Who's up and who's down in Formula 1 - Part 2

Time to take stock in Formula 1, even though there are still two races to go to the end of the sport's longest ever season. The Drivers' title has already gone to Max Verstappen for the fourth consecutive time, but the Constructors' championship has yet to be decided with three teams, McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull still in the running. The Las Vegas Grand Prix was the 22nd round of the year, which is as many as made up all of last year's championship, so it's a good time to make a mathematical comparison between points scored over the past two seasons, regardless of what the final standings will look like on Sunday 8 December in Abu Dhabi.

When it comes to the driver who has improved the most from one year to the next, the victor's laurels go to Oscar Piastri who has almost tripled his points tally from 97 to 269, an increase of 171 points, which has moved him up from ninth to fourth place in the standings. Behind the Australian comes his team-mate Lando Norris, up by 135 points and from sixth to second place, while Ferrari's Charles Leclerc is third with a good score of +113, gaining one place from fourth to third, compared to 12 months ago.

Carlos Sainz also improved nicely (+59 but with one less race start than his colleagues) as has George Russell (+42).

Also worthy of note, when one considers how hard it is for the “little” teams to squeeze into the top ten, generally dominated by the top teams, is the progress made by the Haas pair (Nico Hulkenberg +26, Kevin Magnussen +11) and Yuki Tsunoda (+13).

Of the teams, McLaren has made huge strides, scoring 306 points more, almost double their 2024 total, as has Ferrari, up by 178. A further three teams have made progress: not so much in the case of Mercedes on +16 and the Anglo-German squad has also dropped two places from second to fourth in the Constructors' standings. There's a significant (+38 improvement) from Haas and Racing Bulls, up 21 from last year when it raced under the name of AlphaTauri.

Max Verstappen won't be losing any sleep over the fact that he is the driver who has recorded the biggest drop in points scored – 172 fewer than in 2023, as he still managed to achieve his goal, securing his fourth consecutive world championship title and probably took a bit more satisfaction from it, given that last year, his car's superiority was almost embarrassing, at least it was for his competitors. Max's first part of the season followed the trend of the previous year, but after the summer he stalled significantly as can be seen from the fact he scored 237 points from the first 11 races, but only 166 in the second eleven. From Silverstone to Las Vegas, the Red Bull driver was only fourth best in terms of points scored, even if he wasn't that far behind the leader of this particular list, Norris on 184.

Those who have the least to smile about in this comparison of the two seasons are Fernando Alonso (-144 points) and Sergio Perez (-133): for both of them, this year has really not been one to remember, to put it politely. Also going backwards are the two Alpine drivers (Pierre Gasly -36, Esteban Ocon -35) and Lance Stroll (-50).

Of the teams, Red Bull's raft of points dropped (305) stands out and curiously, that number is almost identical to the points gained by McLaren. Aston Martin also has a negative balance in the points bank (-194) and Alpine hasn't done much to shout about, down by 71 points.