Formula 1’s championships are decided by points, and the scale behind them shapes how drivers race, how teams plan and how close a title fight looks with five races to go. This guide covers how points are earned in 2026 and how ties are broken. It also explains how StatChecked compares teammates in identical cars on the standings page.
Grand Prix points
The top ten finishers in a Grand Prix score 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 points. The seven-point jump from second to first is the biggest step on the scale, which rewards winning over steady podiums. With 22 cars on the 2026 grid, twelve drivers leave every race with nothing, so the fight for tenth is often fierce.
Only classified finishers score. A driver who retires in the closing laps can still be classified if they completed enough of the distance. If a race is stopped and cannot be resumed, the regulations scale the points down according to how much of the distance was run, so a race that barely got going pays only a fraction of the usual total. A disqualified driver loses their points, and everyone behind moves up.
The scale has changed over the years:
- 1991–2002: only the top six scored, 10-6-4-3-2-1.
- 2003–2009: the top eight scored, 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.
- 2010 onwards: the current 25-point scale.
Points totals from different eras aren’t directly comparable, so compare finishing positions or the share of available points instead.
Sprint points
On sprint weekends, a shorter race of about 100 km runs on Saturday, with its own qualifying session. The top eight score 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. That scale has been in place since 2022; the first sprints, in 2021, paid 3, 2 and 1 to the top three. There are six sprint weekends in 2026. Sprint points count fully towards both championships, so a driver can take up to 33 points from a sprint weekend, against 25 from a normal one.
Our standings add sprint points to the round in which they were scored, so the points-progression chart shows a bigger step at sprint events.
The fastest-lap point and its removal
From 2019 to 2024, the driver who set the fastest lap of a Grand Prix earned one extra point, but only if they finished in the top ten. The point was removed from the 2025 season onwards. By then it had become something of a sideshow: teams sometimes called a car with nothing else to race for into the pits for fresh tyres in the closing laps, purely to take the point away from a rival’s title contender.
Keep the bonus in mind when comparing seasons. Totals from 2019 to 2024 can include a handful of fastest-lap points, and the most a driver could score from a Grand Prix was 26, not 25. The title maths on our standings page uses the right maximum for each season.
How countback breaks ties
When two drivers finish level on points, the one with more wins ranks higher. If wins are equal, the one with more second places goes ahead, then third places, and so on down the results until a difference appears. If that still doesn’t separate them, the FIA decides using criteria of its choosing. Countback applies to every place in the table, not only the title: two midfield drivers tied on points are ordered by their best results. Edge cases, such as exactly how sprint finishes are treated, are settled by the FIA’s sporting regulations, which are the final word.
Countback has never decided a drivers’ title, but it has come close. In 1984 Niki Lauda beat Alain Prost by half a point, after the rain-shortened Monaco Grand Prix paid half points. In 2021 Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton arrived at the final race level on 369.5 points. Verstappen led on countback, with nine wins to Hamilton’s eight, so he would have been champion if neither had scored.
The “who can still win” panel on our standings page counts a driver as a contender if their points, plus everything still available, reach the leader’s current total. A tie counts, because countback could settle it either way.
Constructors’ points
A team’s total is simply both of its drivers’ race and sprint points added together. The most a team can take from one Grand Prix is 43 points, for a one-two finish, and 15 from a sprint. If a team changes drivers during the season, each driver keeps their points in the drivers’ table and the team keeps them all in the constructors’ table. Constructors’ positions matter beyond pride, because Formula 1’s prize money is paid out according to them.
Teammate head-to-heads
Two drivers in the same team share the same car, which makes teammates the fairest comparison in the sport. The teammates view shows a card for every pairing that has raced together:
- Qualifying: who qualified ahead in each round, using the qualifying classification rather than the grid after penalties.
- Races: who finished ahead, counting only races both drivers finished. Retirements are listed separately, so a mechanical failure doesn’t count as a defeat.
- Points: race and sprint points combined.
- Median qualifying gap: in each round we compare the last session both drivers set a time in (Q3 if both reached it, otherwise Q2, otherwise Q1), then take the median across the season. The median shrugs off the odd crash or red-flagged session that would distort an average.
If a team swaps a driver mid-season, the new pairing gets its own card.
Read the rows together. Points depend on strategy calls, reliability and team orders, so they can flatter or punish a driver. Head-to-head counts are short samples, and a 12–10 qualifying record is close to level, as our guide to sample size explains. The median gap is usually the clearest single number. A few hundredths means the drivers are well matched, while three tenths over a season is a clear difference.
Say driver A leads driver B 15–7 in qualifying, with a median gap of 0.15 seconds, but is only four points ahead after two retirements. A is very likely the quicker driver, and the points table hasn’t caught up yet.