Formula 1 Championship

Last updated: 9 November 2026, after Round 20 · Brazilian Grand Prix.

Where the title stands

Andrea Kimi Antonelli is the 2026 Formula 1 World Champion. At 19 years old, in his second full season, he won the title with three rounds to spare, finishing the Brazilian Grand Prix with a 111-point lead over Max Verstappen. The maximum Verstappen could claw back across the remaining three rounds is 75 points. The maths was settled in Brazil. The crown belongs to Antonelli.

The season started with questions about whether Antonelli could handle the pressure of leading a championship campaign rather than chasing one. He answered them quickly. By the midpoint of the season he had already accumulated nine wins from twenty rounds, averaging just under 19.5 points per round across the full campaign. That kind of consistency doesn’t come from luck. George Russell, his team-mate at Mercedes, won three races himself and sits third in the standings on 262 points, which tells you everything about how dominant the Mercedes package was in 2026. The team scored 12 wins combined. Antonelli took nine of them. He wasn’t sharing the spoils evenly. He was taking races by the throat.

The gap to Verstappen grew steadily through the second half of the season. At certain points it looked like Red Bull might find something to close it. They didn’t. Verstappen won three races and fought hard but the Red Bull package simply couldn’t match Mercedes across a full weekend consistently enough. Every time Verstappen scored big, Antonelli scored bigger. The 111-point gap heading into Brazil represents a deficit that built across multiple double-points finishes for Mercedes and multiple races where Verstappen finished outside the top three.

What made Antonelli’s title so convincing was the variety of it. He won from pole, he won from mid-grid, he won in the wet. His single-lap pace was exceptional but his race management was what separated him from the field. Hamilton at Ferrari and Norris at McLaren both had strong spells during the year, but neither could sustain the pressure across enough consecutive rounds. Antonelli could. He made the fewest costly mistakes of any driver in the top six and converted his opportunities at a rate nobody else matched. The 2026 title wasn’t close. It was a statement.

The constructors’ race

Mercedes have the constructors’ championship in their hands with 652 points and 12 wins from 20 rounds. Ferrari sit second on 510 points with 2 wins. That’s a 142-point gap with three rounds remaining and a maximum of 110 points available per team across those rounds assuming both drivers score at the top end. Ferrari cannot overhaul Mercedes. The constructors’ title, like the drivers’, is effectively done. But the gap between second and fifth is still worth fighting over and that’s where the real team-level drama sits for the final three rounds.

Ferrari’s 510 points came largely from Hamilton and Leclerc both scoring consistently. Hamilton sits fourth in the drivers’ standings on 261 points and Leclerc fifth on 249. That’s 510 points combined, which matches the team total exactly. Both drivers contributed meaningfully. Hamilton’s single win and Leclerc’s single win gave Ferrari two race victories but the team’s real strength was accumulating podiums and top-five finishes in the races they didn’t win. The problem was Mercedes doing the same thing more often and with more wins attached.

Red Bull sit third in the constructors’ on 415 points with 3 wins. All three of those wins came from Verstappen. Isack Hadjar, in his debut season, added 122 points in the supporting role. That’s a reasonable haul from a rookie but it means Red Bull’s second car was scoring roughly half what Ferrari’s second car was scoring. That gap in the midfield driver contribution is the main reason Red Bull are 95 points behind Ferrari in the constructors’ standings despite Verstappen outscoring both Ferrari drivers individually.

McLaren are fourth on 398 points with 3 wins, all from Norris. Piastri’s 152 points is the weak link in that pairing. The 17-point gap between Red Bull and McLaren in the constructors’ standings means McLaren are still fighting to hold third or fourth depending on how the final three rounds go. A strong double-finish from Norris and Piastri could flip that. Red Bull need Hadjar to keep delivering. Below those four, RB F1 Team sit fifth on 114 points, Alpine sixth on 69 and the rest are fighting over scraps. Haas on 31, Audi on 28, Williams on 12 and Aston Martin on 7 are the teams who will be spending the winter rethinking their approaches rather than celebrating.

The podium picture

Behind Antonelli the fight for second in the drivers’ championship is genuinely tense. Verstappen holds it on 279 points but Russell is only 17 points behind him on 262. Hamilton is another point back on 261. Three drivers separated by 18 points with three rounds left. That’s a proper scrap. Any of those three could finish the season in second place and none of them can afford a retirement or a bad weekend.

Russell has been the most consistent of the three in the second half of the season. His 262 points from 20 rounds represents strong delivery in a car that was clearly the fastest on the grid for much of the year. The question about Russell has always been whether he can win when it matters most and in 2026 he answered it with three race wins. His gap to Antonelli is 128 points, which is the story of a team-mate who was very good but not quite at the level of a champion. That’s not a criticism. Antonelli was extraordinary.

Hamilton’s 261 points from Ferrari is one of the more interesting numbers in the standings. He’s fourth in the championship in his first season at Ferrari, one point behind his former Mercedes team-mate Russell. He won once and scored consistently enough to keep himself in the P2 conversation going into the final rounds. Leclerc on 249 points is 12 behind Hamilton within the same team. That intra-Ferrari battle has been close all season and it isn’t settled yet. Norris on 246 is only 3 points behind Leclerc, which means the P5 and P6 positions are still live too.

Piastri’s 152 points is the number that will generate the most debate over winter. He’s seventh in the standings, 94 points behind his McLaren team-mate Norris. Norris won three races. Piastri won none. The McLaren was fast enough to win races. Something hasn’t clicked for Piastri in 2026 the way it did in previous seasons and that gap to Norris will be scrutinised heavily. Hadjar at Red Bull on 122 points is a different story entirely. He’s a rookie delivering in a competitive car. His trajectory is upward. Piastri’s trajectory in 2026 has been flat.

Rookies and newcomers

Isack Hadjar has been the rookie of the season without much debate. Partnered with Verstappen at Red Bull, he’s scored 122 points across 20 rounds without a race win. That’s a strong return for a first full season in a top team. The pressure of sitting alongside a three-time world champion in a car that’s expected to fight for wins every weekend is significant. Hadjar handled it. He’s eighth in the championship, ahead of every driver outside the top four teams. Red Bull will be pleased with what they have.

Arvid Lindblad at RB F1 Team is the other name worth watching. He’s eleventh in the standings on 38 points, just 4 points behind his team-mate Liam Lawson who has 89 points. Wait, that gap is actually 51 points in Lawson’s favour, which is the honest read of how that pairing has gone. Lawson is the senior driver and he’s delivered more. But Lindblad at 38 points in his debut season in a midfield car is a reasonable foundation. He’s outscoring Pierre Gasly’s Alpine team-mate Franco Colapinto who has 27 points from the same number of rounds.

Colapinto at Alpine on 27 points is a tricky one to assess. He’s twelfth in the standings in a car that isn’t giving him much to work with. Gasly has 42 points from the same machinery which suggests the car is capable of scoring when everything goes right. Colapinto will need a stronger 2027 to cement his place on the grid. The Haas situation with Oliver Bearman, Esteban Ocon, Ryo Hirakawa and Rafael Camara rotating through the season has been chaotic enough that drawing conclusions about any individual is difficult. The team’s 31 points total tells its own story about a year spent firefighting rather than developing.

What is still up for grabs

The drivers’ title is done. Three rounds left and here’s what actually matters in those rounds.

The P2 fight in the drivers’ championship is the headline. Verstappen leads Russell by 17 points and Hamilton by 18 points. With 75 points maximum available to each driver across three rounds, any of those three can finish second in the world championship. Verstappen needs to keep scoring. Russell and Hamilton need him to have at least one bad weekend. It’s tight enough that a single retirement from Verstappen combined with a win from either Russell or Hamilton would flip the order. This is the most compelling storyline left in the season.

• Verstappen (279 pts) leads Russell (262 pts) by 17 points
• Hamilton (261 pts) is 18 points behind Verstappen
• Leclerc (249 pts) and Norris (246 pts) are fighting for P5
• Leclerc leads Norris by just 3 points

In the constructors’ standings, Red Bull on 415 points and McLaren on 398 points are separated by 17 points in the fight for third place. That gap is small enough to flip. McLaren need Piastri to step up alongside Norris. Red Bull need Hadjar to keep delivering points alongside Verstappen. Whoever secures third in the constructors’ championship will have something concrete to point to when 2027 contracts and budgets are discussed.

Further down, Alpine on 69 points are 38 clear of Haas on 31. Audi sit on 28 points just behind Haas. Williams on 12 and Aston Martin on 7 are fighting for pride more than position at this stage. Every point matters for prize money distribution and the final constructors’ order will shape how those teams approach the off-season financially. Three rounds isn’t much time but in a tight midfield it’s enough for things to move. The 2026 season has one chapter left and it’s worth watching.