After three rounds, Lewis Hamilton remains the reference point in 2026’s “Biggest improvement vs qualifying” ranking at +1.00. The Japanese Grand Prix didn’t trigger a lead change, but it underlined Ferrari’s early-season edge in converting Saturdays into stronger Sundays.
By Camille Fontaine
The headline after the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka is stability at the top: Lewis Hamilton stays P1 in the “Biggest improvement vs qualifying” ranking on +1.00, with no change in the leader across the opening three races. That’s a notable outcome in itself given how volatile early-season trend tables can be once the minimum three-race threshold kicks in — here, it hasn’t reset the order at the front so much as confirm it.
Ferrari’s broader story is even clearer than Hamilton’s individual one. Charles Leclerc sits second on +0.67, making it a Ferrari 1-2 in a metric designed to capture race-day uplift relative to qualifying position — averaged across races where a driver both qualified and was classified. With Hamilton at +1.00 and Leclerc at +0.67, Ferrari has two drivers in positive territory, and the gap between them is already a meaningful separator at this stage of the year.
Behind them, the early-season midfield of this specific ranking is defined by fine margins. Andrea Kimi Antonelli is third on 0.00 — perfectly neutral between qualifying and classified race result on average — while George Russell is fourth on −0.67, the only driver shown in the top 10 list to sit in the negative. With only three races completed, those figures are inherently sensitive to each new classified finish, so the immediate stakes are less about sweeping moves and more about who can keep nudging their average in the right direction.
With three races in the books, Hamilton’s +1.00 keeps him as the benchmark for race-day improvement versus qualifying, while Leclerc’s +0.67 ensures Ferrari controls the top two. The next phase is about whether the neutral-to-negative group — Antonelli on 0.00 and Russell on −0.67 — can shift into consistent positive averages as the sample grows.