After 16 races, Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains the benchmark on mean classified finish, helped again by a P2 at Sepang. The headline mover is Liam Lawson, whose P7 lifts him from 11th to ninth and forces Pierre Gasly out of the top 10.
By Camille Fontaine
Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains the season’s most reliable front-runner by this metric: mean finishing position in classified races only, with DNFs removed completely. His second place at Sepang was exactly the kind of result that protects a low average, keeping him P1 in the ranking on 2.67 after 16 completed races.
There’s a telling contrast in the numbers behind him. Max Verstappen sits second on 3.42 and George Russell third on 3.54, so Antonelli’s advantage is still substantial even without any reshuffle in the top three. In a ranking that penalises any off-day that becomes a classified finish, Antonelli’s ability to keep landing at the very front is what makes 2.67 such a hard figure to catch.
This is not a points table and it isn’t a ‘best average finish including retirements’ list; it’s strictly the mean finishing position from classified races, with a minimum of 3 classified starts to even qualify. That nuance matters at Sepang because the race had 3 DNFs, yet those non-classified outcomes simply don’t enter the calculation at all here — consistency is measured through the finishes that count as finishes.
Antonelli’s own weekend is a neat microcosm of the difference between speed and consistency. He started from grid P3, qualified P4, then converted it into P2 over 55 laps, banking 18 points in the process. But in this ranking the points are only a tie-breaker; the P2 itself is the currency, and another near-top result is why his 2.67 average stays so low.
Lawson’s move is only two places on paper — but it’s two places across the line that separates ‘top 10 consistency’ from the chasing pack. His RB F1 Team run to seventh place from P11 on the grid gives him an 8.50 mean classified finish and lifts him from 11th to ninth, making him the week’s only new entrant into the top 10.
That entry came with a direct consequence: Pierre Gasly drops out, sliding from ninth to 11th on a 9.14 average. The movement magnitude across the ranking was capped at 2 places, so this wasn’t a wild reshuffle — it was more like a pressure point. But in a metric built on incremental gains, a single strong classified finish can be enough to change the conversation around who is ‘quietly getting it done’ every weekend.
The most eye-catching drop near the front belongs to Lando Norris, who falls from fourth to sixth despite finishing the Sepang race in ninth. That result leaves him on a 4.25 average, and it’s a reminder of how unforgiving this measure can be: when you’re not retiring, every classified finish — even a points-scoring one worth 2 points, as Norris took over 55 laps — still pulls your mean toward the mid-pack.
Behind the headline moves, there was also a quieter reshaping further down the order. Alexander Albon climbs from 15th to 13th with an 11.00 average, while Nico Hülkenberg rises from 17th to 15th on 11.83. Gabriel Bortoleto goes the other way, slipping from 14th to 16th with a 12.00 average. None of these are dramatic swings, but they’re the kind that define the mid-table: two places up or down can be the difference between looking stable and looking stuck.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liam Lawson | RB F1 Team | 11 | 9 | +2 | 8.50 |
| Alexander Albon | Williams | 15 | 13 | +2 | 11.00 |
| Nico Hülkenberg | Audi | 17 | 15 | +2 | 11.83 |
Antonelli’s 2.67 keeps a clear buffer to Verstappen (3.42) and Russell (3.54) in a ranking where only classified finishes count, so the fastest way to close the gap is sustained podium-level regularity rather than occasional peaks. Lawson’s jump into ninth shows how a single strong classified result can flip the top-10 cut line, while Norris’s slide to sixth underlines that consistent points aren’t the same as consistently high finishes in this metric.