After Zandvoort, the front of the Best qualifying average table is unchanged, but the battle just behind it tightened: Lando Norris moved up to fourth while Arvid Lindblad edged into the top 10.
By Camille Fontaine
Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains the benchmark on Best qualifying average after the Dutch Grand Prix at Circuit Park Zandvoort, holding rank 1 with a 2.00 mean qualifying position. With the top three unchanged and the maximum movement anywhere limited to a single place, this was less a weekend of upheaval and more one of consolidation at the sharp end.
But that stability doesn’t make the picture static. Antonelli’s advantage is framed most clearly by what sits immediately behind: George Russell is still second on 3.00, while Lewis Hamilton remains third on 4.25. It’s a Mercedes lockout of the top two by this metric, and in a ranking built on all qualifying sessions entered — full field, not just the top 10 — that kind of sustained low-number average is a strong signal of week-to-week qualifying execution.
The most meaningful change in the upper group was the Norris-Leclerc switch. Lando Norris moved from fifth to fourth, now carrying a 4.42 average, while Charles Leclerc slipped from fourth to fifth on 4.58. With only 0.16 separating those averages, it underlines how little margin there is once you’re fighting for places just off the podium positions in this ranking.
Zandvoort itself offered a crisp snapshot of why small movements can matter: Norris qualified 1st, Leclerc qualified 6th, and Antonelli qualified 3rd. That single-session spread is exactly the kind of swing that can tilt a mean qualifying position over 12 rounds, particularly when the season’s story is being written in tenths of a grid slot rather than big leaps.
Race day provided a neat bit of context without changing the ranking’s focus: Norris converted pole into victory at Zandvoort. It doesn’t directly score in a qualifying-average metric, but it does show how a front-row tendency can turn into tangible weekends — and why these fractional ranking shifts are worth tracking.
The other notable development came right on the cut line. Arvid Lindblad climbed one place from 11th to 10th with a 10.92 average, nudging into the top-10 entrants list. That matters because this methodology is unforgiving: it counts the full field in every qualifying session a driver enters, so a driver sitting around the 11th-best average is rarely far from a reshuffle when even a single session goes strongly.
The flip side is Pierre Gasly dropping out. Gasly moved from 10th to 11th on an 11.00 average, becoming the top-10 exit. The gap between Lindblad’s 10.92 and Gasly’s 11.00 is only 0.08 — essentially the difference between being described as a top-10 qualifier across the year so far and being on the outside looking in.
The signals point to a ranking that is stabilising without becoming settled. There was no change in leader and no change in the top three, yet the “streak” indicator suggests the broader pattern is continuing rather than resetting. At the same time, the fact the maximum movement magnitude was just 1 doesn’t mean the table is locked; it means the fights are compressing into small, repeatable gains.
That compression is visible from fourth down to the top-10 cut. Norris versus Leclerc is already separated by just 0.16 on average, and Lindblad versus Gasly by 0.08. With 12 races completed, the swings now often come from stacking small qualifying advantages across consecutive sessions rather than relying on one big outlier — and that’s exactly what this ranking is designed to reward.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 5 | 4 | +1 | 4.42 |
| Arvid Lindblad | RB F1 Team | 11 | 10 | +1 | 10.92 |
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 4 | 5 | -1 | 4.58 |
Antonelli’s 2.00 keeps the Best qualifying average lead secure for now, but the battles underneath are tightening: Norris (4.42) has edged ahead of Leclerc (4.58), while the top-10 cut is separated by just 0.08 between Lindblad (10.92) and Gasly (11.00).