Max Verstappen named best driver on the grid as Hamilton drops out of top 10

Max Verstappen has been named the 2025 Drivers’ Driver of the Year, beating World Champion Lando Norris to top spot.

Each season, Formula 1 asks drivers to rank their top 10 performers of the year and even though he did not win the title, Verstappen was top of the tree.

Max Verstappen beats Lando Norris to No.1 spot in Drivers’ vote

Points were awarded as they are in races, with first place scoring 25 points, and the votes are kept anonymous, with most choosing not to pick themselves.

Almost every driver chose to take part, with the only absentees being Lance Stroll, Lewis Hamilton, Yuki Tsunoda and Nico Hulkenberg.

Of the votes, Verstappen topped the list for six drivers, enabling him to win the award for the fifth time in a row despite missing out on the title.

Champion Norris came second, as he did last year, while there was another change to the standings, with George Russell taking Oscar Piastri’s P3.

The Australian had to settle for fourth after his dramatic fall off in the latter half of the season.

Despite Ferrari’s troubles, Charles Leclerc’s efforts were recognised, with him being named the fifth-placed driver, while team-mate Lewis Hamilton was absent from the top 10 for the first time since the poll started eight years ago.

Carlos Sainz’s strong second half of the year enabled him to be voted the sixth-best driver, matching the spot he finished with Ferrari last year.

Two rookies appeared on the grid in Oliver Bearman and Isack Hadjar, while Alex Albon appeared for the first time in eighth.

Fernando Alonso rose two spots to be the seventh-best driver according to his peers.

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It was not only the drivers who were asked to vote, as team principals also had their say on the best. The result had some notable differences between the driver choices, with Piastri ahead of Russell, Alonso all the way up to fifth, and Nico Hulkenberg sneaking in at 10th. Albon missed out in the team principal vote.

While he did not need a vote to prove it, Verstappen topping both lists fits with the accepted wisdom that he is the best driver on the grid currently, and it would take a remarkable drop-off in 2026 for the outcome to be different.

An end to his streak could also come by his own decision, and when speaking recently to the BBC, he suggested decisions about his future are not solely based on the sport.

“For me, it’s not only about F1,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that have to come together for me to make a change. Future roles, stuff like that.

“So if I ever would make a change, of course, it’s a big one for me because this definitely feels like a second family, and that’s not easy to replicate, let’s say, like that.

“The change, if I would ever make one, it’s not only because I need a faster F1 car or I need a difference in the environment. There’s a lot of things that are around my F1 career and things that I’m doing outside of F1 that all have to come together.”

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