Oscar Piastri narrowly pips Max Verstappen in key F1 metric

Oscar Piastri narrowly shades Max Verstappen for the best average qualifying results across the first five rounds of the 2025 F1 season. 

Including the Sprint race in China in our calculations, Piastri has an average qualifying position of 2.0 thus far, including pole positions in China and Bahrain, and front-row starts in Australia and Saudi Arabia. Only in the China Sprint and Japan was he off the front-row. 

He is exactly one ahead of Verstappen, who has an average of 3.0 from the six sessions.

Verstappen is one of two drivers also yet to be out-qualified by a team-mate, with neither Liam Lawson nor Yuki Tsunoda getting ahead thus far. Only George Russell at Mercedes has a spotless record, although Kimi Antonelli is not too far away.

Below, you can check out the average qualifying positions and head-to-heads, and scroll down further for the average qualifying differences between each set of the 12 team-mate pairings in 2025.

NOTE: Ollie Bearman's qualifying average is calculated over four grands prix and the China Sprint, not counting the Australian GP where he suffered mechanical failure in qualifying before setting a lap.

Article continues below table. 

Average qualifying differences

Looking at the qualifying time deltas, for those team-mates who have completed all five events plus the Sprint together, it is Pierre Gasly who holds the biggest pace advantage over his team-mate. 

Jack Doohan has on average been 0.603s slower than Gasly, only qualifying ahead in the China Sprint. 

Elsewhere, Max Verstappen held a 1.431s advantage over Liam Lawson during their two races and one Sprint together.

Meanwhile, the closest pairing is Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz, who are just 0.003s apart on average. Given Sainz's qualifying struggles this season, that might seem surprising, but in Bahrain, he was 1.360s faster than Albon on their fastest laps, meaning he clawed back some of the deficit built up. 

NOTE: Average difference calculated by taking the outright fastest lap by each driver in qualifying, adding up the differences and then dividing by six - for the six qualifying sessions thus far.