Qatar: Is Mercedes’ Next Breakout Star Already Here?
This newsletter dives into the Qatar Grand Prix, where Kimi Antonelli’s breakout rookie season meets one of the most demanding circuits on the calendar. Mercedes’ rising momentum also comes into focus under the desert lights, as early whispers ask whether Antonelli might become the kind of transformative talent the team once built a dynasty around.
At a Glance
- Setting the Stage
- The Rookie Landscape
- The Hamilton Benchmark
- Mercedes at a Crossroads
- The Rookie vs. The Legend
- The Race Recap
- The State of the Grid
- Looking Ahead: Abu Dhabi
Setting the Stage
As the season winds toward its final stretch, Qatar emerges as one of the grid’s most revealing circuits. Defined by unbroken rhythm, sweeping high-speed corners, and some of the harshest tyre degradation in Formula 1, Lusail becomes a pressure chamber under the lights, and a race that exposes hesitation, rewards precision, and leaves almost no margin for error. This year, all eyes are locked on one driver stepping into that spotlight for the first time: Kimi Antonelli.
Antonelli arrives in Qatar as the standout rookie of 2025, pairing raw speed with a composure rarely seen in a debut season. His early impact has even sparked light reminders of what happens when a young driver settles into a top team with confidence; something Mercedes fans last witnessed during Hamilton’s rise. Now, with Antonelli becoming a key part of Mercedes’ steady climb back towards the top, Qatar offers a new kind of test: one of the most demanding tracks on the calendar, and a chance to see whether his breakthrough season continues to build under the desert lights.
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The Rookie Landscape
The 2025 grid features something Formula 1 hasn’t seen in over a decade – five rookies competing in the same season, the largest influx of new talent since 2013. And through the first stretch of the year, their trajectories couldn’t be more different.
The visualization above highlights each rookie’s Total Drive Score heading into Qatar, our own metric that blends qualifying position, race finish, and net positions gained to give a fuller picture of driver performance across the season. All the data shown reflects every race up to the Brazilian Grand Prix, and by that measure, Kimi Antonelli stands well ahead of his fellow first-year drivers. His consistency, pace, and calm racecraft have already separated him from the rest of the rookie field, while Bearman and Hadjar have shown flashes of strong form behind him, and Bortoleto and Doohan continue to find their footing.
The next visualization steps back even further, charting the total points scored in the rookie seasons of today’s active drivers. For Antonelli, the total includes every race up to Brazil, while the others reflect their full debut campaigns. Even with two rounds left to add to his tally, his placement is striking as he already sits at the top of the group at this stage, even edging past where Lewis Hamilton finished his rookie season.
This shows how convincingly Antonelli has inserted himself into the conversation around the grid’s strongest first-year performances. But when you also consider the Drive Score included in this comparison, a different picture begins to emerge: Hamilton’s rookie season still sits miles ahead. And that’s where the deeper story begins – in the metrics beyond points alone.
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The Hamilton Benchmark
The modern points system can make rookie comparisons look deceiving at first glance. Hamilton’s 2007 debut season ran under the old scoring format, where a win earned 10 points and only the top six finishers scored at all. Under today’s expanded system, which awards 25 points for a win and pays down to P10, Hamilton’s rookie total would have been 265 points, not 109.
This is why Antonelli appears neck-and-neck with Hamilton in raw points up to the Brazil Grand Prix. Yet in reality, Hamilton’s rookie campaign remains one of the most extraordinary in Formula 1 history. He scored twelve podiums, finished second in the championship by a single point, and came within reach of a title in his very first season, something no driver has matched since.
But none of this takes away from Antonelli’s performance. His debut year is exceptional in its own right, and when you compare deeper metrics such as racecraft, consistency, finishing trends, and position gains, his trajectory falls exactly where you’d expect a future frontrunner to be.
The scatter plot above reinforces that story by mapping each driver’s rookie season based on two metrics: median finishing position and median change in position. Lower values in both categories signal stronger, more consistent performances, as a low median finishing position indicates better race results, while a median position change near zero means a driver routinely finished close to where they started, reflecting steady race execution rather than relying on outlier drives.
Viewed through this lens, Hamilton’s rookie season stands out immediately, positioned far to the left as the clear benchmark among today’s active drivers. But Antonelli’s current campaign, sits closer to Hamilton’s than nearly anyone else, underscoring how impressive his opening year has truly been. He’s not replicating Hamilton’s historic debut, but he is on the right trajectory, and Qatar offers the next chance to see just how far the young rookie can climb.
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Mercedes at a Crossroads
Mercedes’ recent history reads like a team navigating through two very different eras. After dominating Formula 1 for nearly a decade, their post-2021 decline was steep and unmistakable, marked by stalled development, shifting car concepts, and a string of seasons where momentum slipped further out of reach.
The trend is clear: from their peak in the hybrid era to the noticeable drop in 2022 and 2023, Mercedes has spent years trying to rediscover a direction that once seemed effortless. But 2025 represents something different. Their total points remain well below their championship highs, yet the team’s trajectory has begun to stabilize, with clearer development choices and more consistent race-to-race execution. And threaded through that improvement is the presence of Kimi Antonelli.
While it would be unfair to credit a single rookie with turning an entire organization around, Antonelli has undeniably become a catalyst. His calm racecraft, ability to limit mistakes, and talent for making incremental gains on Sundays have contributed meaningful points in a season where Mercedes needed stability as much as speed. His performances haven’t just filled a gap, they’ve helped set a tone the team has been missing since their last title fight.
Mercedes may not be back to their dominant form just yet, but the question heading into Qatar is more compelling than it has been in years:
is this just a steady season, or the first sign that Mercedes, with a rising new talent in the lineup, is finally rebuilding toward something greater?
The Rookie vs. The Legend
The final comparison looks at how Antonelli and Hamilton have performed this season as two drivers at very different stages of their careers just after Brazil, in two cars with very different strengths.
Antonelli enters Qatar with momentum on his side. His recent run of form, including a standout P2 finish in Brazil, as well as a P3 in Las Vegas, reflects a rookie gaining confidence in a car that is steadily improving. Mercedes has been sharper with strategy this year, and Antonelli’s ability to stay calm under pressure has translated into better average finishes and more top-three results than Hamilton so far.
Hamilton, meanwhile, has been wrestling with a Ferrari that flashes pace but rarely delivers a clean weekend. Between reliability issues, strategy missteps, and a general lack of luck, his results haven’t always reflected his underlying performance – which is why his average Drive Score still edges out Antonelli’s. That metric captures the story more clearly: Hamilton is still extracting more from his machinery than the results show.
All of this makes Qatar an intriguing matchup. Antonelli has the momentum and the stronger recent results, while Hamilton has the experience and a slightly higher season-long performance rating.
On paper, the edge leans toward Hamilton, but not decisively. With Mercedes trending upward and Antonelli continuing to surprise, the Grand Prix could genuinely swing either way. Qatar may end up revealing whether the rookie’s rise continues under the desert lights, or whether the legend finds another moment of brilliance in a season full of setbacks.
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The Race Recap
After an exciting Sprint on Saturday, with Piastri taking the win, Norris finishing third, and Verstappen just behind in fourth, the stage was set for a Grand Prix that had all the makings of a pivotal weekend. Antonelli carried strong momentum with a P6 in the Sprint, while Hamilton faced an uphill climb after a difficult qualifying left him starting from the pit lane.
Sunday’s race began with early fireworks. Piastri launched perfectly from pole, while Verstappen slipped past Norris into Turn 1. Further back, Antonelli made an excellent start, climbing to fourth, and Hamilton charged up to P14 by the end of the opening lap. With every driver opening on the medium tyre, except Hülkenberg and Hamilton on softs, and Albon and Colapinto on hards, strategy quickly became the story of the race.
A Lap 7 safety car shook up the afternoon as Hülkenberg collided with Gasly, triggering an early wave of pit stops. Every driver came in except Piastri, Norris, and Ocon, who inherited the top three. Ocon’s false start penalty and back-to-back pit stops shuffled him to the rear, and by Lap 10 the race reset with the familiar order: Piastri, Norris, Verstappen, Sainz, and Antonelli in fifth, with Hamilton holding P14.
The race unfolded into a strategic duel. Piastri and Norris pitted on Laps 24 and 25, handing Verstappen the lead before his own stop on Lap 32. As the final stints took shape, Piastri regained the lead, Norris shadowed from behind, and Antonelli held strong inside the top five as Hamilton slipped back toward P15.
The final phase saw the frontrunners converge. With Sainz in third and Antonelli in fourth, Norris began closing in from P5, spending several laps pressuring the Mercedes rookie. The duel lasted all the way into the final lap, where Norris finally found a way through.
At the flag, Verstappen sealed a commanding win in 1:24:38.241, with Piastri second and Sainz third. Norris claimed fourth after his late pass, Antonelli brought home a solid P5, and Hamilton recovered to P12 after a long afternoon of battling back through the field.
Antonelli’s strong P5, once again finishing ahead of Hamilton, underscored his rapid progression this season, but all eyes now turn to the three-way title showdown between Norris, Verstappen, and Piastri as the grid heads to Abu Dhabi.
The State of the Grid
Driver's Championship
Qatar refused to narrow the title picture, and instead, it kept all three contenders very much alive.
Oscar Piastri had one of his strongest weekends in a while, winning the Sprint for 8 points and finishing second in the Grand Prix for another 18. Max Verstappen kept himself firmly in the fight with 5 points from fourth in the Sprint and a dominant 25-point win on Sunday. Lando Norris added 6 points with a Sprint podium and 12 more with P4 in the race, keeping his championship hopes alive.
The result? A three-way showdown for the Drivers’ Championship, with Norris, Verstappen, and Piastri, all very much still in contention for the crown.
Piastri’s consistency, Verstappen’s late-season resurgence, and Norris’ resilience have brought us to the final round with the title still undecided. Abu Dhabi will decide everything: three drivers, one race, and a championship that remains wide open.
Constructors' Championship
McLaren added yet another strong weekend to their dominant campaign, with Piastri and Norris lifting the team to an impressive 800 points. Already more than 300 points ahead of the field, and having secured the title long ago, their focus is now squarely on closing out a historic season. The real tension sits behind them, as Mercedes, Red Bull, and Ferrari continue to fight for the remaining positions inside the top three.
Behind them, Mercedes strengthened their grip on second place with a strong weekend from both drivers. The team picked up 10 points in the Sprint courtesy of Russell’s P2 and Antonelli’s P6, followed by 18 more in the Grand Prix with Antonelli finishing P5 and Russell P6. That haul brings Mercedes up to 459 points, giving them valuable breathing room heading into Abu Dhabi.
Red Bull, meanwhile, made important gains of their own. Verstappen’s P4 in the Sprint (5 points) and emphatic Grand Prix victory (25 points), combined with Tsunoda’s P5 in the Sprint (4 points) and P10 in the race (1 point), brought the team to 426 points – keeping them firmly in the fight for second should Mercedes falter in the finale.
Ferrari’s struggles continued. With no Sprint points and only 4 points from Leclerc’s P8 in the Grand Prix, the team remains stuck in fourth on 382 points, now facing a steep climb if they hope to challenge Red Bull or Mercedes in the final round.
Abu Dhabi now arrives with one more fight on the table: Mercedes (459), Red Bull (426), and Ferrari (382). With a single round to go, the race for second and third remains wide open.
Looking Ahead: Abu Dhabi
The season comes down to one final race, and one final story. Abu Dhabi will decide the World Drivers’ Championship in a three-way showdown between Norris, Verstappen, and Piastri, each still mathematically alive after Qatar.
The paths to the title are clear, but far from simple. Each of the three contenders faces a very different route to the crown, with their chances depending heavily on where the others finish and how they perform under pressure in Abu Dhabi. We’ll break down the full championship scenarios, and what each driver must deliver, in next week’s finale.
To help make sense of the final-round pressure, we’ll turn to our Drive Score model one last time. By comparing each contender’s season-long performance, from qualifying efficiency to racecraft to positional gains, we’ll break down who the data suggests is most likely to come out on top at Yas Marina Circuit, and what kind of race each driver needs to deliver to end the year as World Champion.
It all comes down to this, one more race, and three contenders.
Our final story of the season, and the Road to Abu Dhabi, ends under the lights next Sunday.
