Seven rounds in, Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains the benchmark on Best qualifying average at 1.57, but the chase picture tightened at Barcelona. Lando Norris gained ground, while Lewis Hamilton moved ahead of Charles Leclerc in a reshuffled top six.
By Camille Fontaine
Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains first in the Best qualifying average ranking after the Barcelona Grand Prix, holding an extraordinary 1.57 mean qualifying position across the sessions he has entered. The headline shift isn’t at the very top, but just behind it: Lando Norris produced the biggest move among the key names, climbing two places from sixth to fourth with a 5.14 average, tightening the fight for the places directly behind the Mercedes pair.
Antonelli’s grip on the ranking is built on relentless qualifying output rather than a single weekend spike, and Barcelona simply reinforced that trend. He qualified third at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, a reminder that even on a weekend that ended with a retirement and zero points, his Saturdays continue to underpin the season-long metric. George Russell stays second on 2.57, keeping the top two an all-Mercedes lock as the ranking reaches round 7.
The most meaningful reshuffle came from Ferrari, where Lewis Hamilton moved up one spot from fourth to third and now sits on a 4.57 average. That change is amplified by the driver he displaced: Charles Leclerc dropped two places from third to fifth, now on 5.29, a swing that underlines how quickly this ranking can punish a single weak qualifying position because it averages the full grid, not just the front rows.
Leclerc’s Barcelona qualifying position of 10th is the kind of number that lingers in a mean-based metric, and the weekend’s race result did nothing to counterbalance it: he retired and scored 0 points. Hamilton’s rise to third, therefore, is as much about avoiding those big dents in the average as it is about headline-grabbing poles; after seven rounds, he’s placed himself as the closest non-Mercedes reference point on pure qualifying consistency.
Norris’s move to fourth makes the top six feel less settled than it did before Barcelona. He qualified fourth and converted that grid spot into third place and 15 points, but for this ranking the crucial detail is that he kept his weekend aligned with his season trend, which is what allowed him to leapfrog into the leading group.
Best qualifying average is exactly what it sounds like: the mean qualifying position across all qualifying sessions a driver entered, using the full field, with lower being better and a minimum of 3 sessions required. That full-field detail matters, because a qualifying position like 10th doesn’t just mean “not on the first few rows” — it directly drags the season number upward in a way that is hard to immediately recover.
Barcelona offered a clear illustration. Leclerc’s 10th in qualifying is now embedded in his 5.29 average and coincided with a slide to fifth in the ranking, while Norris’s fourth place qualifying is reflected in a 5.14 average that has him fourth overall. Even among the leaders, the metric captures the nuance: Antonelli’s third-place qualifying at Barcelona fits neatly with an already elite 1.57 average, keeping him clear at the top despite a race retirement.
Outside the headline names, the midfield picture also shows how marginal gains accumulate. Oliver Bearman in the Haas F1 Team edged up one place from 16th to 15th on a 14.57 average, while Esteban Ocon moved the other way from 15th to 16th on 14.71 — a small swap, but one that signals how tight the lower half can be when the metric is averaging every session.
There was also movement just behind Norris and Leclerc: Oscar Piastri dropped one place from fifth to sixth, now on 5.43. With the maximum movement magnitude this week only 2 places, the story of Barcelona for this ranking is less a shake-up and more a compression: the top remains anchored by Mercedes, while the next tier sees positions change hands on fine margins.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 6 | 4 | +2 | 5.14 |
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 3 | 5 | -2 | 5.29 |
| Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 4 | 3 | +1 | 4.57 |
Antonelli’s 1.57 average continues to set a high bar at the top, but the story after Barcelona is the tightening chase: Norris has moved into direct range of the front group, while Hamilton’s step to third and Leclerc’s drop to fifth show how one outlier qualifying position can quickly change the order in a mean-based metric.