Can Max Verstappen still win the 2026 F1 title from 147 points back: every result he needs

Max Verstappen's ceiling for the 2026 season is 378 points. He is sixth on 145 with no win in fourteen rounds, 147 behind Andrea Kimi Antonelli. To reach that 378 he has to take every point still on offer to a driver, which means winning the next nine grands prix and the Singapore sprint. Nine wins alone puts him on 370, eight short.

Every number here is computed from results through the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, September 13, the fourteenth of twenty-three rounds, as of the September 20 update. No round has been run since. Nine grands prix and one sprint remain, which is 233 points available to any driver. None of this is a forecast.

The 233 is larger than his 147-point gap by 86, and that is the only reason the arithmetic has not removed him. In a points championship the elimination line is simple: you are out when your ceiling falls below the leader's total. Verstappen has 86 points of room against that line and none at all against the title, because 378 is 145 plus every point remaining. There is no clinch number beside his name today, and there cannot be one while any rival can still finish above 378. A clinch number is the minimum a driver has to score to be certain of the title even if every rival takes everything left, and 233 is not that. It is the entry fee to a scenario that then depends entirely on other people.

Start paying it and the field behind him changes shape. If Verstappen wins all nine grands prix and the sprint, nobody else can win any of them, so a rival's best remaining result is second every time. That is nine times eighteen plus seven for the sprint, or 169 points. Added to today's totals: Antonelli 461, George Russell 380, Lewis Hamilton 360, Lando Norris 355, Charles Leclerc 336. Hamilton, Norris and Leclerc cannot reach 378 in a season Verstappen wins out, and neither can Oscar Piastri on 289 or Isack Hadjar on 240. Two men are left to beat.

Antonelli is the first and he is the hard one. He has to be held to 86 of the 169 still within his reach, which is an average below a fifth place. Sixth in all nine grands prix plus second in the sprint leaves him on 371, inside the cap. Fifth in all nine leaves him on 382 before the sprint is even run, outside it. Russell is the second and he is a single result away: his 380 is two points clear of Verstappen's ceiling, so one third place instead of a second puts him on 377 and settles it. Dropping a place in the sprint does not, because that leaves him on 379. The one mercy in the scenario is that only one driver finishes second in any given race, so Antonelli and Russell cannot both reach their ceilings.

A level finish is not a loss for him. Our engine treats a dead heat as unresolved rather than a clinch, so 378 against 378 does not take the title away from Verstappen, and F1's own countback breaks a points tie on race wins, where he would hold nine to Antonelli's eight. That is the one place the rule falls his way. What the wins column says today is worth stating plainly all the same: fourteen rounds, zero wins, against a leader with eight.

The ceiling itself is the number to watch, because it only goes down. Score nothing at Baku and 378 becomes 353. Nothing in Malaysia and it is 328. Blank the Singapore weekend, grand prix and sprint together, and it is 295, still three points above the 292 Antonelli holds today. One more blank at Austin and it is 270, under that mark. Even a strong result costs him the top line: second at Baku leaves a ceiling of 371, which tightens the cap on Antonelli from 86 points to 79. His team has the same shape one level up, and looser. Red Bull is fourth on 230 points, 273 behind Mercedes, with a ceiling of 632 against Mercedes' current 503, and no grand prix win this season either.

Round 15 is at the Baku City Circuit on Saturday, September 26, and it is the first checkpoint. The first grand prix he does not win deletes the 378 version of the season outright. He cannot be eliminated there, whatever happens: Antonelli winning takes the leader to 317, still under a 353 ceiling. Round 16 at Sepang on October 4 is where it can end. Two Antonelli wins with Verstappen scoring nothing puts the leader on 342 against a ceiling of 328, and the arithmetic closes. October 11 is Marina Bay, round 17, carrying the last sprint of the year, which is the eight points Verstappen needs on top of the nine wins. Austin follows on October 25. Red Bull's own ceiling holds longer: three blank rounds drop it to 488, below Mercedes' present 503, and every point Mercedes takes pulls that forward.

How to read these numbers. A clinch or magic number is the minimum a driver still has to score to be certain of the title even if every rival takes everything left on the table. A tragic number is its mirror, the point at which the outcome becomes impossible even if you take everything left yourself, and in a points championship that line is just the gap measured against the 233 still available, with Verstappen sitting 86 points inside it. Ties are counted against the driver trying to clinch rather than the one chasing, so our clinch can trail an official announcement by a round, and F1 rounds are a week or more apart. Verstappen's own page is at (/f1/driver/max_verstappen), Red Bull's at (/f1/team/red_bull), Antonelli's at, the live tables at, the remaining rounds at and the working behind every figure at.