The F1 points system explained

Grand Prix points

Championship points in Formula 1 go to the top ten finishers in a Grand Prix, on a sliding scale that rewards winning far more than it rewards a solid points finish. The gap between first and second is deliberately large, which is why a driver with more wins can lead a championship over a rival who finishes second more often.

1st

25 points

2nd

18 points

3rd

15 points

4th

12 points

5th

10 points

6th

8 points

7th

6 points

8th

4 points

9th

2 points

10th

1 point

Sprint points

Sprints award a smaller set of points to the leading finishers, on a much shallower scale than a Grand Prix. The intent is to make the sprint worth contesting without letting it distort the championship, so winning a sprint is worth meaningfully less than winning a Grand Prix.

Sprint points count towards both championships in exactly the same way as Grand Prix points. They are simply added to the total.

Two championships, one set of results

Every point a driver scores counts twice: once towards the drivers championship, and once towards their team constructors total. A team constructors score is the sum of what both of its drivers score, which is why a team with two consistently strong drivers can out-score a team with one exceptional driver and one struggling one.

This is also why teams sometimes make decisions that look strange from a single driver perspective. Protecting a constructors position is worth real money in prize distribution, and it can outweigh an individual driver interest late in a season.

Ties and classification

When two drivers finish a season on the same number of points, the tie is broken by countback: whoever has more wins takes the higher position. If they are still level, it goes to the count of second places, then third, and so on until the tie resolves.

A driver must also be classified to score. In practice that means completing enough of the race distance, so a car that retires very late can still be classified and can still score, while an early retirement cannot.

How this differs from predicting

It is worth being clear that Formula 1 championship points and Grand Prix Picks points are entirely separate systems. F1 rewards where a driver finishes. A prediction game rewards how accurately you called it.

That distinction matters when you are choosing picks. Backing the championship leader in every slot is not a strategy, because you are not scored on how good your drivers are. You are scored on how close your predicted order is to the real one, which means the interesting decisions are almost always in positions three to five rather than at the front.