After three rounds, Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains the benchmark in 2026 qualifying, backed up by a Suzuka pole that reinforces an early Mercedes stranglehold. The top three has shifted behind him, but the lead itself hasn’t.
By Diego Torres
Andrea Kimi Antonelli didn’t just leave Suzuka with a win; he left with the most important kind of confirmation for a qualifying-based ranking: another P1. With a mean qualifying position of 1.33 across the three sessions he has entered, the Mercedes rookie stays first in the 2026 best qualifying average standings after the Japanese Grand Prix — and the gap to the rest is defined by how rarely he’s been anywhere other than the front row.
The bigger story underneath Antonelli’s stability is the shape of Mercedes’s early-season qualifying picture. George Russell is second on 1.67, giving the team the top two positions in the ranking after three races completed. That pairing matters because this table isn’t about isolated peaks; it rewards week-to-week access to the very front, and Mercedes currently owns both of the season’s best baselines.
Behind them, the battle for ‘best of the rest’ is already taking form in hard numbers rather than impressions. Charles Leclerc sits third on 4.00, with Oscar Piastri next at 4.33, then Lewis Hamilton on 5.33 and Lando Norris on 5.67 — a tight cluster that suggests small qualifying swings can reshuffle the podium positions of the ranking quickly. Further back, Isack Hadjar (6.67) and Pierre Gasly (9.33) hold their places in the top 10, while Arvid Lindblad (11.33) and Gabriel Bortoleto (11.67) underline how fine the margins become once you’re averaging around the edge of the top dozen.
Antonelli’s 1.33 average, reinforced by qualifying P1 at Suzuka, keeps the pressure on the rest: with Russell also below a 2.00 mean (1.67), any challenger is trying to close on two Mercedes drivers whose baseline is already set at the very front.