F1 Australian Grand Prix 2025 driver ratings

The F1 season-opening Australian Grand Prix was an instant classic with gut-wrenching mistakes, changeable conditions and unpredictability at every turn.

Along with chaos and confusion, the annual trip to Melbourne had all the ingredients required for an enthralling race weekend.

There were numerous strong drives to celebrate - in fact, there were too many to discuss. But there were also a couple absolute disasters to make sense of as the paddock heads straight to Shanghai for the Chinese Grand Prix.

So, let's get into the first RacingNews365 driver ratings of the 2025 F1 season.

The top five

Lando Norris - 9.5

Lando Norris started off the campaign where he left off the previous one: in superb, near-unwavering fashion. Once the weekend got serious, the only driver who could touch him was McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri - but the Briton did not fall victim to his own error when the rain came down on the critical lap 44.

Despite spending all weekend playing off and playing down the 'title favourite' tag, the 25-year-old wore it with ease, qualifying on pole before putting together a measured and assured display in the grand prix, absorbing Max Verstappen's late pressure to prevail - and get his championship charge off and running.

This version of the McLaren driver can, and most likely will, win the F1 drivers' crown if he continues his rich vein of form.

Alex Albon - 9

There is not much more Alex Albon could have done to maximise his visit to Albert Park. A sublime sixth position in qualifying got even better in the race.

The Thai driver kept his head whilst those around him lost theirs to achieve what he failed to do in Melbourne two years ago, when he crashed whilst running in the points.

Even with Kimi Antonelli's five-second time penalty being rescinded, fifth place is still a fine reward for a fine weekend. The Williams racer is now just two points shy of his 2024 total and putting three-tenths of a second on new team-mate Carlos Sainz in qualifying was quite the statement to make, too.

Max Verstappen - 9

There is not a great deal more Verstappen could have done in Melbourne, given the somewhat underwhelming start to life the RB21 has had. But the Dutchman did show a rare chink in his armour, making a mistake under the pressure of Piastri during the grand prix.

Red Bull got lucky that keeping the four-time drivers' champion out did not ultimately lose him second place when all the late-race chaos unfolded.

Whilst the car is lacking pace, Verstappen showed he can just about live with the McLarens - or at the least minimise the hurt - to see if a championship fight can be on the cards as the season progresses.

George Russell - 8

George Russell had an utterly anonymous grand prix - in the best possible way. A strong fourth-place on the grid, capitalising on Ferrari's sudden completely lack of competitiveness, made way for a podium finish when Piastri made his costly error.

The British driver did not reach the rostrum until the Canadian Grand Prix last term, so he is off to a flyer this time around.

Whilst chaos ensued around him, Russell's calm and mature drive helped Mercedes take as much as it could from the table in Australia.

Yuki Tsunoda - 8

The Japanese driver is the victim of a reckless and ill-considered strategy call, so P12 is a brutally unrepresentative result for Yuki Tsunoda.

In Racing Bulls' defence, the Italian team was not alone in trying to outlast the weather when it arrived in the closing stages of the grand prix, even if it did undo all of the 24-year-old's impressive work.

But what a way to respond to the doubters. Overlooked by Red Bull, called out by Honda. Tsunoda was the star of qualifying and his fifth-place grid slot will have made the rest of the paddock sit up and take notice.

The bottom five

Isack Hadjar - 4.5

Jack Doohan escapes the bottom five for the simple fact he made the start of the grand prix, whereas Isack Hadjar - as we all know - did not.

It would have been the bitterest pill for the young Frenchman to swallow and it ruined what had been a strong weekend up to that point.

Much has and will be said about his formation lap blunder, and there is an element of him simply being unlucky, but a mistake is a mistake and it may well have cost him points on his F1 debut after a strong P11 in qualifying.

Oliver Bearman - 4

There is no way to sugarcoat this: Ollie Bearman had a really messy start to his weekend in Melbourne. Usually, you might overlook practice to a degree, but when a heavy and avoidable crash proves as costly as his did - both financially and in terms of track time, you have to take note.

After missing PF2, his Haas was ready to go for the final practice hour. Then he beached it in the gravel after a matter of minutes. The sum of those issues appeared to bleed into qualifying, where a gearbox issue prevented him from setting a lap time.

The one - and significant - plus point for Bearman is that whilst almost all other rookies were faltering and floundering during the grand prix, he kept it clean and on the black stuff, finishing just a few seconds down the road from team-mate Esteban Ocon.

Carlos Sainz - 4

The virtue of the aforementioned Doohan logic would dictate that Sainz avoids the un-fun end of this list, but everything is relative and a driver of the Spaniard's calibre and experience should not, under any circumstances, be binning it behind the safety car - no matter how bad the conditions or what might have provoked the error (of which the catalyst was a poor upshift, so there you go).

Pre-season testing sent anticipation sky high for the 30-year-old, but the round in Australia brought him - and those expectations - back down to earth with a thud.

Make no mistake, Sainz will be fine, and it is still perfectly plausible he out-performs and out-scores Albon across the year ahead, but his team-mate comfortably had the measure on him when it mattered at Albert Park.

Fernando Alonso - 4

Fernando Alonso had the better of Lance Stroll in the other Aston Martin all weekend. And then he went and put his in the wall.

An uncharacteristic moment for the 43-year-old, one that cost him a bag full of points whilst his team-mate survived the chaos to achieve his best result in a year.

The two-time drivers' champion also damaged his AMR25 in qualifying, something that likely prevented him from reaching Q3. Positive signs for the Silverstone team, but Alonso let himself down.

Liam Lawson - 3

Yes, he was the only driver on the grid who had yet to race at Albert Park and yes, he lost the entirety of FP3 to an air intake issue, but Liam Lawson's first weekend for Red Bull plainly was not good enough.

Christian Horner can talk about the New Zealander being on the "back foot" all he likes, but it was a poor display from the 23-year-old - and nothing can disguise that.

It cannot take Lawson as long to get up to speed at other venues he is visiting for the first time or it will be painful first half of the year. He was well off Verstappen's pace in the first two practice sessions, on both long and short runs, and his untidy qualifying performance was eerily Sergio Perez-esque.

It is unfair to mark him down for his race-ending mistake. Red Bull put him in a difficult position with its dry tyre on wet track gamble and the result was predictable enough.