After five races, the grid-to-flag movement table still belongs to Max Verstappen, but the Canadian GP has reshuffled the chase behind. Lewis Hamilton’s climb from P5 to P2 in Montreal nudges him ahead of Lando Norris, whose retirement from P3 leaves his season-long average exposed.
By Nadia Okafor
Max Verstappen remains the benchmark in Best average positions gained after round 5 in Montreal, holding P1 on +4.25. Crucially, that lead didn’t change hands in Canada, even though his own race was a relatively small swing in the context of his season number: from P6 on the official grid to P3 at the finish, a gain of 3 places across 68 laps.
That steadiness at the top matters because the movement behind him is tightening for different reasons. With the maximum movement magnitude in the ranking limited to 1 position after this race, the headline isn’t a dramatic leap to the summit; it’s about consolidation. Verstappen’s advantage remains intact while the fight for second has become more sensitive to single-race outliers, especially once the minimum of 3 counted races is satisfied and every classified result carries extra weight in an average-based metric.
Hamilton is the big positional mover in the top three of this ranking, climbing from P3 to P2 overall after Canada with a season average of +1.20 for Ferrari. The Canadian GP itself explains the direction of travel: he started P5 and finished P2, a 3-place gain that is exactly the kind of clean, grid-to-flag recovery this table rewards.
The contrast with Norris is stark. Norris drops one place in the standings, from P2 to P3, despite still showing a positive season figure of +1.00 for McLaren. In Montreal he began P3 but is classified as Retired at position text “R”, with 0 points and 38 laps completed; under this ranking’s grid-minus-classification method, that’s a heavy hit to an average built on small gains. That’s why a single weekend can flip the order even when the headline numbers look close.
It also underlines a nuance of the methodology: it uses the official starting grid, not pure qualifying. Here, the key drivers’ grid and qualifying positions match (Hamilton 5, Verstappen 6, Norris 3), making Canada a straightforward read—movement generated on Sunday directly translated into movement in the ranking.
The Canadian GP’s other notable shift comes from within Ferrari. Charles Leclerc nudges up from P6 to P5 on a season average of +0.20, another one-place rise that hints at a close midfield of small margins in this metric. With no top-10 entries or exits recorded after round 5, the story is less about new names breaking in and more about incremental gains reshaping the internal order among drivers already meeting the 3-race threshold.
There’s a flip side, too: George Russell drops from P5 to P6 with a season value of −0.25, a reminder that this ranking punishes weekends where you give away track position and fail to recover it. With only five races completed, the ‘streak’ signal indicates the pattern at the sharp end is holding rather than resetting—Verstappen stays out front, but the secondary battles are becoming the more volatile part of the picture.
The immediate tension is between second and third: Hamilton on +1.20 versus Norris on +1.00. That gap is narrow enough that one clean recovery race for Norris—or one low-movement weekend for Hamilton—could swing it back, because averages compress quickly when gains are typically measured in single-digit places per event.
At the very top, Verstappen’s +4.25 remains a different scale entirely. His Canada result of P6 to P3 didn’t need to be spectacular to reinforce the trend: as long as he keeps turning mid-grid starts into podium finishes, the rest are effectively fighting for ‘best of the rest’ on this specific measure. Leclerc’s step to P5 adds a quieter subplot worth tracking inside Ferrari, while Russell’s slide to P6 shows how quickly the table can punish a run of under-recovery.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 3 | 2 | +1 | +1.20 |
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 6 | 5 | +1 | +0.20 |
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 2 | 3 | -1 | +1.00 |
Verstappen’s +4.25 keeps the Best average positions gained lead secure after Canada, but the battle behind is now finely poised: Hamilton’s rise to +1.20 puts him ahead of Norris on +1.00, with Leclerc edging closer from P5 on +0.20.