Our beginner’s guide provides all you need to know about the Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship, explaining what it is, how it works and why it’s so important, as well as answering some frequently asked questions.
The Constructor’s Championship – or, to give it its proper title, the FIA Formula One World Championship for Constructors – is one of the two world championships contested in Formula 1. The F1 team with the most championship points at the end of the season becomes the world champions.
Each championship (the other being the coveted Drivers’ Championship) runs side-by-side during the season, and it’s the Constructors’ Championship that all F1’s teams are fighting for – that’s Alpine, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Haas, Kick Sauber, McLaren, Mercedes, RB, Red Bull and Williams in 2024.
Which title has more value is a matter of perspective. Understandably, the Drivers’ Championship better captures the imagination of the public and consumes most of the media attention – but for the majority of people working within those teams, the Constructors’ Championship remains the bigger prize, in both the literal and figurative sense.
When the first F1 world championship took place in 1950 it was only for drivers. The Constructors’ Championship didn’t come along until 1958. It’s had many scoring systems since then but the current iteration, used since 1991, is the most straightforward. Each team enters two cars at each race. All of the points scored across the season by both cars are added together, and this is the team’s points total in the Constructors’ Championship. Last season, the 575 points scored by Max Verstappen and the 285 points scored by Sergio Perez gave Red Bull a total of 860 points (ensuring they won the title).
It is important to note this is the aggregate of two cars, not two drivers. The Sporting Regulations allow each team to use up to four drivers across the season, and all of their points will count in the Constructors’ Championship. Thus, AlphaTauri in 2023 had Yuki Tsunoda drive the whole season, with Nyck de Vries, Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson sharing the other car. The Italian team finished eighth in the championship with 25 points – Tsunoda scoring 17, Ricciardo six and Lawson two.
The scoring system awards championship points for the first ten finishers at each Grand Prix, with 25 points for the winner, before scaling down to 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and a single point for the 10th-placed driver. There’s an additional point available for the driver with the fastest lap of the race (if they finish in the top ten), plus more points available for success in F1 Sprint races. The team with the most points at the end of the year wins the title. No end of season play-offs.
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