After 10 races, Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains the benchmark on mean classified finishing position, while the biggest ranking swing comes further back as Sergio Pérez tumbles four places after a retirement in Belgium.
By Julian Reyes
Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s Belgian Grand Prix win from pole has kept him firmly in control of the 2026 “Most consistent drivers” ranking, which measures mean finishing position across classified races only. His figure sits at 2.89 after round 10 at Spa-Francorchamps, and with the leader unchanged, the story at the front is less about upheaval and more about a steadily hardening advantage built on clean, classified results.
The shape of the top three underlines that stability. George Russell remains second on 3.50 and Lewis Hamilton holds third on 3.60, meaning the podium of the consistency table is unchanged even as the season reaches 10 completed races. That Antonelli and Russell lock out first and second for Mercedes is a reminder that, in this metric, avoiding non-classified days matters as much as having peaks — and Antonelli’s Spa weekend has reinforced that pattern rather than resetting it.
Spa brought subtle but meaningful movement just behind the leading trio. Charles Leclerc climbed from fifth to fourth and now sits on a 4.13 mean classified finishing position, helped by converting a grid position of 4 into second place and 18 points over 44 laps. Max Verstappen also moved up one place, sixth to fifth, with a 4.43 average, while Isack Hadjar gained one spot from ninth to eighth at 6.83.
Those are not headline-grabbing leaps, but they matter because this ranking is designed to reward week-to-week dependability rather than single-race spikes. Leclerc’s shift into fourth places him closer to the established top three than the names he has just edged, while Verstappen’s move to fifth is a small step toward the front in a table where each improvement in average finishing position is hard-earned.
Notably, there were no top-10 entries or exits flagged this round. That lack of churn suggests the season’s consistency picture is settling into tiers: a stable top three, a tight chase group where a single solid classified result can nudge you upward, and a volatile lower order where one bad weekend can be disproportionately costly.
The sharpest movements came in the wrong direction, led by Sergio Pérez’s four-place fall from 15th to 19th. His Belgian Grand Prix ended with a status of Retired after 13 laps, from a starting position of 18, and while DNFs are excluded from the calculation entirely, the broader pattern of scarce classified finishes is what leaves him with a 15.33 mean classified finishing position and vulnerable to being jumped by others who simply keep adding results to their sample.
Esteban Ocon dropped three places, from 13th to 16th, now sitting on 12.25. And Lando Norris took a two-place hit from fourth to sixth, landing on 4.71 — the most striking slide in the upper group because it interrupts what had been a top-four standing on consistency. In a ranking that ignores retirements and requires a minimum of three classified races, the practical consequence is clear: if you’re not continually banking classified finishes, rivals who are will compress the gap or pass you even without dramatic single-race swings.
The strongest signal from Spa is continuity. The leader didn’t change, the top three didn’t change, and there were no changes flagged in and out of the top 10. Even the biggest headline result in Belgium — Antonelli converting pole into a win and 25 points — reads in this framework as a continuation of a season-long consistency profile rather than a one-off correction.
That leaves the ranking’s tension concentrated in the margins: Norris’s slip to sixth on 4.71 shows how quickly a front-runner can be pulled back toward the pack on this measure, while Leclerc’s rise to fourth on 4.13 and Verstappen’s step to fifth on 4.43 illustrates the other side of the equation. With a “streak” signal still active, the broader story is that the drivers and teams repeatedly reaching the finish and staying classified are beginning to separate from those whose seasons remain fragmented.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sergio Pérez | Cadillac F1 Team | 15 | 19 | -4 | 15.33 |
| Esteban Ocon | Haas F1 Team | 13 | 16 | -3 | 12.25 |
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 4 | 6 | -2 | 4.71 |
Antonelli’s 2.89 keeps Mercedes in command of the consistency table, with Russell close enough to remain a realistic threat on 3.50. Behind them, Leclerc moving to fourth (4.13) and Verstappen to fifth (4.43) tightens the fight just off the podium, while Norris’s drop to sixth (4.71) shows how little margin there is when the top group is clustered by small changes in average classified finish.