F1 25 driver ratings: we’ve got some suggestions, Codemasters…

F1 25’s nearly here, and with launch day on 30 May mere weeks away now, developer Codemasters is applying the final mirror-shine to its perennially polished, officially licensed racer. Including the driver ratings.

Which means we all get to indulge in our annual game of ‘Look how wrong they are about him’, just like we do in EA FC, or indeed any other sports game with rated athletes, before instantly forgetting about those misgivings and tucking into another course of artisanal sim-cade driving.

Overall ratings in F1 25 are decided by a combination of a driver’s experience, racecraft, awareness, and pace stats. That means typically the new drivers will have lower overall ratings regardless of how nippy they are, because at the start of the season they’ve typically got as much experience behind the wheel of an F1 car as TG does behind the wheel of a bulk carrier cargo ship. (You don’t want to watch us reverse park one.)

With all that context established, behold F1 25’s driver ratings.

Remember: it’s all in good fun. These ratings don’t make the game good or bad, they’re just something for us all to argue about until we get down to racing.

Let’s start at the head of the field. The lapped cars have been allowed to pass, freeing Max Verstappen to take to the top of the standings uncontested with a 95 overall rating.

Toto Wolff himself would probably acquiesce to that one, since Verstappen Jr has won more races over the last four-and-a-bit seasons than the Earth’s rotated on its axis (citation needed). However, if we were to pick any bones here – and that’s sort of the point, so we will – it’d be about Max’s racecraft and awareness ratings, 96 and 85, respectively.

The four-time world champion currently has eight penalty points against his FIA super license, the highest points total on the grid, for various rule infractions he committed during the 2024 season. He’s had some adventurous excursions off the track and notable penalties already in 2025, too, which doesn’t immediately scream ‘best racecraft on the grid’.

“Isack Hadjar did a little bit of crying after his crash, that was a bit embarrassing," said Red Bull’s Helmut Marko, speaking about a 20-year old reaching the pinnacle of motorsport via a seat in a team notorious for sacking their drivers and then crashing out in wet conditions in his first grand prix.

And yet, somehow, Hadjar’s 68 overall rating in F1 25 seems even harsher.

There are two factors to mitigate here, though. One is that Marko’s quote was translated from German to English, and some nuance may have been lost along the way. The other is that as a rookie, Hadjar’s experience stat has a huge bearing on that suspiciously low overall number.

Plus, the ratings were probably locked in before Hadjar found his stride and managed two points finishes in his first five grands prix. He’s been absolutely driving out of his skin since that understandable Melbourne slip-up, to the extent that his stats already look way too low. But someone’s got to be the lowest-rated driver. That’s how numbers work, after all.

With sheer ice running through his veins and a car with more tricks up its sleeve than David Blaine, the prodigious Australian Piastri will probably win the driver’s championship this year. At the time of writing, he’s currently leading the standings having taken four no-fuss victories from the first six rounds.

Over in F1 25, though, he’s outclassed by as many as seven other drivers.

It’s that pesky experience stat again. This is the 24-year-old’s third full season in F1, giving him a 72 for experience which lowers his overall rating to 87. Above him in the rankings are some considerably more experienced drivers like Lewis Hamilton, who can probably remember Grange Hill, and Fernando Alonso, famed for his epic battles with John Surtees and Jim Clark when he burst onto the scene as a rookie.

Not that it’s in the young Italian’s nature to furrow a brow or stamp a petulant foot, you understand. The 18-year-old Mercedes driver looks impressively nonchalant about turning up to replace Lewis Hamilton, picking up a sprint pole and outpacing vastly more experienced opponents.

Still, 72 overall? That puts Antonelli just below Jack Doohan in the rankings, whose Formula One career already looks to have concluded, and several places below Lance Stroll, who spent the winter studying the physical properties of sand and gravel in preparation for the 2025 season.

You’re permitted several imploring hand gestures for that, Andrea.

Oof. Tense one. Both drivers have now sipped from the poisoned chalice that is Red Bull’s second seat. Both have also driven an RB this year. Both are very familiar with finishing P12.

There’s only one way to separate them: F1 25’s overall driver rating. And it’s good news for Tsunoda fans, because the frequently overlooked Japanese driver is getting a moment of recognition. He’s on an overall rating of 82, to Lawson’s 80.

Red Bull could have saved themselves a lot of time, bother, and PR heat by simply consulting these rankings before deciding who to employ in their second seat. That said, two Red Bull second driver survivors do sit above them both in the standings: Albon’s 12th, and Pierre Gasly (impossible not to hear that in Ricciardo’s voice now, isn’t it?) is P9.