The F1 seats being decided for 2027, and why none of them can win a title

Five contracts expire at the end of 2026 and the market has been talking about little else. We put all 22 drivers in all 11 cars, 100 championships per cell, and out comes something nobody is saying: not one of the five seats being decided this winter can fight for a title. The three that can are all taken and signed.

What is open and what is not

First the facts, which are not ours. According to PlanetF1’s contract round-up and Motor Sport Magazine’s tracker, these are the five that expire:

• Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
• Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)
• Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls)
• Oliver Bearman (Haas) · with doubts: his Haas deal is multi-year and may carry an option, so it is not clear that it expires
• Esteban Ocon (Haas)

The other 16 are under contract for 2027 or beyond. They are worth reading by team, because half the answer to the headline question is right there:

• Mercedes: George Russell (2027) and Kimi Antonelli
• McLaren: Lando Norris (2027) and Oscar Piastri (2028)
• Ferrari: Charles Leclerc (beyond 2027) and Lewis Hamilton (2027)
• Red Bull: Max Verstappen (2030) and Isack Hadjar (2027)
• Alpine: Pierre Gasly (2028) and Franco Colapinto (2027)
• Williams: Carlos Sainz (2028) and Alexander Albon (2027)
• Audi: Nico Hulkenberg (multi-year deal) and Gabriel Bortoleto (multi-year deal)
• Cadillac: Valtteri Bottas (2027) and Sergio Perez (2027)

With one reservation: Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes’ public announcement covered 2026 only and both sources list him as still to be confirmed, though the team is reported to have tied him well beyond that.

And there is a case that fits neither list: Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), his deal was announced as “2025 and beyond”, with no end date, and is described as rolling: he is the son of the team owner, so his place is structural rather than contractual. His seat is not being decided this winter, but neither is it signed for 2027 in the way the ones above are.

Alonso, at 45, had not said whether he would continue, and his was the seat everyone was talking about.

Update, 29 September: Aston Martin has confirmed Alonso and Stroll for 2027, with contracts whose end date has not been made public. The numbers behind Alonso's renewal are in Alonso stays for 2027. The figures in this article were worked out before the announcement and we have left them as they were: they measure what was at stake.

Update, 15 October: Haas has signed Rafael Câmara, the 2025 Formula 3 champion and current Formula 2 leader, on a multi-year deal from 2027. He takes Ocon's seat and is the first rookie confirmed on next year's grid. The announcement says nothing about Bearman. As with Alonso, the figures stay as they were.

What each seat is actually worth

This is where we can add something. We take the eleven 2026 cars and put each of the 22 drivers in every one of them, by swapping seats, and look at where they finish on average and how often they win the championship. That gives the real value of each seat, independently of who sits in it today.

The three highlighted rows are the only cars in which any given driver wins a championship at all: Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari. And every one of them is a “No” in the last column.

In 7 of the eleven cars nobody wins the championship at all. Not unlikely: across 100 championships per cell, with all 22 drivers tried one by one, it does not happen once. Aston Martin, Racing Bulls, Haas are among them, which is three of the three teams with a vacancy.

The fifth is Red Bull, and it deserves the caveat. A championship is won there, but only one and by only one driver: Verstappen, in 1% of his. No other of the 22 wins anything in that car, and the seat being decided this winter is not Verstappen’s.

At the other end of the table sits Audi, the best argument against the idea that an open seat is an opportunity. It is the team arriving with the most noise, it comes in as a works manufacturer and both its places are locked down on long deals: Hulkenberg and Bortoleto, who has put it in his own words (“I have a long term contract with Audi, and not only next year, but for the following years as well”). And its car still averages P14.06 and wins not one championship in 100 attempts with any of the 22 drivers. Having the seat tied down and having a chance are different things.

The five, one by one

For each of them: where they finish on average in their current car, and their ceiling if they moved to the best car on the grid.

Four of the five have a zero in the last column, and it is not a zero for their team: it is the best they manage in any of the eleven cars. It does not matter where they sign. With the 2026 grid, none of those four wins a championship anywhere.

Alonso is the exception, and it is worth reading in full

The only one of the five with a non-zero cell is Alonso, and by some distance. In the Aston Martin he averages P10.37 and wins none of the 100 championships. In the best car on the grid he averages P2.64 and takes the title 20% of the time.

That is nearly eight places for a change of car, and it explains why his decision is the one being discussed despite his being 45. What the number does not say is that he is going anywhere: he shut down the Alpine rumour himself with “I do have a contract, so I am not moving”. What it says is what would be at stake if he ever did.

The contrast with his team-mate sharpens it. In that same Aston Martin, Stroll averages P19.09. The gap between the two, in identical machinery, is 8.7 places. And that second Aston Martin seat is the one that fits worst into any split between “being decided” and “settled”: it does not expire, but there is no date to show either.

And the contract that would move the market most is already signed

Here is what the numbers really produce. The seat whose occupant would change the championship is none of the five: it is Verstappen’s, and he is under contract until 2030.

In his own Red Bull he averages P5.72 and wins the title in 1% of championships. In the best car on the grid he averages P1.03 and wins 97%. It is the largest gap on the entire grid, and not narrowly.

His deal is reported to carry performance clauses that would make an exit possible. That detail, and not the five open seats, is the only thing in the 2027 market that would change who fights for the championship.

What this does not say

• The cars are the 2026 ones. We do not know what the 2027 Aston Martin or Red Bull will be, and a year moves them a long way. This measures seats with today’s machinery, which is the only thing measurable.
• This is not a transfer prediction. We are not saying who will sign where. We measure what would change if they did, which is a different question and the only one a simulator can answer. We go into it in the five seasons this simulator cannot explain.
• One of the five is doubtful. Bearman’s Haas deal is multi-year and may carry an option, according to the source itself. If it does not expire, four seats are being decided and the conclusion is unchanged. His team-mate Ocon declared himself a free agent on 23 September, and his seat has now been filled: Haas announced Rafael Câmara on 15 October.
• We count drivers, not empty places. Go to the sources and you will see ten seats to fill for 2027, where we say five. They are two different counts: ours is 2026 race drivers whose contract expires, theirs is every hole in the 2027 grid, including teams that have not announced a line-up. The five are the ones we can measure, because for the rest there is nobody to put in the car.