{"id":343399,"date":"2025-12-12T15:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343399\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T15:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:33:11","slug":"mph-assessing-f1s-rookie-class-of-2025-the-mark-hughes-verdict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/343399\/","title":{"rendered":"MPH: Assessing F1’s rookie class of 2025 \u2013 the Mark Hughes verdict"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who has been the best rookie of 2025 from what has been an outstanding crop? It\u2019s not a straightforward choice. Kimi Antonelli<\/a> has had the best sequence of results \u2013 including a trio of top threes \u2013 but then he\u2019s the only one of the rookies in one of the top four \u2018super teams\u2019, so he has had a significantly faster car at his disposal than Isack Hadjar<\/a>\u2018s Racing Bulls<\/a>, Oliver Bearman<\/a>\u2018s Haas<\/a> or Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a>\u2018s Sauber<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Antonelli fares the worst of the four in comparison to the team-mate \u2013 he was 23-4 down on George Russell<\/a> in qualifying, averaging 0.237sec slower. But in Russell he has a faster team-mate than Hadjar (Liam Lawson<\/a>), Bortoleto (Nico H\u00fclkenberg<\/a>) or Bearman (Esteban Ocon<\/a>). Antonelli came into F1 with probably the emptiest data banks too; a season of F2 and not even F3 before that but just a single season of Formula Regional.<\/p>\n

Plus, his peaks were impressively high. A wonderful charge from the back to P4 on his debut in incredibly tricky conditions around Melbourne, including a brave round-the-outside pass on Alex Albon<\/a> at the fast Turn 9. Pole in the Miami Sprint, a great drive in Vegas from near the back to an official third (fifth on the road) effectively without changing tyres. Keeping up the pace he did on tyres which had been on since lap three was quite remarkable. But he had a bad mid-season dip in between those performances when Mercedes<\/a> switched to a new rear suspension, which totally confused his senses and which was subsequently binned after a few races. His confidence then began to rebuild and in most of the last few races of the year he was in generally competitive form and was genuinely faster than Russell in Brazil.<\/p>\n

\"Kimi<\/p>\n

Antonelli had a tough mid-season spell, but picked up the pace as the year progressed<\/p>\n

\n Grand Prix Photo\n <\/p>\n

Bortoleto had a tough task in what was overall the slowest car of the bunch and with a quick team-mate. He was within two-hundredths of Hulk in qualifying and lost out in the head-to-head by the narrow margin of 13-12 (where fair comparison was possible). But there were days when Hulk had absolutely no answer to him, when he could force the Sauber into Q3. Beautifully judged drives into the points in Austria, Spa and Monza were stand-outs. Occasional feisty battles with his mentor Fernando Alonso<\/a> \u2013 such as at Mexico \u2013 caught the eye too. His home race weekend was a bit of a mess with a big accident in the Sprint and a first-lap retirement (his fault) in the grand prix. It was a big occasion for him and we can forgive him that, though he did follow it up with a lairy locked-up Turn 1 collision in Vegas. These were untypical of most of his season, though.<\/p>\n

Bearman \u2013 honorary rookie, having done two previous races in \u201924 \u2013 had a sometimes-startling turn of speed in the Haas, one which completely eclipsed the experienced Ocon in the season\u2019s second half. He headed the Frenchman 17-6 in qualifying and was faster by an average of 0.14sec. The highlight was his great drive to fourth in Mexico. Always fast on a green track, the speed comes very naturally. The first half of his season was compromised by silly incidents and penalties and at times he really did look like a very raw rookie, especially in Melbourne for the season-opener when he had one off after another. But his way of learning seems to be to press on and then dial it back. In the season\u2019s latter half, the incidents stopped but the polished speed remained.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Hadjar, a quite singular character, one seemingly oblivious to the fuss going on around him. Of all the rookies, he\u2019s the one who seems the most certain of himself. He has that great combination of total confidence but willingness to learn. He puts it all on the line but rarely goes off. He is incredibly fast on a green track. The first laps of practice at Vegas, where he\u2019d never been before, the track like an ice rink and hard walls just lying in wait, he was stunning, the fastest guy out there for a while. His podium at Zandvoort<\/a>, close in the wheel tracks of Max Verstappen<\/a> almost throughout, was fully on merit. The Racing Bulls was a well-balanced, driveable car but he maximised it and although his team-mate Lawson is little more than a rookie himself, Hadjar did trounce him convincingly (17-3 ahead in qualifying by an average of 0.162sec). For me, he\u2019s rookie of the year.<\/p>\n

\"Oliver<\/p>\n

Bearman\u2019s future is linked to Ferrari<\/p>\n

\n Grand Prix Photo\n <\/p>\n

But what happens to each of them in their sophomore years will likely be career-defining. Hadjar is going straight into the lion\u2019s den, the seat that has finished many a career: that alongside Verstappen at Red Bull<\/a>. But his driving style is not dissimilar, he has that combination of hard-headed belief but open-minded approach to finding more. He\u2019s not going to go in there in his second year and beat Verstappen. But he just may have a better chance of flourishing in that environment than any of those before him. There is something about his personality which suggests that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who has been the best rookie of 2025 from what has been an outstanding crop? It\u2019s not a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,813,7695,10114,10115,806,805,803,804,5242,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-343399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-gabriel-bortoleto","12":"tag-isack-hadjar","13":"tag-kimi-antonelli","14":"tag-motor","15":"tag-motor-sports","16":"tag-motosport","17":"tag-motosports","18":"tag-oliver-bearman","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}