Sports Writer Namya Raman explores the highs and lows of the 2025 season giving you her winners and losers.

After the epic championship decider in Abu Dhabi, the F1 2025 season has officially ended after a roller coaster of 24 races. From Williams’ resurgence to Ferrari’s consistent disappointments, here are the highs and lows of the past year. 

Winners

Williams

New sponsor & driver

After testing, Alex Albon shared Williams’ goal to become the ‘best of the rest’: to lead the midfield fight behind Red Bull, Ferrari, Mclaren and Mercedes. By the Qatar Grand Prix they had secured 5th in the World Constructor’s Championship, their best result since 2016. They also had both drivers in the top 10 of the World Driver’s Championship, Alex Albon 8th and Carlos Sainz 9th. In comparison to 9th in the 2024 Constructor’s, it’s safe to call this season a major resurgence. Multiple factors contributed to this including strong driver performances. Carlos Sainz proved to be an extremely successful signing for the team and did not have to miss the podiums for too long, bringing home 3rd in Baku and Lusail. Another big change was their new title sponsor Atlassian, who bring in much needed cash to the team boosting overall confidence and “bringing financial firepower and technology”.

Nico Hulkenberg’s Long Awaited Podium

In 15 years and 238 race starts Nico Hulkenberg had never stood on the podium. After a pole position in his debut season, multiple near-misses of a podium and a win at 24 Hours of Le Mans, his skill was never doubted. In 2025, he had been performing consistently within the low end of the points, which was impressive in the Sauber. However, a podium in this season seemed out of the question especially at Silverstone where he started in 18th. This was until drastic weather circumstances, that he took advantage of, allowed him to make his way up the grid. Hulkenberg was then able to masterfully defend against Lewis Hamilton in 4th and hold on to reach his first ever podium.

The Rookies

The season began with 5 rookies and ended with some extremely strong results and a broken record. Kimi Antonelli was the highest performing rookie with 150 points, beating Hamilton’s previous record for best rookie season with 109 points. He stood on the podium three times, once in 2nd place and became the youngest polesitter in the Miami Sprint. The second-highest finisher was VCARB’s Isack Hadjar in 12th with 51 points. While he had a disappointing start to the season with a DNS in Australia, his form only improved leading to a podium in Netherlands in his debut season. Oliver Bearman also had an impressive season, outperforming his teammate and getting his best performance in Mexico of 4th place. Gabriel Bortoleto also had some great points finishes across the season with a career best of 6th place in Hungary and matched Hulkenburg on qualifying.

Max Verstappen and his Unexpected Comeback

With Mclaren’s incredibly dominant car Max Verstappen should not have been able to take this championship fight to Abu Dhabi. The RB21 was nowhere near the fastest on the grid, making it all the more impressive that Verstappen only fell 2 points short of the WDC. In the latter half of the season he extracted everything out of the car to overcome a 104 points deficit and won 6 of the final 10 races. This allowed him to become a serious title contender against Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who had a significantly faster car. Unfortunately, in Abu Dhabi he did everything he could, coming first but Lando Norris also did everything he needed to and so he fell just short in the WDC. Unsurprisingly, he calls this year his career-best performance. 

Losers

Ferrari 

After an extremely rocky season, Ferrari finished outside the top 3 of the WCC for the first time since 2020. Ferrari has been searching for a return to their glory days but technical difficulties, strategy missteps and an early-season decision made that impossible. The biggest technical issue is the SF-25’s sensitivity to ride height change. After the resulting DSQs in the Chinese GP, the team required more conservative setups and diverted attention to focus on this issue. Soon after, Fred Vasseur decided to boldly shift his focus solely to the 2026 car development. This contributed to an especially difficult first season in red for Lewis Hamilton who, for the first time in his career, ended the season without a Grand Prix podium and broke his 11 season podium streak at Silverstone.

Mclaren and Papaya Rules

While Mclaren had a decisive win over the Constructors’ Championship, 2025 was not without its issues. There has particularly been debate over their ‘Papaya rules’. They built an extremely dominant car but had to navigate having 2 competent WDC contenders. The ‘Rules’ let the two drivers fight cleanly without favouritism, but it is moments like Monza that show its weaknesses. Leclerc was able to take advantage of Piastri’s risky overtake on Norris because when there isn’t one primary driver, intra-team fights leave doors open. Mclaren’s pitfalls in strategy also show themselves no better than in Lusail where they were the only team not to take a free pitstop. These issues along with their double DSQ in Vegas are what allowed Max Verstappen to threaten their WDC win. So, if Mclaren have a successful car next year, it will be interesting to see how they deal with their ‘rules’.

Alpine 

Alpine knew their car was not strong enough this to consistently fight for points this season leading to an early decision to focus on the 2026 car. However, this left them stuck with some significant weaknesses compared to the grid leading to last place in the WCC. Pierre Gasly was the sole point scorer of the season and his job was then made even more complicated as the team dealt with an early driver swap. After only 5 races Jack Doohan was replaced by Franco Colapinto. Still, drivers cannot find success in a car whose core issue is just lack of engine power. Their struggles continued throughout the season along with a power imbalance in the team by their principal, Flavio Briatore. He took over from Oliver Oakes in May, continuing the high turnover of management, so reinforcing the lack of stability in their culture.

Red Bull’s ‘Cursed’ Second Seat 

A significant reason Max Verstappen has found such success as Red Bull is that his extremely unique and aggressive racing style has been the center of the team’s technical decisions. This ultimately forces the second driver to adapt and rarely successfully. Putting Lawson in the seat was already questionable and was followed by an underwhelming performance from him and then came Tsunoda. However, it just led to an existing pattern. 4 other drivers have been replaced to race alongside Verstappen since 2018 and 2026 is no different. The lack of success from the second driver effectively makes it a one person team, with the second drivers only contributing 33 points of the teams total 451 in the season. So the question to ask is can repeated driver changes fix the issue of a team centered around one driver? This season they are starting with the seasoned Isack Hadjar

It will be interesting to see how these teams fare in 2026 and if these successes or struggles will continue. The new season opens on the 6th March at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.