There are six weekends remaining in the Formula 1 season, and perhaps the best battle on the grid is the battle for not first but sixth in constructor standings.
At the end of the season, the 10 F1 teams are paid by constructor standings. It is not a situation like other championships, such as NASCAR, where payments are doled out to owners by where each individual car finishes in points.
The common adage is that there are only two positions in driver standings: first and everybody else. Constructor standings are where everything matters for 80%-90% of the grid in any given season.
At the start of the season, F1 had a bit of an issue. There were, and are, four upper-tier teams that are expected to have both drivers finish in points every race: Red Bull Racing, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes. Add in an Aston Martin team that is the only true mid-tier team this season, and points are very hard to come by.
Theoretically, all five of those teams should occupy the ten points-paying positions every weekend. In practice, Aston Martin has been too inconsistent, with Fernando Alonso finishing out of points from time to time, depending on the track, and Lance Stroll having only six finishes in the points on the year.
Add in retirements or other issues, and the lower field has actually had a chance or two to accumulate points. Let’s take a look at all four of them and preview this final push on the season.
Sauber: No points, no hope
The biggest joke in F1 right now, by far. The team is essentially in a holding pattern as it waits for 2026, when it can be reborn as a works Audi team. Until then, it’s a green clown show.
Neither Valtteri Bottas nor Zhou Guanyu have gotten anywhere near points this year. This team has been so bad, they have a former double digit race winner in Bottas that is dead last in driver standings. 22nd in a series with 20 drivers in every race. He will almost certainly finish below F2 driver Oliver Bearman, former F2 driver Franco Colapinto, and fired Williams driver Logan Sargeant.
They are not as far off as, say, Haas was in 2021, but don’t expect them to be a factor in any way for the rest of the season.
The Battle for Eighth
Alpine is also a mess, but unlike Sauber, they’ve found enough speed not to be in the basement. Esteban Ocon is firmly in lame-duck mode, but he’s at least managed to put five points on the board. Pierre Gasly’s eight gives the French team 13 and ninth in the…
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