Sky Sports Pundits Rank 2025's Top F1 Drivers, Snubbing Verstappen and Norris for Top Spot

In a comprehensive season review, Sky Sports F1 pundits largely crowned Max Verstappen as the best driver of the 2025 campaign, with a single dissenting voice elevating Oscar Piastri. The rankings notably omitted newly crowned world champion Lando Norris from the top spot and excluded Lewis Hamilton from the top ten entirely.

Why it matters:

Expert driver rankings provide a crucial performance analysis beyond the championship standings, highlighting consistency, racecraft, and maximizing car potential. When a reigning world champion like Norris is not unanimously seen as the season's top performer, and a seven-time champion like Hamilton falls outside the top ten, it signals a significant shift in the perceived competitive hierarchy and driver form.

The details:

Four Sky Sports analysts—Ted Kravitz, Karun Chandhok, Simon Lazenby, and Bernie Collins—compiled their top-ten lists for the 2025 season.

• Consensus on Verstappen: Kravitz, Chandhok, and Lazenby all selected Verstappen as number one, citing his eight Grand Prix wins and a title fight that came down to just two points despite a mid-season performance surge.
• The Dissenting Vote: Strategy analyst Bernie Collins broke ranks, placing McLaren's Oscar Piastri at the top of her list. Piastri finished third in the championship after leading the standings for a large portion of the season.
• Norris's Placement: The new world champion, Lando Norris, was ranked second by Kravitz and Collins, but third by Chandhok and Lazenby, who placed George Russell ahead of him.
• Unanimous Quartet: All four pundits included Verstappen, Norris, Piastri, and Russell in their top four, albeit in different orders.
• Hamilton's Absence: A striking omission was Lewis Hamilton, who did not feature in any of the four analysts' top-ten rankings, underscoring a challenging season for the Mercedes driver.
• Best of the Rest: Charles Leclerc completed the top five for three pundits, while Lazenby placed new Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar in that position. Other drivers receiving votes included Carlos Sainz, Kimi Antonelli, and Oliver Bearman.

Between the lines:

The rankings reveal a narrative that the championship table alone does not tell. Piastri's elevation by Collins suggests his season-long consistency and time leading the championship made a profound impression, potentially viewed as maximizing his package more effectively than his teammate Norris at times. Verstappen's top billing from most pundits, despite losing the title, reinforces the view that his second-half comeback and raw performance were exceptional. Hamilton's complete exclusion from the top ten is a stark indicator that, in the eyes of these experts, his season was defined by being outperformed by rivals in similarly competitive machinery, marking a notable moment in his career.