The Austrian GP reshuffled the midfield in 2026’s ‘most positions gained on lap one’ table: Franco Colapinto dropped four places in the ranking, while Lewis Hamilton and Alexander Albon both jumped three. Up front, Fernando Alonso’s +24 lead stayed intact after round 8 at the Red Bull Ring.
By Julian Reyes
The biggest swing after Austria came at Franco Colapinto’s expense: he slid from eighth to 12th in the season-long ‘positions gained on lap one’ standings, despite still holding a cumulative +8 for Alpine. That drop also carried a clear consequence in the table’s shape — Colapinto is one of the two names to fall out of the top 10 entirely, a sharp reversal in a ranking where marginal week-to-week differences can quickly re-order the midfield.
The beneficiaries were high-profile. Lewis Hamilton vaulted from 11th to eighth, taking Ferrari into the top 10 via a +10 season total, while Alexander Albon rose from 12th to ninth on +9 for Williams. In a weekend where Hamilton started third and finished fifth, the broader lesson is that even when overall race results are solid, the lap-one table can move fast if you keep stacking small opening gains across enough counted races.
Above them, the headline remains Fernando Alonso’s season-long recovery work: Aston Martin’s driver continues to lead with +24 after eight races, with Carlos Sainz second on +20 and Esteban Ocon third on +18. And the fact the lead did not change matters — with the top three tight but stable, the more volatile fight is now for the remaining top-10 slots, especially after Pierre Gasly joined Colapinto as an exit from that group.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Franco Colapinto | Alpine F1 Team | 8 | 12 | -4 | +8 |
| Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 11 | 8 | +3 | +10 |
| Alexander Albon | Williams | 12 | 9 | +3 | +9 |
Alonso’s +24 remains the benchmark, but Austria underlined where the real churn is: the edge of the top 10. Hamilton and Albon have forced their way into that group, while Colapinto’s fall to 12th leaves him needing a run of clean lap-one gains just to get back into the conversation.