Red Bull Holds Third by 17 Points and Haas Leads Audi by Three

Both championships are wrapped up, and the best arithmetic left in the season sits in the middle of the constructors’ table. Red Bull is third and McLaren 17 points behind with three races to go, a gap that did not move in Brazil because both teams scored 33 points there. McLaren took a win and sixth place through Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri; Red Bull had Max Verstappen second from 21st on the grid and Isack Hadjar on the podium.

That is the headline fight, and there is another one below it. Haas is seventh on 31 points to Audi’s 28, a three-point margin between two teams whose seasons have been built on single points rather than podiums. Williams is ninth of the 11 teams, and Cadillac leaves Brazil still without a point in its first season.

Teams do not fight over this table for the bragging rights. Prize money is divided by finishing position, which is why upgrades keep appearing on cars in the final races of a season that has nothing sporting left in it, and why a single point from a driver nobody is watching can decide what lands in the account in February.

The drivers’ standings behind the champion are tighter still. Verstappen leads that group on 279 points, with George Russell on 262 and Lewis Hamilton on 261, which leaves a single point between third and fourth, and Charles Leclerc is fifth on 249. None of it changes the name of the champion, and all of it shapes what the last three weekends are for.

The remaining schedule leaves room for both fights. Las Vegas runs on 21 November, with Qatar on 29 November and Abu Dhabi on 6 December now confirmed to go ahead. Mercedes has the title with 652 points to Ferrari’s 510, so the only questions in that table are third place and the scrap for seventh.

Brazil showed how little a strong afternoon can change at this stage. Norris won from pole, Verstappen recovered from an engine penalty that put him 21st, Hadjar held third in the worst of the conditions, and the two teams left with identical hauls. Cadillac, in its first year, is still looking for a first point with three races left.