There are four grand prizes left to finish the season, a loot of 30 million dollars and four opponents: Racing Bulls, Aston Martin, Haas and Sauber.
The 2025 Formula 1 constructors’ championship is already decided in favor of McLaren, but a fierce fight remains to be fought between these four teams with a large check for the winner. For Williams to lose fifth place now, it would require a monumental collapse, in the same way that Alpine would need an almost impossible transformation to stop being the worst team in F1, but between the two There are four teams separated by just 12 points in a battle that has been blown wide open thanks to Ollie Bearman’s incredible fourth place finish in Mexico.
Every position in the championship awards nearly 10 million dollars in prizes, according to the specialized media report The Race, a sum that can make a difference for any team in the middle zone of the grid.
After the race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Racing Bulls remains in that coveted 6th place with 72 points, but is closely followed by Aston Martín (69), Haas (62) and Sauber (60). For his part, Williams is on track to finish in fifth place among the Constructors: he has 111 points.
The Haas breakthrough
Haas’s transformation is key to all of this: it went from a team that lagged at the back of the grid in the first race of the season, to a team with a fast car that couldn’t translate into points, to now becoming a team that has proven it can compete at the front of F1’s ultra-competitive middle pack and get a great result when the top four teams falter. Manager Ayao Komatsu explained that the team had been losing points all over the place due to the wrong mentality, but the arrival of Bearman and its recent streak of three straight races in the points, including its best performance in Formula 1 in Mexico (4th place), propelled Haas from ninth to eighth place.
Komatsu attributes this progress to a change in mentality: Bearman shows better judgment in knowing when to push the car to the limit and drives more moderately, while the team as a whole focuses on executing each session correctly and not getting carried away by the championship fight in which it has suddenly found itself immersed.
Racing Bulls leads this very even group, but their recent performance is worrying, as they currently have three races without points. Their worst streak of the season has allowed Aston Martin, Haas and Sauber to close the gap.
Lately, his qualifying performance hasn’t been a problem. Isack Hadjar has reached Q3 in two of the last three grands prix, including Mexico last weekend. However, his race there began to go wrong on the first lap when he had a mishap in Turn 6 and lost three positions. Finally, he gave up tenth place to Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto in the final laps. While his difficulties in the final stint were partly due to having to use used soft tyres, he has also signaled a trend towards a lower race pace than qualifying.
With no major improvements in sight, this increases the pressure on Racing Bulls to find ways to increase their race pace if they are to have any chance of maintaining sixth place.
The great fiasco of F1
According to the analysis carried out by The Race, Aston Martin is the only team in this group that should easily be in the top five of the championshipinstead of clinging to seventh place by a handful of points. Given the resources at its disposal, this team is performing well below its potential. Part of this is no doubt due to a certain indifference towards this season compared to the long-term outlook. The focus has mainly been on 2026 and the new rules, with the aim of putting star manager Adrian Newey in the best position to get the most out of them.
The work done on this year’s car has focused more on calibrating tools and methods for next season and beyond, treating any improvements in performance as more of a secondary mission than a primary goal.
“We have deliberately not invested many resources in this year’s car,” said Andy Cowell, Aston Martin’s chief executive and team boss. But even so, according to Alonso, Aston Martin has underperformed practically all of 2025. Lance Stroll’s contribution, although significant in percentage terms, was not enough to compensate for the car’s technical difficulties.
Sauber’s fight
Sauber achieved significant technical evolution throughout the season. The C45 single-seater, initially unstable and difficult to handle, improved after a series of updates, becoming a regular threat to the rest in the fight for scoring places. However, the team continues to face challenges in qualifying, with just four appearances in Q3, the lowest among the contenders in this group. Gabriel Bortoleto showed in Mexico that the car has the potential to make up positions, while Nico Hulkenberg achieved a podium in Silverstone thanks to a successful strategy in the rain. Team boss Jonathan Wheatley is confident that improving one-lap pace is possible, which could make Sauber a force to be reckoned with in the remaining four events when the other major battle for the F1 championship is decided.
Which drivers are making the difference?
In this battle, the pilots will be worth their weight in gold, literally. Bearman’s surprising fourth-place finish moved Haas up from ninth to eighth place. Bearman weighs 78 kilos; At the current price, that’s equivalent to about $10 million in gold, which is pretty close to what a team earns by moving up a spot in the championship.
Given the very even performance of the four teams in this group, the execution of both the team and the driver could be the deciding factor.
The points that contribute to the fight for 30 million:
1º Hulkenberg – 41
2º Hadjar – 39
3rd Alonso – 37
4th Bearman – 32
5º Stroll – 32
6º Lawson* – 30
7º Ocon – 30
8th Bortoleto – 19
A look at the points classification of the drivers of those four teams allows us to distinguish two groups, with a leader in each: Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber, Hadjar of Racing Bulls, Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin and Bearman of Haas complete the top four places. However, The fight between the Haas and Aston Martin drivers is very close, although Lance Stroll has accumulated five consecutive weekends without scoring.
In his report, The Race emphasizes that, in such an even group, both the team’s execution and the talent of the drivers can tip the balance in an exciting battle that will last four more rounds.
Worth a look
