The 2025 season is underway and what an entertaining start that was. Rain always makes things more interesting in F1 and Australia 2025 was no different. I can’t remember the last time the opening race of the season was wet, but I’m sure a mixture of slippery conditions, new cars and lots of rookies led to the mistakes we saw on track this weekend, to only have 14 finishers, the lowest since the 2023 Brazilian Grand Prix.
At the end of the race, Lando Norris came through to take the chequered flag, with an assured, mature drive. At one point, I thought my first bold prediction from my last post – link here – was coming through but this time, McLaren got their strategy calls spot on and helped Lando keep his advantage.
There were lots of good…and some not-so-good drives this weekend so let’s get into rating them all. I will be using ice-staking rules so expect lots of decimal places and no 10s.
Lando Norris – 9.2
This weekend couldn’t have got much better for Lando. Pole position, led most of the race and took the win under extremely difficult conditions. He got a good start, held off Verstappen at the first corner and didn’t really look back. His safety car restarts were assured, held off attacks from his teammate and Verstappen again towards the end. Apart from the excursion through the grass on Lap 44 and having to trust his team to make the right tyre decision when the rain came down post excursion, the win never really looked threatened. This was an extremely mature and confident start to a big season from the man from Glastonbury.
Max Verstappen – 8.2
Max Verstappen just doesn’t have bad races. Despite an unusual unforced error in the early stages of the race to give up 2nd place to Piastri, Max kept it on the grey stuff to maximise what his car could give him in Australia. The McLaren pace will worry him as they were able to pretty easily gain a 16 second lead in conditions that Max thrives in, but when push comes to shrove, its another 18 points, another podium for the reigning world champion, and a result Red Bull will definitely take after a shaky pre-season.
George Russell – 8.1
An under-the-radar performance to 3rd place by George Russell. He kept out of trouble, ran his own race as the Mercedes was locked in as the 3rd fastest car, and took advantage when others made mistakes around him. Not much else to say, apart from this was his best opening race result of his career, lovely stuff.
Kimi Antonelli – 8.8
I don’t think Mercedes could have asked for a better Sunday from their drivers. After only qualifying 16th on Saturday, Kimi Antonelli showed why Toto Woolf put him in the 2nd Mercedes for 2025, coming home 4th. While the other rookies fell by the wayside, Kimi carved his way up the field, kept it out of the walls and got his reward. He did have a clumsy spin when he dipped a tyre on the grass on entry of turn 4 but made up for it with an outrageous move around the outside of Alex Albon into Turn 9 on the final lap! He also becomes the 2nd youngest points scorer in F1 history, only behind Verstappen, and took a big early lead in the Rookie of the Year competition. Wherever Toto Woolf is , he is surely beaming an I-told-you-so smile.
Alex Albon – 8.1
Another under-the-radar but impressive performance from the British-Thai driver. Williams led the midfield teams on Saturday, with both drivers reaching Q3, ad Albon led the line in 6th place. He then improved that to 5th by the chequered flag on Sunday. Similar to Russell, he kept out of trouble, drove consistently and kept it out of the wall (unlike his teammate), to give him his best result since leaving Red Bull all those years ago.
Lance Stroll – 7.9
Keeping it on track was the name of the game around Albert Park, and Stroll did just that to take 7th and valuable points for an Aston Martin that doesn’t look particularly quick. The much-criticized Canadian is an easy punching bag, and he doesn’t help himself (see Formation lap, Brazil 2024) when trying to get rid of the ultimate pay driver tag. One thing he has always been good at, is driving in slippery, changeable conditions and he proved that again.
Nico Hulkenberg – 7.9
Nico showed why Audi chose him to lead their line when they take over Sauber in 2026. Despite not hitting the ultimate heights of F1, he is reliable, fast and provides these types of performances that are so valuable for teams in the bottom half of the grid. Nico has already surpassed Sauber’s points total from the entirety of 2024, can’t ask for more than that from race one.
Charles Leclerc – 7.4
An underwhelming performance all round at Ferrari in Melbourne. Charles did well to gain positions at the start and was running 5th for most of the race until the rain came on Lap 44. A spin dropped him down the order while battling Tsunoda and a bad call from Ferrari to leave both drivers out on slicks in increasingly wet conditions limited Charles’ points reward, eventually coming home 8th. The silver lining was a nice move around the outside of Hamilton at the final safety car restart to win that intra-team battle.
Oscar Piastri – 7.2
What could have been for Oscar at his home race and the Aussie curse continues. He lost 2nd place to Verstappen off the line but pressured him into a mistake to get it back on Lap 17. He then shadowed Norris as the McLarens gapped the Red Bull to put themselves in a convincing 1-2 but the threat of leading is that you hit the weather first. This caught both McLarens out, Oscar more than Lando and as he re-entered the race track, he lost the back end and spun off at the final corner, ruining his chances of victory. Having fell to the back of the grid, he did well to finish 9th and grab some points. His move around the outside of Hamilton at Turn 9 on the final lap was a beauty and gave the home crowd something to cheer about.
Lewis Hamilton – 6.0
Just a bit average from Lewis on his first race in Red. The Ferrari isn’t as quick as the team hoped after a decent pre-season but Hamilton’s performance was a little flat all weekend long. Beaten by Leclerc in every session and didn’t look particularly dangerous in the race will be disappointing for Lewis but it was always going to be a learning process for him. He will have to settle for a point on debut.
Pierre Gasly – 7.5
Pierre will be disappointed not to take home some points from the Australian Grand Prix. He was running nicely in the top ten for most of the race until the changing conditions caught him out. He made a mistake at turn 1 after the final safety car restart, lost positions to the Ferraris and Piastri and his points disappeared. Overall though, a good drive against quicker opposition.
Yuki Tsunoda – 8.2
Yuki was having a great weekend until Lap 44 on Sunday. He qualified a fantastic 5th and was battling Leclerc for P5 in the race until the rain came again and his team took a chance to stay out on slicks. This put him back in 12th with 5 laps to go and couldn’t do anything to climb back up. Big shame but the performance was there.
Esteban Ocon – 5.5
Not the weekend Ocon would have dreamt up for his Haas debut. While Ocon beat his teammate in both Quali and the race, he beat only his teammate as Haas propped up the classifications.
Oliver Bearman – 2.5
Oliver is lucky to get 2.5 to be honest. He crashed early in FP1, missed FP2 because of it and then beached his car in FP3. He didn’t start qualification and finished last in the race with a couple spins on his way. Best he forget about the Aussie Grand Prix and pretend China is the first race of his Haas career.
Liam Lawson – 3.5
The curse of the 2nd Red Bull seat continues. Another rocky debut in Australia, this time for the man from across the Tasman Sea. Reliability issues hindered his practise but that doesn’t fully explain qualifying 2nd last. He had decent pace in the dry but was left out to dry (excuse the pun) by his time and crashed at Turn 2 while trying to survive the rain on old tyres. Hardly a confidence boosting weekend.
Gabriel Bortoleto 6.9
I think Bortoleto is my pick for 2nd best rookie performance after Antonelli. Out-qualifying Nico Hulkenberg at first attempt is an impressive feat and shows he is right on the pace. The Sauber isn’t very quick so not much to say about his race apart from the spin that ended his race was more car failure than driver error.
Fernando Alonso – 6.7
Fernando was having a usual dogged performance in the Aston before an unusual spin at Turn 6/7 which still baffles me and I’ve watched it about 8 times. He was running in the points until then but luckily for him, his teammate picked up them up in his absence.
Carlos Sainz – 6.5
Carlos was having a solid Williams debut until another unusual spin. This Williams doesn’t look half bad and is solidly in the midfield fight, if not at the front. Carlos’s race ended with a torque spike under the safety car which threw him into the wall, which can probably be put down to learning a new power unit. He is going to be just fine at Williams.
Jack Doohan – 4.5
Somehow Jack Doohan came into the season under a fair amount of pressure for a seat he hadn’t raced in yet. I’m not counting Abu Dhabi last year, that was a test drive. It wasn’t looking too bad after qualifying but he made a rookie error, which is fair, on Lap 1, getting caught out by a slippery white line and going straight to the scene of his accident, ending his race abruptly. Not awful, but not great. The pressure is still very much on.
Isack Hadjar – 6.5
Poor, poor Isack. It was all going so well! He performed really well during practise and qualifying. He was on the pace from the get go and was only .06 of a second from Q3 but it all unravelled on the formation lap of all places. He got too trigger happy exiting Turn 2 and around she went, over before it began. It was hard to watch him in tears as he got out the car and drove home the magnitude of the sport that we love. I hope he puts this behind him quickly because he showed great potential this weekend.
The Perfect Formula 