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Formula 1: The battle for 6th place in the driver standings – who takes it?

By Asher Fair

NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - JULY 14: Alexander Albon of Thailand driving the (23) Scuderia Toro Rosso STR14 Honda leads Carlos Sainz of Spain driving the (55) McLaren F1 Team MCL34 Renault on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone on July 14, 2019 in Northampton, England. (Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)
NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND - JULY 14: Alexander Albon of Thailand driving the (23) Scuderia Toro Rosso STR14 Honda leads Carlos Sainz of Spain driving the (55) McLaren F1 Team MCL34 Renault on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone on July 14, 2019 in Northampton, England. (Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images) /
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Red Bull Racing’s replacement of Pierre Gasly with Alexander Albon for the remainder of the 2019 Formula 1 season made the battle for sixth place in the driver standings quite interesting.

At this point in the Formula 1 season in recent years, the battle among the “best of the rest” has been for seventh place in the driver standings behind the six Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, Scuderia Ferrari and Aston Martin Red Bull Racing drivers.

Not since the 2015 season when both Red Bull Racing drivers finished outside of the top six and both Williams drivers finished in it have any drivers other than the drivers for these three teams finished in it.

However, Red Bull Racing’s Pierre Gasly has been making things interesting this season, as through the first 12 races of his first season driving for the Milton Keynes-based team, he has struggled mightily.

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Gasly recorded only five top six finishes in these 12 races, and he only scored 63 points. By comparison, teammate Max Verstappen has scored 81 points in the last four races alone and 181 points so far this season.

Because of Gasly’s struggles, he found himself in sixth place in the driver standings, nowhere near the top five and just five points ahead of seventh place Carlos Sainz Jr. of McLaren. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc currently sits in fifth with 132 points, including 75 in the last six races alone.

In fact, Sainz has outscored Gasly in the last one-race span, two-race span, three-race span, four-race span, five-race span, six-race span, seven-race span, eight-race span and nine-race span.

Despite the fact that team manager Helmut Marko and team principal Christian Horner stated that the 23-year-old Frenchman would not be demoted or cut before the 2019 season ended, Red Bull Racing promoted Alexander Albon from Scuderia Toro Rosso, effectively the Red Bull Racing junior team, to replace him, sending him back to the team for which he drove in his rookie season last year.

Things just got a whole lot more interesting in the “best of the rest” battle. But instead of seventh place, this battle could be for sixth between a Red Bull Racing-turned-Toro Rosso driver, a Toro Rosso-turned-Red Bull Racing driver and a McLaren driver.

It’s hard to see anybody else breaking into the fight since Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen sits in eighth place in the driver standings and he trails Sainz by 27 points (58 to 31), but this driver swap within the Red Bull Racing organization should still shake things up.

Here is how Gasly, Sainz and Albon currently stack up against one another with nine races remaining on the 21-race 2019 schedule.

Rank – Driver, Team: Points (Behind)
6th – Pierre Gasly, Toro Rosso: 63 (-)
7th – Carlos Sainz Jr., McLaren: 58 (-5)
15th – Alexander Albon, Red Bull Racing: 16 (-47)

So who will be in sixth place by the time the season ends?

The preseason favorite to take sixth place, Gasly is the driver who can be eliminated from this discussion right away even though he has been in sixth or in a sixth place tie in the driver standings after each of the last 10 races.

Even at Red Bull Racing, Sainz has outscored him over the course of each of the spans laid out above going back to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the season’s fourth race, in late April. It wouldn’t be surprising if Sainz passed him in the Belgian Grand Prix and never looked back.

Plus, even Gasly’s impressive rookie 2018 season at Toro Rosso saw him score only 29 points, so even if he does well with the team, Albon really shouldn’t have much of a problem passing him either considering he should be contending for solid points finishes on a weekly basis driving for a top three team. Making up 47 points over a driver in a far inferior car should not prove to be too big of a challenge over a nine-race span.

That leaves the battle between Albon and Sainz: Albon in the superior car, Sainz in the solid mid-pack car that is still more than capable of recording top five/top six finishes on a fairly regular basis — and, of course, Sainz with a 42-point lead.

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Who will end up finishing the 2019 Formula 1 season in sixth place in the driver standings? Will Pierre Gasly hang on to it after driving for Red Bull Racing in the season’s first 12 races, will Alexander Albon preserve it for the team assuming Gasly drops out, or will Carlos Sainz Jr. become the highest finishing “best of the rest” driver in the last four seasons?

I’m going with Albon. Gasly will be in seventh place or lower before you know it, and Albon can certainly make up 42 points over Sainz in a nine-race span. It will be close, but the 23-year-old Thai-British driver can pull it off, especially after the extremely consistent start that he has had to his Formula 1 career.

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