Funniest moment, best radio message and much more – F1’s 2025 alternative awards

It’s nearly time to wave goodbye to 2025 – a season that gave us a new World Champion, some epic comebacks and shock podiums.

While the championship battle between the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, as well as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, had us captivated throughout the season, there was also plenty of entertainment to be found elsewhere on and off the track.

Once again we present our 2025 ‘alternative awards’ – an invented celebration where we can appreciate the weird and the wonderful moments of the year gone by just for fun. Here are our 2025 award ‘winners’…

Unluckiest driver – Fernando Alonso

As Fernando Alonso crossed the line 11th in Imola he declared on the team radio that, “we are so unlucky, everything is wrong for us this year.”

It’s hard to argue with that. The two-time World Champion had to wait until the ninth round in Barcelona to score his first points of the season with a DNF in Australia, a brake failure in China, and a PU issue in Monaco all contributing to that streak of misfortune.

What prompted that exclamation in Imola was the unfortunate timing of a VSC, allowing Alonso’s rivals a cheap pit stop, and he had a similar issue with the timing of a Safety Car in Zandvoort. There was also his suspension failure in Monza, which was caused – of all things – by a bit of gravel that had been thrown up by Norris ahead.

Still, Alonso was never going to give up without a fight this year and managed to still make it back into the top 10 of the Drivers’ Championship – 16 points scored in the final two weekends certainly helped with that.

Funniest moment – The LEGO race

The Miami Grand Prix drivers’ parade came with a twist this year as the grid were given the chance to get behind the wheel of fully drivable LEGO big build cars.

Each team had a bespoke car in their own colours, which had been created by a skilled team of 26 designers, engineers and LEGO builders, over 22,000 hours. Every car was made up of nearly 400,000 LEGO bricks and was capable of reaching speeds of 20kph.

Did the drivers take care of them around the Miami International Autodrome? Absolutely not. Given the competitive nature of our drivers, the parade turned into a race very, very quickly with some hilarious consequences. Have you ever seen a happier group?

Best radio message – ‘Must be the water’

We’ve had some stunning exchanges on the airwaves in 2025 – from Lewis Hamilton’s “have a tea break while you’re at it” to Charles Leclerc’s “thank you Bryan”, and let’s not forget Verstappen remarking that his shifts felt like “Monaco Grand Prix 1972”.

But the winner of best radio message this season was an absolute all-timer courtesy of Leclerc. “I have the seat full of water!” the Monegasque told his race engineer Bryan Bozzi during the Australian Grand Prix, as his drinks bottle leaked. “Must be the water,” replied Bozzi before Leclerc responded: “Let’s add that to the words of wisdom.”

Leclerc would of course go on to clarify that it was an inside joke between the pair, but that moment still gave us a radio message that will be included in every ‘best of’ compilation from here on.

Best special livery – Red Bull’s Honda livery in Japan

We’ve had plenty of contenders for this category in 2025 as well, with Ferrari’s retro effort at Monza – which celebrated the 50th anniversary of Niki Lauda’s first world title – a close runner-up.

But here we are crowning Red Bull’s effort for the Japanese Grand Prix as the best special livery of 2025. Not only did the design honour the final year of their partnership with Honda but, well, look at it! A thing of beauty.

Best special helmet – Lewis Hamilton in Las Vegas

Given we had just as many special helmet designs as liveries this year – if not more – then we had to dish out an award here too. For that we give it to Hamilton for his Las Vegas special lid.

After all, it sparkled! You get automatic bonus points for a helmet that sparkles.

Best stat – Nico Hulkenberg had the longest career in F1 history before scoring a first podium finish (238 Grands Prix over 15 years)

Aside from our championship battle in 2025, Nico Hulkenberg’s podium at the British Grand Prix was comfortably one of our favourite stories of the year. The German used all his experience to navigate the difficult weather conditions that day, rising from 19th on the grid to an astonishing third.

And, on what was his 239th start, he finally put to bed the stat that had followed him as the driver with the longest F1 career to never score a top-three finish. The stat above makes for far better reading.

That result was also Sauber’s first podium finish since Japan 2012, with Kamui Kobayashi, and Hulkenberg was the oldest first-time podium finisher (37 years old) since George Follmer (39 years old) at the 1973 Spanish Grand Prix.

Best trophy mishap – Isack Hadjar in Zandvoort

Sticking with surprise, feel-good podiums we now come to Isack Hadjar, who took a well-deserved third in Zandvoort in his rookie season in the sport.

While his on-track exploits were flawless, his handling of the trophy was… less so. As Racing Bulls posed for their celebration photos in the pit lane, the French driver placed his trophy on the ground before accidentally snapping the neck.

Thankfully Prince Bernhard of Orange got involved to replace the broken trophy, with Hadjar presented with the replacement ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.

Best example of perseverance – Hadjar and his seatbelt

Hadjar gets not one, but two, alternative award wins this year, with his efforts in Japan comfortably earning him the best example of perseverance.

To say the French rookie had a rollercoaster Qualifying hour in Suzuka is an understatement as it emerged his seatbelts had been fastened in an uncomfortably tight manner. When we say uncomfortable, we mean uncomfortable…

Unsurprisingly that impacted his focus and ability to put a strong lap together in Q1, and his radio messages were pained to say the least. But the rookie ground through all the discomfort and scraped into Q2, where the issue could then be sorted in the gap. He went on to qualify an impressive seventh.

Best example of multitasking – Lando Norris’ expensive lawnmower

The Japanese Grand Prix also gave us the best demonstration of multitasking as Norris and Verstappen battled for track position coming out of the pit exit. In the key flash point of the race, Norris ended up on the grass as Verstappen held his position out front.

“Quite an expensive lawnmower,” said Verstappen in the cooldown room afterwards to his McLaren rival.

That theme continued as Verstappen joked in the press conference after: “I think the grass was not really well cut on the right-hand side. Lando saw that as well and he made sure that it was nicely cut.”

“I wasn’t even trying to race Max, I was just trying to cut the grass like he says,” Norris added.

Best apology – Alex Albon and George Russell’s dinner date

To say George Russell was left frustrated in the Monaco Grand Prix is perhaps one of the understatements of the year.

After a loss of power in Qualifying left him 14th on the grid, the Mercedes driver ended up stuck in traffic as Williams played a tactical game ahead with drivers Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz. The pair would take it in turns to back the pack up to create space for a free pit stop – this happening four times in succession as both drivers completed their two mandatory stops.

Russell eventually became so frustrated by being unable to overtake that he skipped over the Nouvelle Chicane to pass Albon and refused to give the position back, which saw him handed a drive-through penalty by the stewards.

After the race, both Williams drivers apologised for the tactical play, while Russell joked that Albon owed him dinner as compensation. As it transpired that dinner date did happen after the race.

“He ordered the most expensive thing on the menu,” Albon said afterwards when asked how the dinner was. “He did, actually. It was the lobster pasta.”

Best carpool moment of the season – Verstappen, Russell and Yuki Tsunoda in Brazil

In another drivers’ parade with a twist, the Sao Paulo Grand Prix offered up soapboxes for the drivers to enjoy this time around. Predictably things turned chaotic once again.

However, after a breakdown, Russell was left without a car to travel in – step forward the Red Bull duo of Yuki Tsunoda and Verstappen and you have one of the photos of the year. We’ll let the image below do the talking.