 17th
On his return to Racing Bulls, Lawson got a good handle on the car and could have joined team-mate Hadjar in Q3 but for struggling for front grip at the start of the lap and a poor exit from Degner 2.
That left him 13th, which became 14th when he was passed by Tsunoda after a moment caused by defending into Spoon.
A strategic gamble to run long on mediums proved self-defeating as there was no chance to gain significant ground on softs.
Verdict: Reacclimatised well but it didn’t come together.
Started: 18th Finished: 18th
Although he was eliminated in Q1 with a 0.468s deficit to Haas team-mate Bearman, it must be taken into account that Ocon didn’t get the floor upgrade until FP3 and was “short on time” to get the most out of it.
However, the performance was in the car, with the team confident there was no difference between the two Haas machines, so there was the potential to have qualified better.
From so far down the grid, starting on hards, he had no chance of making gains.
Verdict: Underachieved, but with mitigating factors.
Started: 20th Finished: 20th
Suzuka has not been a happy hunting ground for Stroll, which remained the case this year.
He always looked to be giving away a few tenths to Aston Martin team-mate Alonso, and might have just squeezed into Q2, but a gusty tailwind caught him out at Turn 6 on his final Q1 lap and led to a trip through the gravel.
A gamble on starting on softs didn’t pay off and he was the only driver to two-stop on his way to last.
Verdict: A disappointing dip after a good start to 2025.
Started: 19th Finished: 15th
After sitting out FP1 for Ryo Hirakawa, Jack Doohan shunted heavily at Turn 1 on his second flying lap in FP2.
That was the result of not closing the DRS, not through forgetfulness but thanks to believing it was unnecessary having never done so in the sim. That was an error, but also something the team should have flagged.
He recovered on Saturday and felt Q2 was possible but for a wide moment exiting Spoon Curve, although even without that it would have been a big ask to advance.
After starting on softs, he couldn’t make progress in the race. Another frustrating weekend for a driver who has shown genuine pace this year.
Verdict: Friday crash sinks his ranking.
