Max Verstappen? Lando Norris? Sky F1 pundit goes rogue with driver of the year

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Verstappen? Norris? Sky F1 pundit goes rogue with driver of the year

Oscar Piastri came third in 2025

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Thursday 18 December 2025 14:40

Sky Sports F1 pundit Bernie Collins has issued a surprise choice for her driver of the year.

The 2025 season saw a three-way battle for the drivers' championship between Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri.

McLaren had the dominant car - particularly in the early stages of the season - and Piastri rushed into a mega lead, at one point being a staggering 104 points ahead of Verstappen.

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However, despite leading the championship between April - October, Piastri ended up finishing third, 13 points behind team-mate and new world champion Norris, who staved off a late charge from Verstappen by two points.

Norris won the world championship and Verstappen claimed the most grand prix victories, yet Collins opted to put Piastri as her driver of the year for 2025 on the final F1 Show of the year.

She was the only one of the four pundits to have Piastri even in their top two, with Ted Kravitz, Karun Chandhok and Simon Lazenby all going for Verstappen as number one.

Chandhok and Lazenby even had George Russell in second, with world champion Norris third and Piastri fourth.

Explaining her decision, Collins said: "Piastri although had that dip towards the end of the year, I think at the beginning of the year, the progress that we've seen from the year before was very strong.

"He was keeping cool in qualifying. He was getting results where, particularly in qualifying, Norris at times was making mistakes. So, that's why I put him at P1.

"And I also question the dip in the middle of the year for Red Bull because when you look at Red Bull’s results, there was some good results at the start of the year - and by Red Bull I mean Verstappen.

"There was some good results at the beginning of the year and then there was a dip in the middle where all the chaos was going on in the background, which how much was the car being poor, how much was set up? That’s why I’ve moved Verstappen down."

Verstappen's blockbuster 2025

The reason for the other three pundits having Verstappen as their number one at the expense of the world champion was quite simply because of the fact he managed to claim more race victories and be in a championship battle despite having an inferior car.

Verstappen came within just two points of claiming a record-equalling fifth consecutive title, despite his RB21 displaying a host of inconsistencies throughout the year.

And those could be evidenced by his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda only managing to pick up 30 points from 22 race weekends in the same car, and finishing down in 17th in the drivers' championship.

There's no doubt that, even if Red Bull struggle to provide him with a championship-challenging car in 2026, Verstappen will be there or there abouts at a lot of race weekends because of his supreme qualifying ability and race craft.

It's that ability that may leave Red Bull fearing the worst for 2027, with rumours suggesting that Verstappen could well jump ship once it becomes clear which team have mastered the new regulations.

F1 Max Verstappen Lando Norris Oscar Piastri Sky Sports Bernie Collins