Formula 1 has maintained a pretty stagnant pool of drivers over the last decade with teams signing long-term contracts and older drivers sticking around well past their prime. A whole generation of up-and-comers have moved on to pursue careers in sports cars, Formula E, and IndyCar because they never had a chance to prove themselves while Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez get third, fourth, and fifth chances to prove they can get better. For 2025 most of the teams have thankfully come to their senses and realized they need to change some things up in order to make any forward progress in the standings. This has been one of the longest and most active silly seasons in the modern history of the sport, and the rookies are finally getting a chance to show their ability with six new full-time drivers joining the grid. Gabriel Bortoleto, Liam Lawson, Isack Hadjar, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Oliver Bearman, and Jack Doohan, welcome to the grid. This is the most drivers with a rookie classification since the 2010 season when Bruno Senna, Lucas Di Grassi, Nico Hülkenberg, Karun Chandhok, Kamui Kobayashi, and Vitaly Petrov ran for the first time.
Your all-new 2025 opening titles 🤩#F1 #AusGP pic.twitter.com/gx9hFcEbsH
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 13, 2025
There are still at least half a dozen drivers on the F1 grid who do not deserve their seat. Both the 2010 rookie list and the list of drivers who should have been pushed out by now include Nico Hülkenberg, who has had 14 seasons in F1—a full 230 Grand Prix entries—and hasn’t so much as found the podium. There are a multitude of talented young drivers who could prove their mettle in one of these seats, but teams seem to value a driver who will get the car to the end of the grand prix in 12th over someone who might take more risks fighting for points. Are we here to race or run in a processional parade for 8 months out of the year?
Who are they?
Here’s what you need to know about each rookie driver heading into the 2025 season.
Liam Lawson is barely a rookie at this point, as he stood in for Daniel Ricciardo for five races in 2023 while the Aussie had a broken hand, and served as the mid-season replacement for Ricciardo at Racing Bulls in 2024. He’s got 11 F1 starts under his belt, and has scored six points. Beyond that he damn near won the 2023 Japanese Super Formula championship. There’s definitely something in this kid, but we’ll see if he has the stuff to be Max Verstappen’s second in the Red Bull team. I have my reservations.
Oliver Bearman has also started a handful of Grands Prix, subbing for Carlos Sainz at Ferrari when the Spanish driver had his appendix removed. He impressed in the Ferrari seat, and got a couple extra starts with Haas, standing in for Kevin Magnussen who received a race ban for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, and again when Magnussen was ill for Sao Paulo. He has now replaced Magnussen full time at Haas for 2025, teamed with Esteban Ocon.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli is perhaps the most questionable of the rookies on the 2025 F1 roster, as he joins Mercedes to replace seven-time champion Sir Lewis Hamilton. Antonelli won a few regional championships across 2022 and 2023, and finished 6th in Formula 2 for Prema last season. I’m not sure he’s ready to be pushed into an F1 seat, but the team seem confident he can fight for regular points. Maybe he’ll be a phenom, and come into his own. Time will tell for the 18-year-old.
Isack Hadjar has been a Red Bull Junior driver since 2022 and will partner Yuki Tsunoda at Racing Bulls for the 2025 season. He hasn’t won any championships, but finished second in Formula 2 for Campos Racing in 2024, beating the heck out of Antonelli. This seems like a much more logical next move for Hadjar, and I hope he has what it takes to stick around.
The other two
Gabriel Bortoleto was named FIA Rookie of the Year in 2024 after back-to-back F3 and F2 championships with Trident and Invicta Racing respectively. Bortoleto was being groomed for an F1 role by McLaren as one of the team’s young drivers, and had signed with Fernando Alonso’s management company. At the end of 2024 he left the McLaren program to sign a deal with Sauber on a multi-year contract to become a factory Audi squad driver.
Our final rookie of the year is Jack Doohan who started a single Grand Prix for Alpine in 2024. He’d been a Red Bull Junior Team driver since 2017, but joined the Alpine driver training program in 2022 because it gave him more options to go into Le Mans sports cars if F1 didn’t pan out for him. He’s been circling F1 for a few seasons and finally got signed by Alpine to replace Esteban Ocon. Ocon was pushed out a race before the end of the 2024 season and Doohan got an early start, qualifying 20th at Abu Dhabi and going on to finish 15th. Jack Doohan is the son of five-time Motorcycle Grand Prix World Champion Mick Doohan.
I’m sure some of these drivers will quickly burn out and fade away, but I truly hope some of them are good enough to earn their seats and perhaps one of them will be a generational talent on the level with Hamilton one day. Being good in Formula 1 takes a lot more than talent. Here’s hoping these kids have it.
