The Drivers' Championship
The Drivers' Championship is the title most people mean when they talk about the Formula 1 world champion. It goes to the driver with the most points at the end of the season, adding up every Grand Prix and every sprint. It has been awarded every year since the first championship in 1950.
How it's decided
There's nothing more to it than the points total. Each driver scores points from their own results using the standard points system, and the driver with the most at the end of the last race is champion.
A few details are worth knowing:
- Every result counts. Drivers can't drop their worst races. Retirements, disqualifications and missed races all score zero.
- Points follow the driver. If a driver changes team during the season, they keep the points they've already scored.
- Stand-ins score for themselves. If a reserve driver replaces someone for a race, the points go to the reserve driver's own total, not to the driver they replaced. Both drivers' points still count for the team.
- Ties are broken on results. If two drivers finish level on points, the one with more wins is ahead, then more second places, and so on. See how ties are broken.
Clinching the title
A driver clinches the championship once nobody else can mathematically catch them. To work this out, take the points still available in the remaining races and sprints (25 for each Grand Prix and 8 for each sprint), and see whether any rival could get past even if they won everything left and the leader scored nothing.
Because of the tie-break rule, it isn't quite as simple as a points gap. If two drivers could finish level, the title would go to whoever had the better run of results, so a leader can sometimes clinch a little earlier or later than the raw numbers suggest.
When a season is dominated by one driver, the title can be settled with several races to spare. In close years, it goes down to the final race.
Some famous finishes
- 1984: Niki Lauda beat Alain Prost by half a point, the smallest margin ever. Half points had been given at a rain-shortened Monaco Grand Prix earlier that year.
- 2008: Lewis Hamilton won by one point after passing Timo Glock on the final lap of the final race in Brazil.
- 2010: Sebastian Vettel took his first title at the last race in Abu Dhabi without having led the standings at any point before it.
- 2021: Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton went into the final race level on points. Verstappen won the race and the title after a contested safety car restart on the last lap.
Records
Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton share the record for the most titles, with seven each. Juan Manuel Fangio won five in the 1950s, a record that stood for almost 50 years.
Losing points
In very rare cases, a driver can be thrown out of the championship. In 1997, Michael Schumacher was disqualified from the whole season's standings after deliberately driving into Jacques Villeneuve in the title decider at Jerez. He kept his race wins, but lost his second place in the championship.
More often, a driver loses the points from a single race after being disqualified, usually for a technical problem with the car found after the race.