The Mathematics of a Title Fight: Who Can Still Win in 2026?

With two rounds of the season left, the numbers already say more than the points table lets on — two AFRC titles are effectively settled, and two are still very much alive.

After Round 7 — Brands Hatch (Indy), 8th August 2026 · 2026 Season, 7 of 9 rounds complete

Seven rounds down, two to go. On the face of it, every one of the AFRC's four championships — Overall, Veterans, Novice and Graduates (116 Class) — still has a maximum of 100 points on the table, since a round win is worth 50 and there are two rounds left. But the series doesn't count every round: only a driver's best seven scores from the nine-round season go towards their final total. Once that rule is applied properly, the picture changes quite a bit. Two of this year's titles are already, in effect, decided. The other two are going to the wire.

How the points work

Every championship — Overall, Veterans, Novice and Graduates — is scored the same way, position by position, using the table below. A driver who fails to finish (DNF) or doesn't start (DNS) scores zero for that round, regardless of where they're shown in the results sheet, and any classified finish outside the top twenty also scores zero.

Position	Points	Position	Points
1st	50	11th	24
2nd	44	12th	23
3rd	40	13th	22
4th	37	14th	21
5th	34	15th	20
6th	32	16th	19
7th	30	17th	18
8th	28	18th	17
9th	26	19th	16
10th	25	20th	15

The rule that matters most right now: best 7 of 9

Every driver's season total is built from their best seven results out of the nine rounds — the two lowest scores of the year are simply discarded when the championship is finalised. Because seven rounds have now been run, this rule is starting to bite in a very specific way. Any driver who has already contested all seven rounds so far has, in effect, already "banked" their season: those seven scores are, right now, their own best seven of seven. Whatever happens in the last two rounds can only replace their weakest two results if it's an improvement on them — it can never make their total worse.

Take championship leader Gareth Moss in the Overall standings. His seven scores so far are 37, 37, 88, 50, 28, 17 and 34 — total 291. His two weakest rounds (17 and 28 points) are already the ones on the chopping block. Even if he finishes last, or doesn't start, in both remaining rounds, those results simply become his two "dropped" scores and his 291 stands. His total literally cannot go down from here — it can only go up.

That single mechanic is what separates a championship that's mathematically alive from one that's already over, and it's why the same "two rounds, 100 points left" headline means something very different in each of the four titles.

Overall Championship — still wide open

Gareth Moss leads on 291 points, seven clear of Mark Jones on 284. Because Moss has already completed all seven rounds, that 291 is his guaranteed floor — the lowest total he can possibly finish the season on. The question is simply whether anyone can better it, and the answer, for now, is yes: three drivers still have a mathematical route to the title if they win both remaining rounds and Moss's total isn't quite enough to hold them off.

"Best possible finish" assumes the driver wins both remaining rounds and applies the best-7-of-9 rule to the resulting total.

Pos	Driver	Total	Gap	Best possible finish	Still alive?
1	Gareth Moss	291	—	346	Leader
2	Mark Jones	284	−7	320	Yes
3	Jack Ijewsky	247	−44	317	Yes
4	Kieran Lambourne	238	−53	315	Yes
5=	Paul Waterhouse	176	−115	276	No
5=	Charlie Honeywood	176	−115	241	No

Everyone from sixth place down — another 36 drivers on the entry list — is already mathematically out of Overall title contention; even a perfect two rounds tops out well short of what Moss has already locked in. But at the front, this is a genuine four-way fight. Jones needs to find seven points on Moss across two rounds, which is entirely plausible; Ijewsky, who has missed one round completely, needs to win both remaining rounds and have Moss slip up; and Lambourne's path exists but is the narrowest of the three, needing to close a 53-point gap with 100 still on offer.

Veterans Championship — already decided

Mark Jones has won the Veterans title. He leads on 374 points, having already raced all seven rounds — meaning his total, like Moss's in the Overall standings, cannot fall. His closest challenger, Peter McNicol on 253, would need to win both remaining rounds outright to have any chance, and even then his absolute maximum possible total is 353. That's 21 points short of Jones's guaranteed floor. No result in the final two rounds can change the outcome.

Pos	Driver	Total	Gap	Best possible finish	Still alive?
1	Mark Jones	374	—	380	Champion‑elect
2	Peter McNicol	253	−121	353	No
3	Lee Kenealy	236	−138	302	No
4	Paul Waterhouse	190	−184	290	No

It's a dominant campaign: Jones has finished on the podium of his own class in every round he's entered, and with seven rounds banked, the two remaining races are effectively free hits for him — his total can only improve further if he keeps racing well.

Novice Championship — three cars, one crown

Charlie Honeywood leads on 307, with his floor locked in the same way as Moss and Jones above. Behind him, though, the picture is much tighter than in the Veterans title: three drivers retain a mathematical path to the championship, and one more misses out by the width of a single point.

Pos	Driver	Total	Gap	Best possible finish	Still alive?
1	Charlie Honeywood	307	—	341	Leader
2	Dean Fletcher	288	−19	358	Yes
3	Jamie Brackley	271	−36	343	Yes
4	Sean Storey	226	−81	326	Yes
5	David Inglis	206	−101	306	No

David Inglis's title bid is the cruellest piece of arithmetic in this whole exercise. He's only contested five of the seven rounds so far, so a maximum finish would add two full round wins to his tally — but that still only gets him to 306. Honeywood's floor is 307. One point, and it's the two rounds Inglis has missed that decide it.

Dean Fletcher is the closest thing to a genuine championship challenger here: a 19-point gap with 100 still on the table is very much a live fight, especially since Honeywood's own maximum (341) shows he isn't guaranteed anything either — both drivers still need to deliver in the final two rounds. Jamie Brackley and Sean Storey remain mathematically alive too, though both need results to go almost entirely their way while Honeywood and Fletcher falter.

Graduates Championship (116 Class) — already decided

Charlie Honeywood has also won the Graduates title. His 356 points, banked over seven rounds, put the championship out of reach of every other driver in the class. Jamie Brackley, his closest pursuer, could win both remaining rounds and still only reach 348 — eight points short of a total Honeywood already holds regardless of what happens next.

Pos	Driver	Total	Gap	Best possible finish	Still alive?
1	Charlie Honeywood	356	—	376	Champion‑elect
2	Jamie Brackley	285	−71	348	No
3	David Inglis	234	−122	334	No
4	Samuel Nutter	200	−156	300	No

Between the two, Charlie Honeywood has now mathematically secured a championship double — Graduates and, on current form, a genuine chance of Novice too — a remarkable achievement with two rounds of the season still to run.

The big picture

Four titles, two very different stories. In Veterans and Graduates, seven strong rounds have already done the job: Mark Jones and Charlie Honeywood cannot be caught, no matter what happens at the remaining two events. In the Overall and Novice standings, the "best 7 of 9" rule hasn't finished working in the leaders' favour yet — both Gareth Moss and Charlie Honeywood hold the advantage, but not an unassailable one, and both title fights will run to the final chequered flag of the season.

What the maths also shows is how forgiving this scoring system becomes once a driver has raced seven times: a bad result in the run-in is no longer something to fear, because at worst it's simply discarded. For the drivers still chasing a title, that's exactly the kind of insurance they now need to build for themselves — and for everyone else, it's the reason two of this year's champions already know their name, with a month of racing still left on the calendar.

Figures calculated from the official Round 7 AFRC 2026 Results Pack season standings, using the points matrix above and a best-seven-of-nine-rounds scoring rule (DNF/DNS and finishes outside the top twenty score zero). "Best possible finish" assumes a driver wins both remaining rounds outright; it is a mathematical ceiling, not a prediction. Any additional tie-break provisions in the AFRC Sporting Regulations are not reflected here.