Eight rounds in, the 2026 constructors' championship is already a formality in everything but the maths. Mercedes sit on 302 points. Ferrari, in second, have 204. McLaren are third on 159 — closer to fifth place than to the leaders. When a team is 98 points clear at the end of June, you stop talking about form and start talking about a car that is simply on a different tier.
The scoreline tells you how total it's been: Mercedes have won seven of the eight grands prix. Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the rookie, has five of them, including four straight from China to Canada, and added Monaco for good measure. George Russell has the other two, Australia and Austria, the latter from pole. Between them they've locked out the front of the field so consistently that the only race Mercedes didn't win — Barcelona — went to a car powered by a Mercedes customer only in spirit: Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari.
Ferrari's 204 is one man's project
Second place flatters Ferrari, because 204 points hide an uncomfortable split. Hamilton has 125 of them and the team's lone win, his maiden victory in red at Barcelona. Charles Leclerc has 79 and, remarkably, no wins and a growing habit of finishing outside the top six — he was off it entirely in Austria while Hamilton took fifth. Ferrari are a distant second largely because one driver has adapted quickly and dragged the constructors' tally up with him. That's a fragile way to hold a runner-up spot.
McLaren's 159 is arguably the more alarming number. This is a team without a single win through eight rounds, its points spread almost evenly between Lando Norris (79) and Oscar Piastri (80). Both have podiums — Norris in Miami, Spain and elsewhere, Piastri in Japan and Miami — but neither has been near the top step. For a team that spent recent seasons as the benchmark, third place and no victories is a hard reset.
The collapse behind them
Then there's Red Bull, and the fall is stark. Fourth on 115 points, they have Max Verstappen winless and stuck seventh in the drivers' table on 73. His second in Austria is the high point of a season that, by the standards this team set, reads like a crisis. Rookie teammate Isack Hadjar has 42. Alpine (57) are the best of the midfield, boosted by Pierre Gasly's shock Monaco podium, while Cadillac's debut has been brutal — zero points for Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas across eight weekends.
The through-line is Mercedes' machinery. Two drivers, one a first-year, sharing the same equipment and beating everyone regardless of circuit type — street, high-speed, altitude — is the signature of a dominant package, not a purple patch. Silverstone on 5 July gives the chasers a home-crowd shot to prove otherwise. On the evidence of eight races, they'll be racing for second again.