The points system
Points are given to the top 10 finishers in every Grand Prix and the top eight in every sprint. The same points count twice: once for the driver, towards the Drivers' Championship, and once for their team, towards the Constructors' Championship.
Grand Prix points
| Position | Points |
|---|---|
| 1st | 25 |
| 2nd | 18 |
| 3rd | 15 |
| 4th | 12 |
| 5th | 10 |
| 6th | 8 |
| 7th | 6 |
| 8th | 4 |
| 9th | 2 |
| 10th | 1 |
Finishing 11th or lower scores nothing. Those places still matter, though, because they're used to separate drivers and teams on equal points. See how ties are broken.
Sprint points
| Position | Points |
|---|---|
| 1st | 8 |
| 2nd | 7 |
| 3rd | 6 |
| 4th | 5 |
| 5th | 4 |
| 6th | 3 |
| 7th | 2 |
| 8th | 1 |
There are six sprint weekends in 2026.
The most you can score
| Driver | Team (both cars) | |
|---|---|---|
| Normal weekend | 25 | 43 (1st and 2nd) |
| Sprint weekend | 33 | 58 (1st and 2nd in both) |
What you need to score
A driver has to be classified to score points. That means completing at least 90% of the laps the winner completed, rounded down. A driver who retires late in the race can still be classified, and score, if they'd already done enough laps. It's common to see a car parked by the side of the track listed in 10th.
If a driver is disqualified, they lose any points from that result, and everyone behind moves up a place.
If two cars genuinely tie for a position, which is very unlikely with timing to the thousandth of a second, the points for the places they share are added together and split equally.
Races that end early
Full points are only given if the leader completes at least 75% of the planned race distance. If a race is cut short, a reduced scale is used, and if fewer than two laps are run without a safety car, nobody scores at all. The scales are set out on the shortened races page.
No more fastest lap point
From 2019 to 2024, the driver who set the fastest lap of the race earned 1 extra point, as long as they finished in the top 10. It was dropped from 2025. The bonus had led to some odd tactics: drivers pitting near the end for fresh tyres just to chase it, and teams using a driver outside the top 10 to take the fastest lap away from a rival's title contender.
How the system has changed
The points have changed many times since 1950. Some recent versions:
| Years | Points from 1st down |
|---|---|
| 1991 to 2002 | 10, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 (top six) |
| 2003 to 2009 | 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (top eight) |
| 2010 onwards | 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1 (top ten) |
Because the scale has grown, modern drivers score many more points than older champions did. That makes comparing career points totals across eras misleading. Win counts or championships are a fairer comparison.
One season had a twist: in 2014, the final race in Abu Dhabi paid double points. It was widely disliked and only used once.
Until 1990, drivers could only count their best results from a set number of races and had to drop the rest. Since 1991, every result counts.