The Chinese Grand Prix reshuffled the mid-pack of the ‘Points from outside the top 10’ ranking, with Alexander Albon taking the biggest hit. Max Verstappen’s earlier gains still keep him first, even after a Shanghai retirement from eighth on the grid.
By Camille Fontaine
Alexander Albon’s weekend in Shanghai was the ranking’s sharpest turning point: a drop of five places from fourth to ninth, leaving him on 0 points scored from starts outside the top 10. Starting 22nd and logging a “Did not start” result meant there was no chance to convert a poor grid slot into the kind of recovery this table rewards — and in a metric where a single point can separate multiple positions after only two races completed, that zero carried an outsized cost.
That volatility is exactly why Max Verstappen remains the reference point even on a day that delivered no reinforcement. He still leads the ranking on 8, despite retiring in China after starting eighth and scoring 0. With no change at the top, the story becomes the pressure behind: Oliver Bearman and Liam Lawson are joint next on 6, keeping the gap to the lead within striking distance if either strings together another points finish from 11th or lower.
Shanghai also underlined how narrow the margins are further down. Esteban Ocon slipped four spots from sixth to 10th and Fernando Alonso dropped four from seventh to 11th, both sitting on 0 — a reminder that this ranking is as much about getting any return from compromised grid positions as it is about headline comebacks. One small positive example was Franco Colapinto: starting 12th and finishing 10th brought 1 point and lifted him from eighth to sixth, while Carlos Sainz nudged up from fifth to fourth on 2 points.
There were new faces inside the top 10 of the ranking too, with Lawson listed among the entrants and Arvid Lindblad and Gabriel Bortoleto appearing on 0. Meanwhile Alonso, Lance Stroll and Nico Hülkenberg dropped out of that top-10 bracket — evidence of a table that’s already turning into a week-to-week scoreboard of who can rescue something when Saturday doesn’t deliver.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander Albon | Williams | 4 | 9 | -5 | 0 |
| Esteban Ocon | Haas F1 Team | 6 | 10 | -4 | 0 |
| Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | 7 | 11 | -4 | 0 |
After two races, Verstappen’s 8-point lead in this category is intact, but Bearman and Lawson are close enough on 6 that one strong recovery from outside the top 10 could compress the fight at the front. In the midfield of the table, the Shanghai swings for Albon, Ocon and Alonso show how quickly drivers on 0 can be displaced as soon as rivals turn a poor grid slot into even 1–2 points.