Fernando Alonso’s season-long haul of opening-lap gains jumps to +18 in Montreal, enough to replace Carlos Sainz at the top. Behind them, big movers and a top-10 shake-up underline how tightly packed this metric is after five rounds.
By Nadia Okafor
Fernando Alonso is the new leader of the 2026 ‘Most positions gained on lap one’ ranking after the Canadian Grand Prix, moving from third to first with a season total of +18. It’s a clear change at the top rather than a gradual drift: Carlos Sainz had been leading, but now drops to second on +15 as Alonso’s cumulative lap-one recoveries become the benchmark after five races.
The numbers are season totals built from a simple idea: grid position minus classified position at the end of lap 1, summed across races where a driver actually started from a proper grid slot and where lap-1 timing exists. That makes the current margin meaningful: Alonso’s +18 gives him a three-place buffer over Sainz, and the next layer isn’t far back either, with Arvid Lindblad third on +13. In other words, the top three is stable, but the order has changed — and with it the reference point for what a ‘strong’ opening lap looks like in 2026.
The Canadian GP didn’t just swap the top two; it tightened the middle. Sergio Pérez produced one of the weekend’s most notable moves within the ranking itself, climbing three places from 10th to seventh on a season total of +10 for Cadillac. That jump matters because it drags him into the same band as drivers for whom a single strong lap-one swing can change the picture from ‘outside the top 10’ to ‘in the conversation’.
Valtteri Bottas is the other Cadillac story. He moved up two spots from 11th to ninth with +9, and that was enough to make him the latest entrant into the top 10. That entry is significant because it was not an expansion of the top 10 — it displaced someone: Alexander Albon is the driver who exits the top 10 after Montreal. With five races completed, that kind of churn is a reminder this ranking is about repeatable early-race sharpness, not a single headline start.
No one fell further than Alexander Albon. He drops five positions in the standings — the largest movement magnitude this round — from sixth to 11th, even though his season total still reads +7. The fall is about relative momentum: others around him banked enough cumulative gains to leapfrog, while Albon’s own total no longer protected a top-10 spot.
There were smaller but still meaningful shifts at the top end of the table, too. Sainz slips from first to second despite holding +15, a reminder that consolidation isn’t enough when the driver behind you makes a decisive step. Lewis Hamilton also loses ground, dropping two places from eighth to 10th on +8. None of these totals are poor in isolation; what they show is how compressed the top 10 is becoming as the season’s lap-one sample grows.
The ‘lap one’ ranking is a specialist lens, but Montreal’s key driver results still illustrate why it matters. Alonso, for example, started 19th and is listed 20th at the finish with status Retired after 23 laps and 0 points. Pérez started 20th and is listed 17th, also Retired, after 39 laps and 0 points. Albon started 18th and is listed 21st, Retired, after 11 laps and 0 points. Those race outcomes don’t automatically translate into lap-one movement — the ranking only counts where lap-1 data exists and is explicitly recorded — but the grid context shows why early position changes can be so valuable: when you’re beginning from 18th, 19th, or 20th, lap one is often your first and best chance to undo the damage of a difficult Saturday.
That’s the broader tension in this table after round five at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve: it rewards the drivers who repeatedly find a way to move forward immediately, regardless of how the rest of the race ends up reading. With no ongoing streak flagged in the signals, and with a leader change now confirmed, it’s shaping up as a ranking where the next swing could come quickly — particularly with Alonso’s lead over Sainz sitting at just three places in cumulative terms.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander Albon | Williams | 6 | 11 | -5 | +7 |
| Sergio Pérez | Cadillac F1 Team | 10 | 7 | +3 | +10 |
| Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | 3 | 1 | +2 | +18 |
Alonso’s +18 sets a new target, but the cushion over Sainz is only three places in cumulative lap-one gains — and the churn around the top 10 (Bottas in, Albon out) shows how quickly this ranking can flip with one strong opening lap.