Is this the greatest F1 grid ever? One team boss says it just might be

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes the current 2025 F1 grid is the most “competitive pool” of drivers he has seen in the sport’s history.

Despite McLaren’s dominant 2025 F1 season, the grid has remained close throughout.

Nineteen of the 20 full-time drivers have finished in the top six at least once this year — only Franco Colapinto has failed to do so.

In the constructors’ championship, Sauber, who are ninth, have scored 62 points.

Typically, 62 points would see a team finish much higher in the standings, highlighting how competitive the midfield has been.

Teams have also benefitted from an impressive crop of rookies joining the grid.

Ollie Bearman, Isack Hadjar, Kimi Antonelli and Gabriel Bortoleto all look set for long careers.

Speaking ahead of the Las Vegas GP, Stella explained why he’s so impressed with the current F1 grid.

“I think what we see in this season in Formula 1, in terms of competitiveness – and this is something that you may pick for a little bit of analysis – I don’t recall that there was such a competitive pool of drivers in any other season,” he told reporters.

“The new generation of drivers, they’re just so good, and now you have seven, eight drivers which are at World Championship level. Like I say, I’m not sure this has happened before.

“Potentially this is because of how good the junior categories now are. These guys, they go karting and they have the data. They train at a certain level when they are adolescents. 

“This has made the competitive field extremely, extremely tight, and therefore the difference is in this last one per cent.”

Is it better than 2012?

Many fans see 2012 as the peak for the sport in terms of driver quality.

There were six world champions on the grid: Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and Kimi Raikkonen.

Nico Rosberg, who was at Mercedes at the time, would go on to win the 2016 F1 title.

Felipe Massa and Mark Webber were multiple grand prix winners for Ferrari and Red Bull respectively.

The likes of Nico Hulkenberg, Romain Grosjean, Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez were respected talents waiting for their chance in top-line machinery.

Unlike in 2025, 2012 did have a number of minnows on the grid in terms of teams.

HRT ran experienced pair Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan, while Caterham signed Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen.

2025 probably edges it in terms of strength in depth, with no real weak links on the grid.