As Formula 1 has just finished Round 21, the Brazilian Grand Prix at the Interlagos Circuit on Sunday, November 9, we have only three rounds left in the 2025 season: the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Qatar Grand Prix, and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Upon the return from the summer break, there have been major shifts in the Driver and Constructor Standings. Here are the storylines to follow while watching these last few races.
World Drivers Championship
Lando Norris (British driver for McLaren Racing) has extended his lead to 24 points over his teammate Oscar Piastri (Australian driver for McLaren Racing) with another outstanding performance this weekend in Brazil. In taking home his 7th win in his 2025 season campaign, Norris called this round “a perfect weekend” in the post-race interview with ESPN F1. This has been a late-season turnaround for Norris, as he was 34 points behind Piastri after his retirement in Zandvoort at the end of August.
Since early into the 2025 F1 season, McLaren has dominated with their successful car design, the MCL39. They’ve had record-breaking performances with 14 wins and 31 podiums, securing the World Constructors’ Championship (WCC), and have led their two drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, in a title fight for their first World Drivers’ Championship (WDC). After Norris started the year strong in Australia, Piastri quickly started winning back-to-back races, allowing him to take the lead five rounds in at Saudi Arabia. Norris has been behind Piastri until Round 20 at the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Piastri was the favorite to win this championship by a substantial margin after the Dutch Grand Prix. Despite this, Piastri has had a series of poor results, which, combined with Norris’s turnaround, allowed Norris to overtake Piastri in Mexico City in just five races. With only three races left, Norris expressed that he is not thinking about the Championship as “There is a long way to go. It can change so quickly. I will focus on myself, keep my head down, ignore everyone, and keep pushing.” (ESPN F1)
With the two Papayas (the McLaren drivers) at war, 4-time world champion Max Verstappen (Dutch driver for Red Bull Racing) has made himself a wildcard for the WDC. At the United States Grand Prix, Round 19, he brought himself closer than ever to the prior championship leader, Oscar Piastri, at 40 points. Two rounds later, he sits 49 points away from Lando Norris; he would need to have near-perfect performances and some misfortune for McLaren, making the title harder to achieve. When asked about his chances of winning the Drivers’ Championship in a press conference during the US GP, Verstappen replied, “It’s 50/50…you either win it or you don’t,” implying the uncertainty ahead. But, he says, “we [the team and himself] just need to try to deliver these weekends to the end of the year.”
McLaren are not expecting a strong weekend in Las Vegas, given the two long straights and high-speed corners, as the MCL39 struggles on the straights while specializing in the medium-speed corners. Qatar and Abu Dhabi, the last two rounds, steer towards the MCL39’s specialties. This will challenge Verstappen to catch up to the Papayas.
2nd Place for the World Constructors Championship
McLaren locked in first place for the 2025 World Constructors’ Championship at Singapore this year. Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull are left to battle it out for the second-place spot in the WCC as they have throughout the season. Since the summer break, these teams have been experiencing performance swings, where one weekend one team performs well and another team performs poorly. Ferrari and Mercedes both have their two drivers who consistently score inside the points (Top 10), and Red Bull relies on Max Verstappen to score the majority of their points. Verstappen’s teammate, Yuki Tsunoda, has only contributed 28 out of the 366 points Red Bull has scored.
Every round, the swing typically falls between Ferrari and Mercedes, while Red Bull commonly falls in the middle. In Austin, Red Bull obtained 46 points; Ferrari scored 36 points; while Mercedes earned only 16 points. Ferrari was in second place, following Mercedes and then Red Bull, before the São Paulo. After Mercedes scored 43 points, Red Bull scored 20, and Ferrari managed only to score 6 points through the Sprint Race as both cars DNF’d in the Grand Prix due to racing incidents. This allowed Mercedes to take second place, and Red Bull passed by 4 points to take third, leaving Ferrari in fourth.
The difference between second and third place is millions of dollars. Last year, first-place constructors McLaren took home an estimated $140 million, about 14% of the prize pool, while Sauber took home $60 million for finishing last, according to Motor Sport Magazine. Points reflect a driver’s success, and the more points, podiums, and wins they have, the more bonuses they receive and the higher their base salary becomes. In 2024, Max Verstappen, the WDC champion, received around $15 million in bonuses on top of his base salary of $65 million, surpassing the 7x World Champion Lewis Hamilton (British driver for Ferrari), making Verstappen the most valuable driver on the grid.
The Midfield Battle
Similar to the larger budget constructors, a similar constructor battle is happening in the midfield. The midfield typically picks up the lower set of points rather than challenging for wins. Williams has secured fifth place in the constructor standings, leaving open the battle for sixth place. Currently, Racing Bulls holds the position with 82 points, followed by the other three midfield teams: Sauber, Haas, and Aston Martin, with only 20 points separating sixth from ninth. With Alpine out of contention with their disappointing season, it leaves these four teams to battle it out.
The midfield, as well, has had performance swings throughout the 2025 season, where one team holds the lead and a few races later, another takes its place. In rounds 16-20, Racing Bulls failed to score a single point, allowing some teams to catch up. In the past two races in São Paulo and Mexico City, Oliver Bearman (British driver for Haas) has scored 26 points with his P4 and P6 finishes, resulting from the upgrades during the US Grand Prix, giving Haas major points needed to stay in the battle. Bearman has emphasized “We are a team[…]at this stage,” adding later that he does not care where he stands in the Drivers’ Championship (Motorsport Week). Sauber had suffered a poor start to the 2025 season, as they only managed to score 6 points in the first eight rounds. With their upgrade package, they were able to climb steadily up the ladder and are currently in ninth. Similarly, Aston Martin had a slow start at the beginning of the season, but were able to capitalize in certain races such as Hungary and the Netherlands, where they scored a combined total of 26 points. Currently, they sit in seventh place, only 10 points behind Racing Bulls.
This money matters for the Constructors, as it is directly reinvested in their projects for the following years and can be reflected in employees’ salaries. Slight advantages, such as the choice of pit-lane garage, can be beneficial for their on-track performance. The difference between two places, even if it’s 5th and 6th or 2nd and 3rd, can be the reason a constructor’s car is underdeveloped, which can put them at a disadvantage in the following year. As we head into the triple-header starting with Round 22, the Las Vegas Grand Prix, these teams will race to the limit for the 339 available points in the final 3 races, including one sprint race in Qatar.
