Oscar Piastri the biggest winner in Formula 1’s midseason break with a massively increased score, Carlos Sainz the biggest loser after having points decimated year on year, analysis, championship position

The 2025 season was tipped to be the closest Formula 1 campaign in recent memory, with four teams in regular victory contention and the championship battle wide open.

McLaren’s excellence has put paid to that notion.

But behind the orange team’s domination, you might be surprised to learn that the spoils are in fact more hotly contested than ever.

McLaren is leaving the field for dust, but everyone in the team’s wake is competing for the same leftovers.

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In this mid-season analysis we’ll look at how each driver is faring at the mid-season break compared to this time last year. The data reveals how the form guide has changed — which drivers have kicked on and which have slumped backwards.

Only 16 drivers of the drivers who were competing full-time halfway through last year have continued this season.

The drivers are ranked by how many more or fewer points they’ve scored after 14 rounds relative to the same point in 2024.

Intriguingly there are more winners than losers in this analysis — more drivers ahead of where they were this time last year than there are lagging on points.

It demonstrates how the competition really is closer, with more drivers scoring more points more often — with the exception of a select few.

PIT TALK PODCAST: Michael and Matt are joined by F1 TV lead commentator Alex Jacques to rank the top 10 drivers of the Formula 1 season so far — and why their list doesn’t look much like the championship table. Listen to Pit Talk below.

The eight winners of 2025 so far…

1. OSCAR PIASTRI

Championship: 1st, 284 points (this time last year: 4th, 167 points)

Gain: 3 places, 117 points (70.1 per cent increase)

This is the best season of Oscar Piastri’s career, and so far the rewards have been substantial: four poles, six wins and a nine-point title lead. Not bad for a driver who won his first grand prix barely 12 months ago.

Asked in Budapest where he’s gained most since 2024, the Australian said lifting his performance floor had made the most significant difference to his standing.

“Last year I felt like I had some weekends that were very strong and felt like I had enough to win races on my good days, but there were a lot of average and sometimes bad days in between,” he said.

“I have improved as a driver, but I think I’ve been able to get closer to what I think I’m capable of more often. That’s been the biggest thing.”

2. LANDO NORRIS

Championship: 2nd, 275 points (this time last year: 2nd, 199 points)

Gain: 0 places, 76 points (38.2 per cent increase)

Similar to Piastri, Lando Norris’s win tally has exploded since this time last year, when he was still searching for his follow-up victory following his Miami maiden.

The Briton went on to form an improbably and ultimately doomed drivers championship challenge later in 2024, and he’s continued his good momentum from there — it’s just that his teammate has carried more into this season to end up ahead not only in the title standings but on every meaningful performance metric, even if only slightly.

Still, at just nine points off the title lead, Norris’s best season yet could deliver him the ultimate prize.

3. GEORGE RUSSELL

Championship: 4th, 172 points (this time last year: 8th, 56 points)

Gain: 4 places, 56 points (48.3 per cent increase)

There are two factors to Russell’s big leap forwards. The first is that the Mercedes car rolled out of the garage in Melbourne in a far more competitive shape than it has for years, powering him to four podiums from the first six rounds. He’s yet to go more than three races without a trophy. The second the Englishman has solidified the personal gains he began making last year as he assumed the role of team leader.

But the gap is exaggerated by his retirement from a potentially winning position in Silverstone and his disqualified after victory in Belgium — a 50-point loss that would cover almost all the difference.

4. ALEX ALBON

Championship: 8th, 54 points (this time last year: 18th, 4 points)

Gain: 10 places, 50 points (1250.0 per cent increase)

By percentage Alex Albon has gained by far the most since last year, increasing his score more than twelvefold.

Of course Williams plays a significant part in this story, delivering a much more competitive car — certainly more competitive than expected — that’s led the midfield for most of the year to date.

But Albon has also stepped up with the arrival of Carlos Sainz in the second car, ensuring not only his status as team leader but burnishing his reputation too as a lost frontrunner deserving of race-winning machinery.

5. ESTEBAN OCON

Championship: 10th, 27 points (this time last year: 16th, 5 points)

Gain: 6 places, 22 points (440.0 per cent increase)

Esteban Ocon perhaps wouldn’t have expected to end up so far ahead this year after his hasty split from French manufacturer Alpine and landing at Haas after a total clean-out of its driver line-up.

It’s a reminder of just how much Alpine struggled early last year — it scored just 11 of its 65 points before the mid-season break — that he finds himself in this position.

But Ocon has also made the most of an inconsistent Haas car to rack up points. He’s scored at six weekends, only once going more than a race between points, to establish himself as team leader.

6. NICO HÜLKENBERG

Championship: 9th, 37 points (this time last year: 11th, 22 points)

Gain: 2 places, 15 points (68.2 per cent increase)

Nico Hülkenberg likewise couldn’t have expected a move to the last-placed team in the championship, which scored points just once last year, would pay off so handsomely, but his long-awaited maiden podium in Silverstone has served to considerably boost his points haul and kick off a late-career renaissance.

He’s been the man Sauber needed this year, and the team’s Spain upgrade has given him the machinery to make the future Audi squad look credible again.

7. PIERRE GASLY

Championship: 15h, 20 points (this time last year: 15th, 6 points)

Gain: 0 places, 14 points (233.3 per cent increase)

This comparison is inflated a little by the fact Alpine backloaded so many of its points last year, but it’s of immense credit to Pierre Gasly that he’s managed to squeeze 20 points out of a recalcitrant Alpine that’s stepped backwards down the grid since its late surge last season.

While not immune from his anonymous days, the Frenchman has made an impressive seven Q3 appearances in a car that’s been around a second off the pace on average this season, and he’s converted to deliver points the car doesn’t deserve.

8. LANCE STROLL

Championship: 12th, 26 points (this time last year: 10th, 24 points)

Gain: 2 points (8.3 per cent increase) Loss: 2 places

Lance Stroll is right on the bubble, gaining points but losing places in the championship thanks to how much more competitive the midfield has become this year.

His points gain is thanks largely to his well-judged sixth in the wet in Melbourne at the first weekend of the season, earning him eight points in a highly attritional race. Without them he’d be languishing in 15th and on the losers list below.

…and the six losers searching for answers.

1. CARLOS SAINZ

Championship: 16th, 16 points (this time last year: 5th, 162 points)

Loss: 11 places, 146 points (90.1 per cent decrease)

It’s the drop that could’ve been predicted 12 months ago, when Carlos Sainz confirmed he would join backmarker Williams after being ousted from his plum Ferrari drive to make room for Lewis Hamilton.

Williams was ninth with just four points to its name at the time of the announcement, while Ferrari was building moment for a late championship challenge.

But with Williams improving considerably this year — see Albon above — Sainz owns some of this gap through a long transition into the midfield, though bad luck and unreliability have also played meaningful roles.

Though even a perfect season wouldn’t have prevented him from slipping on the losers list.

2. MAX VERSTAPPEN

Championship: 3rd, 277 points (this time last year: 1st, 187 points)

Loss: 2 places, 90 points (32.5 per cent decrease)

With only two wins for the season, it’s surprising Verstappen hasn’t lost more points relative to last season, which he started in dominant fashion before Red Bull Racing lost the thread and limped to the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi.

It’s testament to just how solid Verstappen has been this year in machinery that was never going to allow him to defend his fourth championship. His four wins were spectacular, and his wins in Japan and Imola were perfectly judged.

But not even the Dutchman’s typically outstanding driving is enough to prevent Red Bull Racing dragging him onto the list of losers.

3. LEWIS HAMILTON

Championship: 6th, 109 points (this time last year: 6th, 150 points)

Loss: 0 places, 41 points (27.3 per cent decrease)

You’d never have guessed, after Ferrari challenged for the constructors title last year, that Lewis Hamilton would ends the first par to the season exactly where he’d ended up this time last year: sixth.

But it’s a worst sixth. A less competitive sixth.

By this time last year he’d already won two races. This year he’s yet to even stand on a podium, sprint races excepted.

Some percentage of this decline is down to Ferrari — he’s only one place behind his teammate on the title table — but his 42-gap to Charles Leclerc more than makes up for his own year-on-year points difference.

4. CHARLES LECLERC

Championship: 5th, 151 points (this time last year: 3rd, 177 points)

Loss: 2 places, 26 points (14.7 per cent decrease)

If we were to be generous for a moment, let’s say Charles Leclerc’s year-on-year points difference is negligible — down to his disqualification in China and haphazard wet performance in Great Britain. In other words, let’s say he’s done roughly as well as he’d done this time last year.

That he’s still lost two places on the title table demonstrates how big a step backwards Ferrari has taken this year, with Red Bull Racing’s Verstappen and Mercedes’s Russell both ahead of him this year — despite Verstappen himself having a worse season.

It underlines that Leclerc is ready for more competitive machinery than Ferrari has been able to give him.

5. FERNANDO ALONSO

Championship: 11th, 26 points (this time last year: 9th, 49 points)

Loss: 2 places, 23 points (46.9 per cent decrease)

There are two factors at play in Fernando Alonso’s slide. One is clearly that Aston Martin has taken yet another step backwards this year, even if a recent upgrade package has revitalised the team.

But misfortune has also played at least a small role. His brake fire in China meant he couldn’t capitalise on three disqualifications. In Imola he qualified an excellent fifth but lost out twice to badly timed safety cars. In Monaco he started sixth but retired with a power unit problem.

Combined with a mistake in Australia, where he retired in the gravel, he could easily have added himself to the winners list if only the chips had been in his favour early.

6. YUKI TSUNODA

Championship: 18th, 10 points (this time last year: 12th, 22 points)

Loss: 6 places, 12 points (54.5 per cent decrease)

That Yuki Tsunoda has fewer points and is lower on the title table despite driving what is nominally a better car this year tells you plenty about the Japanese driver’s struggles this year — and about the state of Red Bull Racing’s Formula 1 program.

And Tsunoda scored three of his paltry 10 points while still at Racing Bulls in the first two rounds of the year.

Tsunoda’s best results are too recent in the memory to claim that he’s lost it, and Milton Keynes’s history of destroying careers through its second car is now too long to pin the blame solely on the drivers.

As an interesting aside, Isack Hadjar has exactly the same 22 points that Tsunoda had this time last year at the Red Bull junior squad.