Divebomb Power Rankings - March 2025
- DIVEBOMB Motorsport
- Apr 2
- 8 min read
Welcome to DIVEBOMB's Power Rankings, a popular segment from our team which ranks the best motorsport performances of the month, taking machinery out of the equation. Here are DIVEBOMB's ten choices for the month of March...
1st Álex Palou (IndyCar)
March may have marked a new IndyCar season, but we were once again treated to the same brilliance of Álex Palou, a brilliance that we’ve become so accustomed to in recent seasons, as he swept the IndyCar month with majestic victories on the Streets of St. Petersburg and at The Thermal Club.
As has been the watchword for many of Palou’s successes, patience was essential. After a quiet opening two stints at St. Petersburg, Palou executed his strategy to perfection, and although he had to deal with lapped traffic, there was never a doubt that he wouldn’t hold off Josef Newgarden and Scott Dixon to win the opening round of the season for the first time since 2021.
His March brilliance wouldn’t stop there though. Palou was the unequivocal favourite to take victory at The Thermal Club, leaving quite the shock when Pato O’Ward took pole on Saturday. And despite being stuck behind Christian Lundgaard for some 50-odd laps, Palou came alive on his final stint, hounding down a helpless O’Ward to become the first driver to win the opening two rounds of the season since Scott Dixon in 2020.
Palou’s excellence shone once again in March, as he already lays down a championship gauntlet to his opposition and deservingly picks up the top spot in our March Power Rankings.
2nd Marc Márquez (MotoGP)
After what could be considered a ‘comeback’ season with Gresini last year, Marc has already begun living up to expectations with the Ducati factory team, maintaining an almost perfect streak across all three race weekends in March which came to a halt at COTA.
He gave us a preview of his mind games in the first race as he let his brother Álex pass him for a good portion of the race. It was later revealed that he did this intentionally to preserve his tires.
At the following race weekend in Argentina, Marc secured a clean sweep, with his brother consistently staying right behind him. This shifted the expected Ducati teammate rivalry between Marc and Bagnaia into a sibling rivalry on track.
With all eyes on him at COTA, one of his strongest tracks, Marc started off strong and was expected to take a guaranteed win. He built a significant gap over Bagnaia and maintained a 2.2s lead. However, it all came crashing down with an unfortunate slip up, taking him out of the lead and eventually retiring from the race at lap 13.
The slip-up also cost him the championship lead, but the silver lining is that his pace remains undeniable.
As Joan Mir pointed out and as many of us likely believe - the only thing that could cost Márquez the championship is his own mistakes.
3rd Christopher Bell (NASCAR)
What a month for the Joe Gibbs Racing star driver, as the 30-year-old has been the top driver in the NASCAR Cup Series in the month of March. Riding on a strong start from February, Bell has certainly made the most of it.
Kicking off the month with a strong race in COTA, where he made a late overtake on Kyle Busch for the lead, before putting up a gritty defensive showing, despite Hendricks Motorsports’ young star breathing down his neck, to hold on to the win.
Then, Bell went onto have a dominant showing in Phoenix, taking nearly maximum points in the weekend, winning stage two and the entire race. He closed off the weekend with 57 points and closed down the gap between himself and championship leader Byron, but most importantly secured a third win in a row, first since Larson achieved the feat in 2021.
Despite slowing down slightly with an unfortunate end to his Las Vegas weekend and an average Miami race, he bounced back with a strong showing in Martinsville, securing pole position and finishing in second place behind teammate Denny Hamlin to complete a 1-2 finish for JGR, and cap off a spectacular month for Bell.
4th Lando Norris (Formula One)
Lando Norris has enjoyed a strong overall month at the beginning of the 75th Formula One season, as the Briton currently leads the drivers’ standings. The McLaren driver has been able to effectively produce amazing results in the opening two rounds of this season after falling short of the drivers’ title last year.
At Australia, he was able to command the earlier stages of the race - eventually claiming first place by just shy of nine tenths of a second. He also claimed driver of the day and the fastest lap of the Grand Prix. A dominant opening round by Norris, converting pole position to victory in an effective manner.
The next round in China was a positive continuation from Albert Park, as he finished in second place - around 9.7 seconds ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri.
However Norris did face a setback in the latter stages of the race, he was around three seconds away from Piastri but a brake issue meant the McLaren driver lost a large amount of time - finishing around two seconds from George Russell by the time the flag fell.
Despite this setback, Norris was able to build on his championship lead whilst claiming a second fastest lap of the season so far.
5th Oscar Piastri (Formula One)
Oscar Piastri has also enjoyed a strong month, but with more mixed results when compared to his McLaren teammate, a ninth place at his home race in Australia followed up by a victory in China. It seems the Australian isn’t one of the only Formula One drivers to improve when compared to last year’s campaign.
His home race started off with high hopes - a second-place on the starting grid after Saturday’s qualifying, but didn’t end in the way the Australian would have wanted. Varying weather conditions during the race meant Piastri and teammate Norris both spun into the grass - with Piastri losing a major chunk of time due to the incident.
But the underwhelming start was followed up by a controlled victory from beginning to end in Shanghai, China. Piastri maintained a strong pace throughout Sunday’s Grand Prix, opting for a one-stop strategy where he was able to build and maintain strong gaps to McLaren teammate Norris in both stints.
Certainly a great month for the Australian, progress he will be hoping to build on going into the Japanese Grand Prix (if he wins there, it will be the third time an F1 driver has won on their birthday too).
6th No.7 Porsche (IMSA)
Coming off the back of a win in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Nick Tandy, Laurens Vanthoor and Felipe Nasr and the rest of the No.7 Porsche Penske crew would have had high hopes going into the second round of the IMSA Sportscar championship at the 12 hours of Sebring.
They rode that high all the way to victory over Sebring’s infamous bumps. Early on they battled for the lead with the No.31 Whelen Cadillac and both Acuras, No.60 and No.93. They would then lead for a large portion of the middle of the race before a battle broke out between them and the Whelen Cadillac.
Nick Tandy and Frederick Vesti battled for multiple laps, before Tandy got the move done on the Cadillac through traffic and into the lead. The No.7 crew never looked back from that point, with the Penske squad making the right strategy calls after a late safety car to secure the win.
With wins in both races so far, Tandy, Nasr and Vanthoor lead the championship by 91 points over the sister No.6 Porsche. The nearest non-Porsche are the pairing of Acuras, who sit a further 82 points back, tied on 587 points.
7th Alex Márquez (MotoGP)
With a third-place finish in Germany and two sprint race podiums to his name in 2024, Álex Márquez made a surprise appearance in the riders' discussion after topping the timesheets in the practice session at Buriram.
This only grew stronger as he continued battling with his brother on track, and what was expected to be a one-off event extended throughout the month, with Álex consistently securing P2 in all qualifying and race sessions so far.
His pace may not match Marc's, but managing to stay ahead of Bagnaia can be a silver lining for Gresini. Álex tried to stay within boundaries by not riding on the high of his performance in Round one, emphasizing that Ducati is still far ahead due to the difference in facilities and they can always “pull something out of their pockets” at the last moment.
However, the Spaniard can enjoy being in the top row while it lasts, especially now that he leads the championship by one point following Marc's crash at COTA.
8th Elfyn Evans (WRC)
For the second time this year, Elfyn Evans and co-driver Scott Martin shared the top step of the podium. Rally Kenya was some of the toughest conditions seen in modern rally, prompting reigning champion, Thierry Neuville, to state via Instagram: ‘I hadn’t seen anything like it in my career. We’ve had some rough Safari Rally Kenyas in the past, but this is the roughest so far.’
At the end of the first day, Evans was in fifth. Instead of overpushing to compensate, he kept his Rally1 car out of trouble and claimed the lead on day two, despite not winning a stage. Evans’ opt for consistency over pace proved to be the correct strategy, as he claimed victory by over a minute. His Safari efforts stretched the Welshman’s championship lead to 36 points, his attempts at a maiden title looking ever stronger.
9th Ayumu Iwasa (Super Formula)
Ayumu Iwasa had a bittersweet season opener in Super Formula. He qualified second for the first race at Suzuka, just twenty-two milliseconds off his teammate, Tomoki Nojiri’s pole time.
He took the lead in the opening lap of the race, which he would only keep until the end of the first safety car period. He lost the lead at the safety car restart to Kakunoshin Ohta. Despite throwing everything he could at Ohta, Iwasa finished behind him in second place, albeit only 0.197 seconds behind.
Qualifying for round 2 was similar to that of round one, where Iwasa qualified second behind his teammate. Iwasa, once again, got the lead at the start and came into the pits on lap two. Despite tire management issues which plagued the Mugen team, Iwasa managed to cross the finish line fourth and was promoted to third due to a penalty for Ohta.
A very solid opening performance from Iwasa leaves him the leader of the standings with 30 points to his name, 7 points ahead of Tsuboi in second.
10th Kyle Larson (NASCAR)
Larson had a poor week to start the month, finishing 32nd place in a dismal COTA weekend. But as my football coach once said: “It ain’t how you start, but how you finish, that matters.”, and Larson was the embodiment of that statement.
He kicked off the comeback in Phoenix, after having a below average qualifying session, the 2021 Cup Series champion battled his way back up to the front of the grid, finishing the weekend with 37 points and a third place finish.
Las Vegas was a quiet one for Larson, as he started at tenth place, was in the lead at one point and won stage two, but ultimately finished in ninth place, as he continued his climb up the championship leaderboard.
His biggest weekend came in from the Homestead-Miami weekend, as the star Hendricks driver started the earlier parts of the race weekend extraordinarily, completing a late comeback in the trucks’ series. His Xfinity Series outing was strong but a string of poor luck prevented him taking another win in the weekend, but that probably is the last thing on the 32-year-old’s mind right now.
His Cup Series performance was strong and complete, as he surged all the way from 14th on the grid to the lead by the time we reached the final stage. He went through back and forths with Bubba Wallace and teammate Alex Bowman, but the veteran overtook both for his first win on the season, while taking 56 points for himself on the weekend.
He closed out March with a good performance in Martinsville that netted him a fifth place finish, completing the five race stretch with a playoff berth and second place in the championship standings.
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