In Formula 1, points are awarded to the top 10 finishers of a Grand Prix — 25 for the win, then 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 — and to the top 8 finishers of a Sprint, on a smaller 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 scale. Those are the tables Formula 1’s own beginner’s guide to the F1 weekend publishes, and they are the whole system for the 2026 season: finishing position is the only thing that scores. There is no point for the fastest lap — that bonus existed from 2019 to 2024 and was removed from the 2025 season onwards, so any guide still awarding it in 2026 is a season or more out of date — and no points for pole position or qualifying. Every point a driver scores counts twice over, once for the Drivers’ Championship and once, added to their team-mate’s points, for the Constructors’ Championship. The only complication is a race that cannot run its full distance, where a sliding scale of reduced points replaces the old half-points rule.
| Position | Grand Prix points | Sprint points |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 25 | 8 |
| 2nd | 18 | 7 |
| 3rd | 15 | 6 |
| 4th | 12 | 5 |
| 5th | 10 | 4 |
| 6th | 8 | 3 |
| 7th | 6 | 2 |
| 8th | 4 | 1 |
| 9th | 2 | — |
| 10th | 1 | — |
| 11th and below | 0 | 0 |
Grand Prix points: the 25-point win
The scale above has been in place since 2010, and its shape is deliberate. The seven-point gap between first (25) and second (18) is the biggest single step on the table, so winning is rewarded far more than consistent second places; the gaps then narrow down the order, until the fight for the last point — 10th place, worth 1 — is often the most desperate battle on the track, precisely because 11th scores nothing. Across the top 10, a full-distance Grand Prix distributes 101 points in total.
Points are awarded on the classified finishing order. A driver who is running at the finish but outside the top 10 scores zero, and a retirement scores zero however long the car led. That cliff edge at 10th is why you will hear commentators call 10th “the last points-paying position” and treat a late pass for it as a result in itself. Nothing else about the afternoon adds to the tally: not pole position on Saturday, not laps led, and — since 2025 — not the fastest lap either.
Sprint points: the Saturday scale
On six weekends of the 2026 calendar, the programme includes a Sprint: a short race of about 100 kilometres, roughly a third of a Grand Prix distance, lasting around 30 minutes with no mandatory pit stops. Formula 1’s beginner’s guide to the F1 Sprint gives its table as 8 points for the winner down to 1 point for 8th, and states the format plainly: points are on offer, from eight down to one, awarded for the first eight cars to finish. Ninth in a Sprint scores nothing.
Sprint points are not a separate competition or a bonus scheme. They are ordinary championship points, added to exactly the same totals as Grand Prix points, for drivers and constructors alike. A driver who wins both the Sprint and the Grand Prix on the same weekend takes 33 points from that weekend — 8 plus 25 — which is the most any driver can score in one weekend under the 2026 rules. The Sprint itself distributes 36 points in total across its eight scorers, and the most a team can take from a whole Sprint weekend is 58: 15 from a Sprint one-two (8 + 7) plus 43 from a Grand Prix one-two (25 + 18). The six 2026 Sprint venues on Formula 1’s published calendar are Shanghai, Miami, Montreal, Silverstone, Zandvoort and Singapore. The Sprint result does not set the grid for the Grand Prix; Grand Prix qualifying is a separate session later on Saturday, so a Sprint win buys points, not position.
The fastest-lap point is gone — check the date on any guide that offers it
From 2019 through 2024, the driver who set the fastest lap of a Grand Prix earned one extra point, provided they finished inside the top 10. It produced a distinctive late-race tactic: a driver with a safe gap would pit for fresh tyres purely to chase the bonus, and — the flaw that finished the rule — a driver running outside the top 10, who could not score the point themselves, could pit and set the fastest lap purely to take it away from a championship contender. Formula 1’s own explanation of the change acknowledged exactly that: a car outside the top 10 could take the point away from another driver even though they were not going to score themselves, and with the bonus proving controversial, the decision was taken to remove it.
The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council ratified the removal in October 2024, and from the 2025 season onwards the fastest lap is worth zero championship points. It is still recorded, still shown in purple on the timing screens, and still talked about — it just pays nothing. The practical consequences for reading the standings are simple: the maximum from a Grand Prix is 25 points, not 26, and the maximum from a Sprint weekend is 33, not 34. Because the change is recent, a large share of the explainers still ranking for this topic describe the bonus in the present tense. If a guide awards a fastest-lap point without dating that claim to 2024 or earlier, treat the rest of its numbers as stale too — the same caution applies to older Sprint descriptions, since the format awarded points to only the top three in its first season and the table has since settled at the top-eight scale in Formula 1’s current Sprint guide.
Drivers’ points and constructors’ points are the same points
Formula 1 runs two championships off one set of results. The Drivers’ Championship is each driver’s own total across the season. The Constructors’ Championship is simply the sum of both drivers’ points for each team — there is no separate team scoring system, no bonus for a 1-2 finish beyond the points themselves, and no discounting of a weaker driver’s score. If one driver wins a Grand Prix (25) and their team-mate finishes fifth (10), the team banks 35 points from that race. The most a team can score from one Grand Prix is 43, for first and second (25 + 18); from a Sprint, 15, for first and second (8 + 7).
This is why a midfield team’s second driver matters commercially as much as competitively: constructors’ standings decide the championship order that prize money and other benefits follow, so points scored in 9th and 10th by a team’s lesser-known driver count in full toward the outcome the team is actually paid on. It is also why team orders appear late in a season — swapping two cars between, say, 6th and 7th changes neither team’s total, but swapping a driver into a win changes the drivers’ standings while leaving the constructors’ sum untouched only if the swap is between team-mates for positions whose points add to the same total either way.
If two drivers finish the season level on points, the title is settled by countback: the driver with more Grand Prix wins finishes ahead; if wins are level, second places are compared, then thirds, and so on until the tie breaks. Sprint results do not count in that countback — only Grand Prix finishing positions are used. The same countback principle separates tied constructors.
Shortened races: reduced points, not half points
Older guides will tell you a race stopped before 75 percent distance pays half points. That rule no longer exists. After the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix — where half points were awarded for a result declared after laps run entirely behind the safety car, with no racing laps completed — the FIA replaced it from 2022 with a sliding scale based on how much of the scheduled distance the leader has completed in genuine racing.
The current structure works in tiers:
- Fewer than two racing laps by the leader (two complete laps without a safety car or virtual safety car): no points at all.
- At least two racing laps, but under 25 percent of the scheduled distance: only the top 5 score — 6-4-3-2-1.
- 25 percent to under 50 percent: the top 9 score — 13-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.
- 50 percent to under 75 percent: the top 10 score, on a reduced scale — 19-14-12-9-8-6-5-3-2-1.
- 75 percent or more: full points, the standard 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1.
So “half points” survives only as a rough nickname for the middle tiers; the winner of a race stopped just past half distance takes 19 points, not 12.5, and a race abandoned very early can pay as little as 6 points to its winner — or nothing at all. The two-lap racing minimum is the direct legacy of Belgium 2021: laps behind the safety car alone no longer unlock any points. A race that is suspended and later resumed and run to a finish is scored on the distance actually completed under these same tiers.
How to read a championship table
With the tables above, any standings page decodes itself. A gap of under 25 points between two drivers is, by definition, within one Grand Prix win; a gap that grows by 7 points after a race where the leader finished second means their rival won it. On a Sprint weekend the swing can be larger — up to 33 points available — which is why Sprint weekends are marked on the calendar as the rounds where a championship lead can move fastest. And if you are comparing across seasons, keep the eras apart: results from 2019–2024 include fastest-lap bonus points in the totals, results from 2025 onwards do not, and pre-2010 seasons used entirely different scales, so a career points total mixes several systems.
Scoring systems that reward consistency in small increments work differently from winner-heavy ones — compare how NFL overtime rules settle a tied game outright rather than by accumulated points. For other scoring explainers on this site, pickleball rules covers a rally-scoring system where every rally can pay, and how long is a soccer game explains a sport where league points (three for a win) are awarded on an entirely separate table from the match itself.
Frequently asked questions
How many points do you get for winning an F1 race? 25 points for a Grand Prix win, and 8 points for winning a Sprint. Winning both on a Sprint weekend is worth 33 points in total — the maximum available from a single weekend in 2026.
Does the fastest lap still earn a point in F1? No. The bonus point ran from 2019 to 2024, for a fastest-lap driver finishing in the top 10. The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council removed it from the 2025 season onwards, and it remains absent in 2026. A fastest lap now earns nothing beyond the finishing-position points.
Do Sprint points count towards the championship? Yes, in full, towards both championships. A Sprint pays the top 8 finishers 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1, and those points are added to the same Drivers’ and Constructors’ totals as Grand Prix points — Formula 1’s Sprint format guide describes both drivers and teams scoring in the Sprint on that basis.
What are half points in F1? A retired rule. Until 2021, a race stopped before 75 percent distance paid half the standard points. Since 2022 the system is a sliding scale: nothing without two racing laps, then reduced scales (winner scoring 6, 13 or 19) up to the 75 percent threshold, above which full points are paid.
How are constructors’ points calculated? By addition only: each team’s total is the sum of the points scored by both of its drivers, in Grands Prix and Sprints combined. There is no separate team table or bonus.
What is the most a team can score in one weekend? 43 points from an ordinary Grand Prix weekend — a one-two finish, 25 + 18. On a Sprint weekend the ceiling is 58: the 43 above plus 15 from a one-two in the Sprint.
What happens if two drivers finish the season on equal points? Countback decides it: most Grand Prix wins first, then most second places, then thirds, continuing down the finishing positions until one driver is ahead.
This article describes the points system in force for the 2026 Formula 1 season, based on the FIA regulations as published and summarised by Formula 1’s official guides linked above, checked in November 2026. Points systems change between seasons — for a different season’s totals, use that season’s scale, particularly around the fastest-lap bonus, which applied from 2019 to 2024 only.