Alex Albon leads the Formula 1 world championship for Williams with a 39-point advantage over season-long rival Isack Hadjar, but two wily veterans have closed the gap dramatically in recent races to create what could yet become an epic title fight.
That’s quite the narrative, and while it’s a fictional one it is one rooted in reality. It’s what happens when you create a ‘Class B’ championship that discounts the results of the top four teams – McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull – to reimagine the season without them. This is achieved by awarding points to the other six teams based on their finishing order in the 14 grands prix and three sprints.
How that fictional season would’ve played out so far puts the huge swings of F1’s 2025 midfield battle in sharp focus.
Albon’s win in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix set the tone, although in the early stages of the season Williams was helped by too many missed opportunities for early pacesetter Racing Bulls, which took pole position for all of the first four races, including the China sprint.
Yuki Tsunoda initially set the pace, taking pole in Australia and leading until being left out too long when the rain returned. That dropped him to fifth, with Lance Stroll and Nico Hulkenberg gaining from perfectly-timed pitstops to bag second and third place for Aston Martin and Sauber.
Tsunoda bounced back from that with victory from pole in the China sprint, only to miss out again in the main race and drop to 10th thanks to Racing Bulls being flat-footed on strategy. That left him on 19 points after the first two events, well behind leader Albon’s 48, although his challenge ended when he was promoted to Red Bull Racing and out of the Class B title universe.
Despite Esteban Ocon taking Haas’s sole grand prix victory in China (although he later won the Spa sprint), it was then left to Hadjar to take up the challenge. His victory in Japan, after a patchy start in which he managed just 11 points and crashed out in Australia before the race even started, was the real starting point for his title challenge.
During this spell, Albon was solid, racking up second places in China and Japan. Poor qualifying in Bahrain restricted him to a recovery drive for fourth while Pierre Gasly won for Alpine. That proved to be the only win of the season so far for Alpine, which had been hailed as one of the favourites after a strong performance in testing.
Williams then took a hat-trick of wins with Carlos Sainz winning in Saudi Arabia, then Albon taking back-to-back triumphs in Miami and Emilia Romagna, interrupted only by Stroll taking Aston Martin’s first win in the Miami sprint.
Hadjar hung in there with third places in Saudi Arabia, Miami and at Imola, before taking his second win of the season in Monaco ahead of Ocon. After eight races and two sprints, Albon led Hadjar by 162 points to 121 with nobody else in triple figures.
That’s when the story of the season swung dramatically. Albon failed to score in Spain, Canada and Austria as Williams started to struggle thanks to a combination of rivals bringing upgrades, on-track mishaps and reliability problems.
This should have been to Hadjar’s benefit, as in the first race of this run in Spain he finished second to close the gap to just 23 points. His form, too, then suffered with just 23 points scored in the run of five races before the August break.
Meanwhile, others hit their stride. Aston Martin’s Alonso and Sauber’s Hulkenberg managed only 54 and 50 points respectively across the first 10 events, around one-third of Albon’s total. However, they were by some margin the highest scorers of the final seven races, a phase during which Albon and Hadjar managed just 41 points apiece.
Hulkenberg won in Spain after a late tyre change under the safety car, allowing him to pass Hadjar for victory in the closing stages. Then Alonso got in on the act by taking his first win of the season in Canada ahead of Hulkenberg. After Liam Lawson’s Austria win for Racing Bulls, Hulkenberg triumphed again in Britain.
In the double-header before the August break, an upgrade for Williams allowed Albon to return to the top step at Spa. There, Alonso and Aston Martin struggled badly, only to bounce back a few days later with victory at the Hungaroring.
This sets up an intriguing second half of the championship with Sauber and Aston Martin on the rise and Williams and Racing Bulls potentially struggling. While Albon still has a commanding lead on 203 points, 39 clear of Hadjar, Alonso (147 points) and Hulkenberg (146 points) are closing in rapidly. Even Ocon (137 points) and Gasly (131 points) can’t be entirely ruled out, although neither Haas nor Alpine has shown the ability to deliver consistent results.
Championship top 10
1 Alex Albon 203
2 Isack Hadjar 162
3 Fernando Alonso 147
4 Nico Hulkenberg 146
5 Esteban Ocon 137
6 Pierre Gasly 131
7 Carlos Sainz 127
8 Ollie Bearman 114
9 Liam Lawson 107
10 Lance Stroll 100
That reveals much about how close the midfield battle really is. On any given day, any one of those six teams is capable of being at the front of the battle, up there in Q3 and snapping at the heels of the big teams.
And with over $10million at stake for each step in the real constructors’ championship, the battle will be no less intensely fought by this group than it is by those at the front.
