The winners and losers from the F1 2025 season — so far

It’s officially summer break, which means the F1 2025 season is just over halfway done — giving us a great opportunity to take stock of where things stand.

Without further ado, these are PlanetF1.com’s winners and losers from the F1 2025 season — so far.

Winners and losers from the F1 2025 season — so far

Winner: McLaren

The team that teetered on the edge of bankruptcy just five years ago has emerged as 2025’s ultra-dominant championship competitor despite effectively being a Mercedes power unit customer team — and that makes McLaren a standout winner.

McLaren has won 11 of the 14 rounds contested so far in 2025, with its drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri almost perfectly splitting those wins — five for Norris, six for Piastri. The team has refrained from instituting team orders, instead requesting its drivers race with respect. Aside from one incident at the Canadian Grand Prix, that plan has worked well.

The team’s major turnaround is down to a multitude of factors: McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown’s keen business sense, team principal Andrea Stella’s level-headed yet positive mindset, investment from the Kingdom of Bahrain, and major sponsorship deals with the likes of Google, Mastercard, Cisco, Dell, Monster, Jack Daniel’s, LEGO, Hilton, Salesforce, CNBC, eBay, and so much more.

While the team’s reign at the top of the timing sheets isn’t guaranteed as we race towards the 2026 regulatory era, the team has been impressive in its consistency and its ability to maximise the performance it has.

McLaren’s World Constructors’ Championship seems an inevitability at this point. Now the major question is, who wins the drivers’ title: Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri?

Loser: Lewis Hamilton

To say that Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari has been fraught would be the understatement of the season.

Part of the struggle can likely be traced back to Ferrari’s SF-25; after excessive skid plank wear resulted in disqualification from the Chinese Grand Prix, the Scuderia lifted the car’s ride height and in turn made it challenging to handle and unbalanced in the corners.

But a large part of the struggle also comes down to Hamilton: The seven-time World Champion has not performed to the same level as team-mate Charles Leclerc, and his increasingly dejected public statements make it clear that there may be a bit of regret accompanying one of the biggest and most hyped moves in F1 history.

The results aren’t abysmal; he’s finished in the points in every single Grand Prix that he was classified in, with the exception of Hungary. But there were great expectations placed on this union, and they’re not coming to fruition.

This isn’t to say that Hamilton can’t improve, or that having greater input into the team’s F1 2026 machine will still leave him struggling as we enter a new regulatory era. But the Briton isn’t doing himself — or his legacy — any favours.

Winner: George Russell

The Mercedes team had a rough patch when a suspension upgrade proved to be a step backwards in terms of performance, but George Russell has nevertheless remained one of F1 2025’s major winners.

At the start of the year, Russell’s performance was quiet and consistent enough for many pundits to label him a “dark horse” — maybe not a title contender, but certainly one of the few threats to McLaren’s chokehold over the top step of the podium.

That prophecy fulfilled itself in Canada, when Russell took his first — and so far only — victory of the season. But with six additional podiums and 172 points to his name, he’s a very strong contender for Max Verstappen’s No. 3 slot in the championship right now. All he needs is 15 points, and he’ll have it.

More F1 2025 analysis:

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Loser: Red Bull Racing

The first signs of Red Bull’s downturn appeared in 2024, when McLaren was able to out-upgrade the reigning champions and snag the Constructors’ Championship, and those problems have only continued into a tumultuous F1 2025 season.

The RB21 has been extremely difficult for its drivers to handle, but on-track aside, the Red Bull Racing organisation has been in flux.

Long-time team principal Christian Horner’s mid-season sacking capped off an ongoing change in personnel that has seen the likes of Adrian Newey, Jonathan Wheatley, Will Courtenay, and Rob Marshall all turn in their resignations. Add onto that the demotion of Liam Lawson and the promotion of Yuki Tsunoda after just two races, and it’s clear that stability has been hard to find.

It could be worse; Max Verstappen does, at the very least, have two wins on the season and remains third — albeit distantly — in the World Drivers’ Championship standings. But Red Bull is a team this year that hasn’t found its footing.

Winner: Sauber

Sauber completely transformed the scope of its F1 2025 season with a floor upgrade in Barcelona. Instantly, Nico Hulkenberg was able to utilise his wealth of Formula 1 experience to drag the car into the points, culminating in a record-shattering podium finish at Silverstone.

It took rookie Gabriel Bortoleto until Austria to finally break his points-less streak, but in the events he’s finished since, he’s done so well within the top 10 — even outperforming Hulkenberg at times.

It’s a strong revival of fortune, and it means Sauber is currently sitting seventh in the World Championship standings, with 51 points, just one point behind sixth-placed Aston Martin.

In 2024, it took until the Las Vegas Grand Prix for Sauber to score any points, and even then, it wasn’t enough to lift the team from the very bottom of the standings. Fifty-one points would have been frankly unthinkable at this point a year ago.

Its transformation this year will give the team ample motivation — and far more prize money — when it transforms into Audi ahead of 2026.

Loser: Jack Doohan

Jack Doohan? It feels like we haven’t heard that name in years!

The Australian driver failed to impress during the first six races of the F1 2025 campaign, and after the Miami Grand Prix, it was confirmed that he would be demoted in favour of Argentinian Franco Colapinto.

While Colapinto impressed during his debut races with Williams in 2024, his race results have not lived up to the hype that had accumulated around him, and he hasn’t had any more luck in scoring points than Doohan did. While it’s true that he could still lose his seat before the end of the year, PlanetF1.com understands Alpine is committed to keeping Colapinto around.

Even worse for Jack Doohan? His manager, Flavio Briatore, became the de facto team principal at Alpine after the Miami Grand Prix — which means that his own manager lost faith in him the moment he assumed a position of greater power.

Winner: Formula 1

Formula 1 has gone from one win to the next this season, on countless fronts. From the full-field launch at London’s O2 Arena to major commercial deals with brands like Disney and PepsiCo to increases in viewership from demographics that once seemed inaccessible, the sport is riding high amid a wave of international popularity unlike anything it’s witnessed before.

Further, there’s a compelling championship battle taking place between two team-mates competing for a legacy team; there’s a new American team on the horizon whose much anticipated driver line-up is sure to be announced soon; the sport is still yet to jet off to major events in Italy, the Americas, and the Middle East; and we’re broaching a new regulatory set that’s bringing with it an influx of major automaker power.

Whatever else happens in 2025, Formula 1 itself is a major winner.

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