Last Updated on August 6 2025, 3:57 pm
The 2025 Formula One rookies on the whole look to be the best new bunch for some time. Obviously Oscar Piastri a recent star recent star signing by McLaren and in his third season is in the heat of battle with his team mate to claim the drivers’ title.
Yet the drivers who are for the first time experiencing driving in Formula One the stakes are high and the only ‘failures’ to date in terms of scoring are Alpine’s Jack Doohan and Franco Colapinto.
Isack Hadjar had a shocking debut in Australia as he crashed his Racing Bulls out on the way to the grid. The French-Algerian driver was seen back in the pit lane in floods of tears, something Red Bull’s Dr. Marko described as “embarrassing.”
Hadjar misery in Melbourne forgotten
Yet since his inauspicious debut, Hadjar has been making steady progress in his rookie F1 season. Only Kimi Antonelli has better statistics than Hadjar after fourteen rounds of racing, but the Mercedes driver is in a far superior car.
Antonelli on average qualifies in P9.21 while Hadjar is close behind him on 9.93 but whilst the Mercedes driver has suffered three Q1 exits, Isack has yet to fail in the first session of qualifying. Kimi also has 4 DNF’s to his name, yet since the mishap in Melbourne, the Racing Bulls driver has none others to his name.
Hadjar has made it into Q3 on just one less occasion than Antonelli, who with nine appearances in the top ten shootout leads to rookie field. Now with 22 points Hadjar sits 13th in the driver standings, although a combination of bad luck and other drivers taking out the Racing Bulls driver means he’s not scored in the last five outings, his P7 finish in Spain being the last time he was in the points.
Alpine’s Franco Colpianto and Jack Doohan sit bottom of the pile, with their troubling the score sheets after fourteen rounds of racing in 2025. They are also the only freshman to have failed to make it into the final session of qualifying and their average starting positions are also the worst amongst their class with Doohan marginally better with 15.5 and Colapinto at 16.38.
Bortoleto heads team mate 8-6
Only Antonelli has more points than Hadjar amongst the 2025 F1 rookies and Racing Bulls driver is making a case to become “rookie of the year.” However, Fernando Alonso believes there is another candidate for the title in Brazilian racer, Gabriel Bortoleto, although with 7 Q1 exits, he ranks the worst in this metric amongst the 2025 first timers.
In terms of top ten shoot out appearances, Bortoleto has made it there on three occasions but his run of points in three of the last four outings suggests the Brazilian is finally coming to terms with the difficult to drive Kick Sauber car.
Bortoleto fought off ten time Grand Prix winner Valtteri Bottas for his seat at the Swiss based team this year, along with the heavily backed Chinese driver, Zhou Guanyu. Gabriel started strongly out qualifying his team mate in Australia, and the head to head count is now 8-6 in favour of the rookie.
With fourteen points to his name Bortoleto now sits 17th in the driver standings, but if his current form continues with points whenF1 returns from its summer break he coud quickly be battling with the likes of Gasly and Hadjar for P13. At the recent Hungarian Grand Prix, the Brazilian pulled out rapid lap in final qualifying which saw him start the race from a seasons best of P7 and ahead of four times champion Max Verstappen.
2026: The real “confrontation” for Hamilton
Alonso rages at British media
Fernando Alonso who manages the Sauber driver, has launched an attack on the British press for their lack of coverage of the rising Brazilian star. “He is the best rookie of this generation,” F1’s elder statesman told DAZN Espana. “If he were English or something like that and finished sixth with a Sauber, he would be on the front page of every newspaper.”
With 18.8% of the viewers vote, 0.5% more than Fernando, Bortoleto was voted driver of the day at the 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix as he is now enjoying a much improved Sauber car. He sits behind his fellow rookies Antonelli, Hadjar and Lawson, although for much of the season he has been using inferior equipment. Where rookies are battling experienced team mates, Bortoleto has the best head to head numbers despite being paired with the experienced and quick racing driver Nico Hulkenberg.
Whilst unable to find a way past Fernando Alonso last time out in Budapest, he managed to hold off the second Aston Martin in the closing stages of the race. Speaking of his battle with Alonso in the Grand Prix, Bortoleto said: “It’s difficult to beat him, he knows how to play the game and slowing down at the right time, pushing at the right time.”
“Also having Max [Verstappen] behind was not easy at the beginning of the race and keeping him behind me was super tough. Honestly [it] was a great race and I’m glad I was fighting with these guys at this moment of my career.”
Brundle: “He’s turning into a star”
Gabriel admits his learning curve has been steep. “I was a very rookie-rookie driver when I started the season but that’s of course normal and you progress a lot through your season when you start at that level and I feel like I’ve been learning so much,” he told Sky F1.
“Not only in raw speed but I think mainly an understanding of my car and what I need from it, work with the engineers and everyone. We did an amazing job [in Hungary], the team gave me an amazing car for today’s race. We managed to put everything in place. The strategy was great. I don’t see how we could finish this half of the season better.”
Alonso’s claim that Bortoleto is the “rookie of the year” are not born out with the statistics yet, this is the impressive Isack Hadjar of the Racing Bulls. Now just eight points behind the the French-Algerian, Bortoleto may yet mount a claim to be the best this year amongst his peers, with Martin Brundle noting during his broadcast in Hungary: “He’s quietly and calmly turning into a star, isn’t he, Bortoleto. It took him a while, made a lot of mistakes, but he’s driven really well lately.”
Medical update after huge Colapinto testing crash
Franco Colapinto is enduring a tough start to his F1 career at Alpine. The exciting young Argentinian debuted last season when Williams finally benched the hapless Logan Sargent with nine race weekends remaining.
Scoring points in two of his first outings for the Grove based team, Colapinto was all the talk of the F1 paddock with Red Bull even enquiring about his availability to replace the out going Sergio Perez. Yet unfortunately the Argentinian was unable to maintain his early form suffering huge crash in qualifying in Brazil which he followed up with another in the rain soaked Grand Prix.
Another big shunt in Las Vegas left the Williams team’s short of parts for the final triple header of the season meaning Franco had to drive during the Qatar Grand Prix weekend with a sub-optimal car. Even so on Sunday his race ended miserably as he was caught up in a turn one incident with Haas Nico Hulkenberg and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
