After five rounds, the Best qualifying average table remains Mercedes-led at the top, with Andrea Kimi Antonelli still setting the pace on 1.40. The biggest movement after Canada is only one place, but it underlines how tight the next layer is — especially at McLaren.
By Camille Fontaine
Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains the benchmark in 2026’s Best qualifying average after the Canadian Grand Prix, holding rank 1 with a mean qualifying position of 1.40. With no change in leader and no change in the top three, the story at the very front is less about a shake-up and more about consolidation: Mercedes has two drivers occupying the top two average qualifying slots, with George Russell second on 2.20.
That stability at the top contrasts with the nearest story that did move: McLaren’s intra-team ordering behind them. Lando Norris climbed from fifth to fourth in the ranking on 4.80, while Oscar Piastri dropped from fourth to fifth, also on 4.80. With ties broken by total season points, that single-position swap matters even when the underlying average is identical — and it highlights that this is a season-long metric where marginal changes accumulate quickly.
Montreal offered a clean illustration of how this ranking behaves: it is built from qualifying positions, not Sunday outcomes, and it uses the full field rather than just the top 10. Antonelli qualified second at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and then converted that weekend into a race win from grid 2, finishing 1st with 25 points over 68 laps. That Sunday result doesn’t feed the metric directly, but it does reinforce the broader picture suggested by 1.40 — a driver repeatedly starting at the sharp end tends to keep himself out of the high-number qualifying results that would drag an average upward.
For Norris and Piastri, the Canadian round was a reminder of the separation between qualifying performance and race classification. Norris qualified third (grid 3) but was classified as retired with 0 points after 38 laps, while Piastri qualified fourth (grid 4) and finished 11th, lapped, also scoring 0. The ranking movement between them is therefore best read as a reflection of how their season-to-date qualifying positions are being weighted after five sessions, rather than any single Sunday swing.
Charles Leclerc remains third on 4.60, and the next step down is already a knife-edge. Norris is now fourth on 4.80 and Piastri fifth on 4.80, meaning there is virtually no daylight in the metric — only the tiebreaker separates them. Over just five completed races, a one-place shift in a single round can be enough to flip ordering, and Canada did exactly that without needing any dramatic reshuffle across the top three.
The day’s other movers underline the same theme: the maximum movement magnitude across the ranking update is only one place. Isack Hadjar improved from ninth to eighth for Red Bull on a 9.80 average, and Gabriel Bortoleto climbed from 16th to 15th for Audi on 13.80. On the other side, Pierre Gasly slipped from eighth to ninth for Alpine F1 Team on 10.20, and Esteban Ocon dropped from 15th to 16th for Haas F1 Team on 13.80. This is a table where progress is incremental — and, after five rounds, the data is starting to suggest a developing shape rather than a settled order.
With the top three unchanged and the ‘streak’ signal still present, the broader takeaway is consistency: Antonelli and Russell are steadily banking low qualifying numbers, while the pack behind is being decided by fine margins and tiebreakers as much as raw pace.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 5 | 4 | +1 | 4.80 |
| Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | 9 | 8 | +1 | 9.80 |
| Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | 16 | 15 | +1 | 13.80 |
Antonelli’s 1.40 keeps the Best qualifying average lead firmly in Mercedes hands, with Russell still closest on 2.20. Behind Leclerc’s 4.60, the Norris–Piastri tie on 4.80 shows how easily one session can flip the order, while single-place gains for Hadjar and Bortoleto hint that the next battles will be decided by consistency as much as peak qualifying results.