How to Win

The points table

At the end of every Grand Prix the top ten finishers score. Everyone from eleventh down gets nothing at all — the same as the driver who crashed on lap one.

Notice the shape of it. The gap between first and second is seven points, but the gap between ninth and tenth is one. The system is built to reward winning without making everything else pointless, and that shape is the reason championships are usually decided by the middle of the table rather than the front of it.

Two championships, not one

The Drivers' Championship is the one people quote. Add up every point a driver scores across all 23 races and whoever has the most on the evening of the final race is world champion. That is the whole rule. There is no play-off, no final showdown, no bonus for the last race.

The Constructors' Championship works the same way, except a team keeps the points of both its cars added together. This is the one the people in the factory care about most, because finishing position in that table decides how much prize money a team receives — and that money decides what they can afford to build for next season. A team that slips two places in the constructors' table can feel it for years.

Why consistency beats brilliance

Here is the maths that decides most seasons. Win a race and retire from the next one and you have 25 points from two weekends. Finish second twice and you have 36. The spectacular driver loses to the boring one, and he loses by a margin that no single brilliant afternoon can repair.

This is why you will hear drivers talk about bringing the car home, or taking the points on a bad day. It sounds unambitious. It is how championships are actually won. The driver who is never lower than fifth beats the driver who alternates between first and the gravel trap.

Sprints, ties and the small print

• Six weekends in 2026 have a Sprint. The top eight in it score, from 8 points down to 1, and those go into exactly the same championship total.
• A driver has to be classified as a finisher to keep his points. Retire too early and the result is a blank, however fast you were.
• Stewards can add time penalties after the flag, so the classification you see at the finish is not always the final one.
• If two drivers end the season on exactly the same points, the one with more wins takes it. If that is level too, it goes to who has more second places, then more thirds, and so on.