Photo: Isack Hadjar, Oliver Bearman, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Liam Lawson, Gabriel Bortoleto, Jack Doohan
The 2025 Formula 1 season has brought five new rookies to the grid. And it begs the question, who is this year’s rookie of the season? They are all talented drivers giving it their all, but some stand out more than the others, and only one can be the best.
All of them have gotten good results at some point this season, most of them having a best career finish of P6. The one exception to this is Jack Doohan, being sacked after his sixth race and replaced with Franco Colapinto, who has a lower average qualifying and race result, and has been driving in his place ever since. The switch hasn’t resulted in much benefit from the team, Franco only out-qualifying his teammate, Pierre Gasly, once, and is yet to score any points this season. But, it is rumored to have a contract extension announced this weekend.
Next, is the young Haas driver, Ollie Bearman, who is usually excluded from this conversation. He sometimes performs well in the car he has and has been steadily improving his qualifying results, making it out of Q1 nine times in the past ten races. His race results are relatively consistent with an average race finish one place behind his teammate. Bearman was also one of two rookies to have not crashed out during the opening race of the year, the Australian GP. It’s a shame for people to disregard him as a top rookie, but his series of red flag-infringements and grid penalties may have influenced their opinions. But despite his struggles, he managed to get a new highest career finish of P4 at the Mexico GP, in a flurry of chaos, proving that he is still one to look out for.
But, there are three rookies that have stood out more compared to the rest this season. Back in Melbourne, the results leaned towards Kimi Antonelli after a finish of P4 in a very chaotic race. After a rough patch of car issues and DNFs, the W16 seemed to have bounced back at the Canadian GP, resulting in Antonelli’s first podium. But the races following proved differently for him after crashing into Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc in Austria and Zandvoort, ruining both his and their races. Expectations for the young Italian were high due to being Lewis Hamilton’s replacement, but he hasn’t outscored his teammate and is often called “overhyped” due to his performance. It seems he’s improved, setting multiple fastest laps in Singapore and Austin, and blocking Verstappen from his 7th grand slam by doing so. But, he is arguably under the most stress by driving for a top team and his engine DNFs may have caused him to lose confidence in the car, leading to his mistakes later in the season. But his improvements may let him back into the top rookie conversation.
One of the main contenders for rookie of the season is the VCARB driver, Isack Hadjar. He had the toughest start to the season after crashing on the formation lap in Melbourne, but has proved he’s a strong driver over the course of the season. Hadjar reached the podium this season in Zandvoort after Lando Norris DNFed due to chassis issues, and was the only driver with zero Q1 exits until the 16th race of the season.
Jokes and rumors were made that he qualified poorly to avoid getting called up to the second Red Bull seat, something he made clear to be something he didn’t want, but it still might happen due to the unfortunate results of the driver currently in the seat, Yuki Tsunoda. More recently he crashed out of qualifying in Austin, but still managed to climb four positions, and is constantly pushing himself to do better. Despite his car issues in Singapore, he still pushed to defend against fellow rookie Fernando Alonso, showing his determination to perform well.
The last outstanding rookie is Gabriel Bortoleto, who was named the “rookie of the season so far” before the summer break. Though Bortoleto did outqualify his teammate, Nico Hulkenburg, by two places at the opening race of the season, he was also one of the drivers who crashed. His qualifying results have been slowly improving, having made it into Q3 four times this season. Having won F3 and F2 in the 2 years prior, Bortoleto is definitely one to be watched.
But only time will tell which rookie will come out on top to be the best. Similar to last year's F2 season, Bortoleto is in the lead but Hadjar is not far behind. And the others also seem to be improving, but we will have to wait and see who will be this year’s rookie of the season.
