Will Mercedes hold its lead to win Formula 1's 2026 team title?

As the Formula 1 season nears its finale, Mercedes is defending a points lead that now looks close to unbreakable. After the Spanish Grand Prix in Madrid on September 13, 2026, it holds 503 points to Ferrari's 358, leaving McLaren and Red Bull behind on 306 and 230.

To close a 145-point gap, Ferrari would need to outscore Mercedes by 16.11 points in each of the remaining nine races. Simply put, Ferrari has to finish first and second in every one of them while Mercedes settles for third and fourth. The thing is, Ferrari has missed that result all season. It has not scored a single one-two in 14 races, and no team in the sport's history has put nine together in a row.

A Grand Prix pays 25 points for a win, 18 for second and down to 1 for tenth, so the most a team can take from one race is 43. Nine races plus the Singapore sprint on October 11 leave 402 points on the table. Even if, due to some miraculous circumstances, Ferrari takes a one-two against a Mercedes third and fourth, thus capturing a 16-point lead, it would still be behind. Only the sprint gets it over the line, by three points.

And third and fourth is the generous version. Over the last five rounds, Mercedes has averaged 34.0 points per race to Ferrari's 20.6, which is a win and a fifth place every weekend against a fourth and a sixth. Beating Mercedes won’t be easy, especially when Kimi Antonelli and George Russell sit first and second in the drivers' championship on 292 and 211 points. 

Additionally, Mercedes has not retired a car in six races, while Ferrari has lost two in that stretch:

• Charles Leclerc on the opening lap at Monza
• Lewis Hamilton to brake failure on lap six in Madrid

At the end of the day, everything points to Mercedes winning. On Polymarket, the contract is already at 96.5¢, so a win pays about 3.6%, roughly 16% annualized, for a result that is all but decided.