There were plenty of standout drives in one of the physically toughest races of the 2025 Formula 1 season.
Here’s Edd Straw’s ranking of all 20 drivers’ performances across the weekend.
Started: 1st Finished: 1st
Russell didn’t look like a driver destined to take pole position and dominate the race during Friday practice, which came to a premature end when he crashed at Turn 16.
He initially struggled with the car being a little nervous, but after studying team-mate Antonelli’s approach he was in tune with the car on Saturday and set two laps good enough for pole position.
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After holding the lead at the start despite being on mediums against Verstappen’s softs, he never looked back. The practice crash doesn’t count against him given that it didn’t compromise the rest of his weekend in any meaningful way.
Verdict: Imperious on Saturday and Sunday.
Started: 10th Finished: 7th
Caught the eye with his Friday pace, although that was never going to be repeatable in qualifying – especially given a set-up misstep in FP3.
After a close shave in Q1, caused by the tyre-prep approach being wrong and costing him in the last sector, Alonso did an efficient job to get into Q3 and ended up 10th – with Bearman the only other driver he could potentially have outpaced.
Alonso effectively had to earn his ‘midfield win’ twice with several passes vital to doing so, aided by Stroll running longer and holding up some of his targets for several laps.
Alonso passed Hadjar in both stints, and Bearman in the second, after a 9.2s front-right change in his pitstop dropped him down to de facto P10. He almost got the ailing Hamilton at the end, but was classified ahead anyway thanks to the penalty.
Verdict: Key overtakes were his highlight.
Started: 2nd Finished: 2nd
Verstappen was certainly strong on the streets of Singapore, but there’s also the nagging feeling that had he achieved the perfection he is capable of then winning from pole position might just have been possible. That’s probably an unfairly high bar to set, especially given he did lose a shot at pole to the turbulence caused by Norris legitimately being on an in-lap in front of him in Q3.
He also didn’t put a foot wrong in the race to keep the quicker McLarens behind despite struggling with the gearshifts, although his shot at victory realistically vanished when the decision to start on softs didn’t yield enough grip to counteract the lower-grip side of the grid at the start.
Verdict: A strong weekend, but not quite Suzuka levels.
Started: 9th Finished: 9th
Bearman produced exactly what he needed on Friday and Saturday, a good run through practice culminating in a Q3 appearance. That laid the foundations for a good race, albeit only after surviving a first-corner scrape with Hadjar and losing a position to Alonso further round the lap.
He stopped a lot earlier than Alonso, dropping into traffic, but jumping ahead of the Aston Martin thanks to its slow pitstop. However, he spent a long time stuck behind the long-running Sainz and this was what allowed Alonso to catch and pass him.
Given he wasn’t that happy with the car in the race, ninth was a decent result.
Verdict: Fast and executed well.
Started: 3rd Finished: 4th
While Piastri’s qualifying performance wasn’t perfect, failing to improve on his final Q3 run, he was 0.062s quicker than Norris.
He was unfortunate at the start as having got the jump on Verstappen, he had no choice but to go to the outside for Turn 1, which is ultimately what led to Norris being able to get alongside him.
While understandably frustrated by the clout from Norris, he was always likely to lose the position and from there was in what was effectively a stalemate with his team-mate, not helped by losing three seconds to a slow pitstop.
Verdict: Nip and tuck with his team-mate.
Started: 5th Finished: 3rd
Norris’s weekend improved with each successive day. He felt all at sea on Friday, struggling particularly with the lack of feel from the front end with this year’s stiffer front Pirelli construction making a marked difference to last year in Singapore.
Saturday went a little better even though he “just didn’t put it all together”, ending up two places and 0.062s behind team-mate Piastri. Other than the Turn 3 flashpoint, when he clipped the back of Verstappen then swiped Piastri as a consequence, the race was largely uneventful as he fruitlessly chased the Red Bull driver for second place.
Given the McLaren was not the strongest in qualifying trim, but the quickest on race pace, the place gains at the start have to be seen as a positive despite living dangerously.
Verdict: Needed to pass Verstappen for higher ranking.
Started: 18th Finished: 10th
Sainz was particularly frustrated with the lack of rear grip in qualifying, which baffled him but given the same problem afflicted both cars it was clear this was more a Williams problem than a driver one.
He was slower than Albon by just 0.033s, and it proved moot given both cars were later excluded.
Unlike his team-mate, he started from the grid and ran an unpromising 18th early on but opted to run longer than anyone before stopping. He used the grip advantage of fresh softs well, passing Stroll, Bortoleto, Colapinto, Tsunoda and Hadjar in the closing laps to bag a point.
Verdict: Salvaged an unexpected point.
Started: 6th Finished: 8th
Hamilton made a better fist of getting the most out of the Ferrari than team-mate Leclerc, outqualifying him by a tenth.
He dropped behind Leclerc after making the inevitable slow start from the lower-grip side of the track and followed Antonelli around in the first stint. He was still sixth after the pitstops, but once the gap was big enough took a second stop for softs, which allowed him to catch and pass Leclerc and pressure Antonelli before brake problems hit hard in the final couple of laps.
Hamilton did a great job to complete the final two laps, doing so safely albeit with multiple necessary track cuts, and held off Alonso, but inevitably dropped behind him in the final results when he was penalised.
Verdict: Slightly more convincing than his team-mate.
Started: 8th Finished: 11th
On his first time on track in Singapore, Hadjar was rapid from the start of the weekend. He believed a top-five qualifying performance was on and was delighted with the first part of his final lap before what he described as a double lock-up at Turn 8 caused him to abort the lap.
Even so, he started eighth at the head of the midfield and held the position at the start despite a high-risk middle-lane strategy that led to him being squeezed and contact with Bearman before being passed by Alonso.
He held ninth, but then a power unit problem kicked in that cost what the team concluded was half a second per lap. He battled on to 11th, which was an impressive result, and would certainly have scored without the problem.
Verdict: Q3 error the only negative of a strong weekend.
Started: 4th Finished: 5th
Antonelli’s performance level overall was more impressive than the results in a car that won from pole position in the hands of Russell suggest.
He was more comfortable on Friday than Russell but he couldn’t turn his pace into a front-row slot that was there for the taking but for driving “a bit tense” given he knew the result was on the cards.
Fifth turned to sixth at the start with what he described as the mistake of trying to follow Norris through, allowing Leclerc to get around him. However, he later corrected that by passing Leclerc, earning praise for how good he was on the brakes from team principal Toto Wolff, then held off Hamilton’s brief attack before the Ferrari driver had to back off.
While he could potentially have been on the podium had Q3 gone better, Mercedes nonetheless regarded this as his most complete weekend yet. However, the rough edges in terms of execution means he can only be ranked mid-pack.
Verdict: Better than the results relative to Russell suggest.
Started: 16th Finished: 16th
While he was on a hiding to nothing given the limitations of the Alpine in Singapore, Colapinto continued to build the case for being kept on in 2026 by having a stronger weekend than Gasly. That was based on him seeming a little more confident in the car than his team-mate.
A superb start and run through the first corner got him up to 14th, which became 13th when he passed Stroll. That was always as good as it was going to get, and an early stop to switch to mediums made for a challenging final stint, which got a little untidy at times, particularly when battling with Tsunoda and Hulkenberg, but he was always fighting a losing battle there.
Verdict: Did what he could.
Started: 20th (pits) Finished: 14th
Friday didn’t go well, with a rear brake fire ruining FP1 then a tricky FP2. He felt he was on the back foot heading into qualifying as a result, struggling badly for rear grip in Q2 and never looking like making it through. Although he outpaced his team-mate, it was only by 0.033s as both struggled with the same problem.
The team opted to make suspension set-up changes, so he started from the pits, which meant he was always destined for a long afternoon in traffic. The first part of the race was frustrating as expected, but in the circumstances he made recent progress and showed decent enough pace when he had the chance to, which was rare, and could have finished a place higher but for backing off to contain Lawson for a couple of laps to help Sainz.
Verdict: Performed well despite car troubles.
Started: 7th Finished: 6th
Leclerc was, by his own admission, not at his best in Singapore, a track where he usually goes well and it was hoped Ferrari’s good mechanical platform might allow him to thrive.
With Ferrari once again the fourth-best of the big teams, Leclerc struggled with understeer so opted for a ‘Hail Mary’ set-up choice to load up the front wing for qualifying and deal with the resulting rear instability. That proved even beyond Leclerc’s ability to master – compounded by finding the car easier on scrubbed tyres than a fresh set in Q3.
After qualifying a tenth behind Hamilton, he got a better launch from the grippier side of the grid to get ahead of Hamilton, also jumping Antonelli through the first sequence. While he dropped to seventh in the second stint thanks to Antonelli passing him and letting Hamilton, on quicker tyres, through, he took sixth back again when his team-mate hit brake trouble.
Verdict: Decent enough but not at his best.
Started: 17th Finished: 18th
Ocon looked assured on the streets of Singapore, but his weekend started to go wrong in Q1. On his first run, a problem with the belts meant his braking was compromised, then he hit the yellow flag on his second. That cost him a shot at Q2, although even before that it was looking a bit more marginal than it perhaps should have done.
Like many drivers, he had decent race pace but couldn’t use it with the lap-28 pitstop dropping him into traffic and leaving him frustrated. While he probably didn’t make the best of that situation, it was the strategy that hurt him most.
Verdict: Q1 and strategy meant he didn’t show his true speed.
Started: 14th Finished: 17th
At first, it seemed like Singapore would follow a similar pattern to Baku, Bortoleto visiting the escape roads on Friday as he familiarised himself with the track and then putting everything together well in qualifying. However, the lack of genuine push laps in practice made life difficult and, combined with losing around a tenth to the yellow flag for Gasly when on a lap that might have put him into Q2, he ended up on the seventh row.
He was unfortunate to sustain front wing damage in a scrape with Stroll at Turn 1, then ran 15th in the first stint – his early stop on lap 13 motivated more by the desire to undercut than for the front wing change. It dropped him into traffic and, later, tyre troubles.
Verdict: Q1 yellow flag led to frustrating race.
Started: 19th (pits) Finished: 19th
Friday didn’t go too badly, all things considered, although a set-up change for Saturday’s practice session didn’t work as expected. He then had what he called a “messy” qualifying, being forced to abort his first run, not finding a great lap on his second then suffering an oil protection cut on his final attempt and stopping on track.
In search of answers, the team fitted a different-specification floor for what proved to be a long and hard (he called it “boring”) race to 19th place, ahead only of Hulkenberg.
Verdict: A weekend that went nowhere.
Started: 15th Finished: 13th
After a promising practice, Stroll again couldn’t match Alonso in qualifying – with both having the same grip problem with the tyres in Q1 in the final sector, but the two-tenth gap making the difference between advancing and elimination.
Stroll ran 14th early on and went long after starting on softs, hoping for the assistance of a safety car or red flag and in the final laps of his stint backing up the cars behind him to help Alonso’s recovery.
After switching to mediums, he found the combination of traffic and tyre overheating frustrating on his way to 13th.
Verdict: Lacked confidence in the car in quali again.
Started: 11th Finished: 20th
Hulkenberg had a good, clean run through practice and qualifying and he was rewarded with 11th on the grid, just missing out on a place in Q3 in a tight battle with Bearman.
He held position in the first stint and had the pace to have been a points threat, but pitting on lap 25 turned his race into a traffic nightmare. Hulkenberg struggled from then on, having a needless clash with Colapinto when he left his nose in around the outside and also spinning when he was caught out by the Alpine driver braking early. Until that second stint, it had been a decent weekend.
Verdict: Late-race errors count against him.
Started: 12th Finished: 15th
Lawson wasn’t able to show the pace of team-mate Hadjar, but that was partly down to his crashes in FP2 and FP3. While one can be excused, making a similar mistake twice proved costly and ruined his preparation for qualifying and the race. As Lawson said, “not good enough from me”.
In that context, his qualifying performance was respectable given there were doubts about whether he’d even escape Q1.
After producing a good first stint running long on mediums, stopping two laps before Sainz, who was following him in the first stint, on a similar strategy proved hugely costly, partly because it brought him out behind Albon – who was told to back him up by 1.5s.
That meant any chance of salvaging a point vanished and resulted in him finishing five places behind Sainz – although Albon slowing him made no difference as Ocon and Gasly were also ultimately in the way.
Verdict: Practice shunts torpedo rating.
Started: 13th Finished: 12th
Tsunoda said he was confident behind the wheel, but as team principal Laurent Mekies explained “he was at the right level on Friday, [but] Saturday was poor”. That was down to a lack of grip that puzzled Tsunoda, meaning he leaked eight tenths to Verstappen on his best Q2 lap.
Starting as high as 13th thanks to the exclusion of the Williams cars, his race went wrong at the start as he got a reasonable launch but then got squeezed out thanks to finding himself in the ‘middle lane’ and dropping to 17th. While there were glimpses of decent race pace, he was always in traffic and was unable to pass Hadjar, who had an engine problem, late on.
While he had the old-specification front wing, the rest of his car was the same as Verstappen’s but he couldn’t get close to using it as well.
Verdict: Well short of the level he needs to be at.
