Verstappen and Alonso Achieve Rare Qualifying Perfection in 2025

Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso achieved a remarkable feat in the 2025 Formula 1 season, each completing a perfect qualifying whitewash against their teammates across every Grand Prix weekend. This level of dominance is exceptionally rare, with Verstappen achieving it for the first time in his career and Alonso remarkably doing so for the third time in his long tenure.

Why it matters:

Qualifying performance is a critical and transparent measure of a driver's raw speed and consistency. A perfect whitewash against a teammate is one of the ultimate demonstrations of dominance within a team, highlighting not just superior pace but also an unmatched ability to extract performance under pressure every single weekend. For Verstappen and Alonso, it underscores their status as generational talents who continue to set the benchmark for their peers.

The details:

• Verstappen's Dominance: The reigning world champion was never out-qualified in a Grand Prix session by either Liam Lawson (2-0) or Yuki Tsunoda (22-0) after Tsunoda replaced Lawson mid-season. His last qualifying defeat was 31 races ago, at the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix by Sergio Perez.
• Alonso's Historic Repeat: The Aston Martin driver whitewashed teammate Lance Stroll 24-0, marking the third time he has achieved this in his career. He previously did so against Nelson Piquet Jr. in 2008 and Stoffel Vandoorne in 2018. Stroll last out-qualified him 36 races ago at the 2024 British GP.
• Key Team Battles: The data reveals other compelling intra-team stories:
  • McLaren (Piastri vs. Norris): In the closest fight at the front, Lando Norris held a narrow 13-11 edge over Oscar Piastri with an average time difference of just 0.073s in Piastri's favor.
  • Ferrari (Leclerc vs. Hamilton): Charles Leclerc dominated the qualifying duel against new teammate Lewis Hamilton 19-5, with an average advantage of over a quarter of a second (+0.274s).
  • Mercedes (Russell vs. Antonelli): George Russell comfortably outperformed rookie Kimi Antonelli 21-3.
• Sprint Qualifying Imperfection: The perfect records were broken only in Sprint qualifying. Lance Stroll out-qualified Alonso in China, and Yuki Tsunoda beat Verstappen by a mere 0.009 seconds in Qatar.

The big picture:

While car performance heavily influences grid positions, the head-to-head data within teams provides the clearest picture of driver performance. Verstappen and Alonso's perfection places them in a unique historical category. For other teams, the gaps tell their own stories—from the incredibly tight battle at McLaren to the significant challenge faced by a rookie like Antonelli against an established star like Russell. This data serves as a foundational metric for team evaluations and driver market decisions heading into the future.