F1 2026 eliminated drivers and the fight for seventh: five teams inside 21 points

Oliver Bearman has scored 18 points this season. Four of the eleven teams in the championship have scored fewer than that in total: Audi on 17, Williams on 11, Aston Martin on 3 and Cadillac on 0. Bearman's own team, Haas, is seventh on 21. That is the entire back of the constructors' table, five teams covered by 21 points, with 402 still available to every one of them.

Every number here is computed through the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, September 13, the fourteenth of twenty-three rounds. Nothing has been run since, and the next race is at Baku on September 26. Nine grands prix and one sprint remain, which is 402 points for a team and 233 for a driver.

Fourteen of the twenty-three drivers can no longer win the championship, and those fourteen have 152 points between them for the whole season. A single driver can still score 233 from what is left. Ten of the fourteen are on ten points or fewer, and nine of those ten drive for the five teams fighting over seventh in the constructors'. Because F1 has no relegation, elimination closes the championship for them and nothing else. What is left at the back is position.

Seven of the eleven teams are out of the constructors' championship too, and the gap explains itself. Mercedes has 503 points. The highest final total any eliminated team can reach is RB's 479, then Alpine 470, Haas 423, Audi 419, Williams 413, Aston Martin 405 and Cadillac 402. Mercedes could leave both cars in the garage for the rest of the year and still finish above all seven. Those seven hold 197 points between them, fewer than the 230 Red Bull has on its own in fourth.

Haas is seventh on 21 points, Audi eighth on 17, Williams ninth on 11, Aston Martin tenth on 3 and Cadillac eleventh on 0. Twenty-one points cover the five of them, and each can still score 402. Their combined season total is 52, less than Alpine's 68 on its own in sixth. First and second in a single grand prix is worth 43 points to a constructor, more than twice the spread, so one weekend can reorder the whole group.

The totals behind those five positions are thin. Haas's 21 is Bearman on 18 and Esteban Ocon on 3. Audi's 17 is Gabriel Bortoleto on 10 and Nico Hülkenberg on 7. Williams's 11 is Carlos Sainz on 6 and Alexander Albon on 5. Aston Martin's 3 is all Fernando Alonso's, with Lance Stroll on zero. Cadillac's 0 is Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez, both still on zero after fourteen rounds. Above them, RB is fifth on 77 and Alpine sixth on 68, nine apart, and Cadillac would need 78 of its 402 to pass the total RB holds today.

Pushed to its limit, the arithmetic at this end of the table starts saying things it cannot support. Cadillac's ceiling of 402 is higher than every constructor total on the board except Mercedes' 503, Ferrari's 358 included, which reads as though eleventh could still finish second. It cannot. Cadillac only reaches 402 by taking first and second in all nine grands prix and in the sprint, and a grand prix pays out 101 points in all, so every weekend that hands Cadillac 43 hands 58 to the rest of the grid. Across the nine grands prix and the sprint that is 543 points going to other teams, and Ferrari needs 44 of them to reach 402 itself and hold the place on the tie. The useful version of the number is narrower: 77 points separate fifth from eleventh and 402 are still available to each of them, so nothing from fifth down is decided.

Baku on September 26 takes 43 of the 402 off every constructor's remaining total and 25 off a driver's 233, and with five teams inside 21 points, one result there can reorder seventh to eleventh by itself. The weekend to mark is October 11 at Marina Bay, which carries the only sprint left this season, worth 15 points to a team and 8 to a driver. It is the one occasion before the end of the year when a team at the back can bank points without a grand prix result going its way. Watch Aston Martin and Cadillac first: three points separate tenth from eleventh, and between them they do not have a driver who has scored more than three points all year.

A note on the terms. A clinch number is what a team still has to score to guarantee a finishing position even if every rival takes everything left; the tragic number is its mirror, the point at which that position is out of reach even if the team takes everything left itself. In F1 both come from the same comparison, the gap measured against what remains, 402 for a team and 233 for a driver. A tie is counted against the team trying to climb, so our figures can trail an official announcement by a round. The live tables are at, the remaining rounds at, each team's own numbers at and, Bearman's at, and the full working at.