Three rounds into 2026, Lewis Hamilton still tops the Best average positions gained ranking at +1.00 on average, even though his Japanese GP was a straight grid-to-flag conversion from P6 to P6. Behind him, Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc and Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli are shaping a tight early-season picture.
By Elena Marsh
Lewis Hamilton remains the benchmark in 2026’s Best average positions gained ranking after the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, holding P1 with an average of +1.00 places per race across the three counted events. The notable twist is that his Suzuka Sunday did nothing to inflate that figure: he started sixth and finished sixth, a clean 0-place swing that underlines how much of his early advantage was built before Japan rather than during it.
That matters because this metric is unforgiving in its simplicity — grid position minus final classification, averaged — and it uses the official starting grid. There’s no interpretation, no weighting, and no ‘close enough’ when you do not move: Hamilton’s 53-lap run to P6, worth 8 points, was effectively a holding operation for this particular ranking, yet his existing average was strong enough that it still kept him in front.
Close enough that one strong recovery race could reshape the top three quickly — even though no such reshuffle happened at the very top after Suzuka. Charles Leclerc sits P2 on +0.67 average positions gained, giving Ferrari a 1-2 in this ranking. But that gap to Hamilton is only 0.33 places on the average: the kind of margin that can vanish (or widen) rapidly once a single race produces a meaningful grid-to-finish swing.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli is P3 at 0.00, which is its own statement. An even average after three counted races suggests a season so far defined by converting grid spots into finishing results rather than consistently climbing through the order. In a ranking designed to spotlight recovery drives, a flat 0.00 can be a platform — but it is also vulnerable if those around him start stacking modest gains.
The early-season tension sits in what the numbers imply about stability versus slippage. George Russell is P4 on −0.67, the only driver inside the current top four who is, on average, losing ground from grid to finish across the three races counted. In a movement-based ranking, being negative after three rounds is already a trend worth watching, because it can drag a driver away from the leaders even without dramatic single-race swings.
It also means Mercedes has split identities in this table: Antonelli holding neutral at 0.00, Russell trending the wrong way at −0.67. With Ferrari occupying P1 and P2 through Hamilton (+1.00) and Leclerc (+0.67), Suzuka leaves the impression of one team consolidating the top of this specific metric while another is already fighting an internal divergence.
Suzuka reinforced how this ranking can be shaped as much by ‘damage limitation’ as by eye-catching climbs. Hamilton’s Japanese GP did not add positions gained — P6 to P6 is as neutral as it gets — yet it also avoided the kind of negative swing that would have tightened the top even further. Over a short three-race sample, one race of losing ground can be disproportionately costly on the average.
With only three races completed and a minimum-race threshold already filtering the field, the table is still in its early, sensitive phase. The top three are separated not by points or pace narratives here, but by fractions of a place on average. That makes the next shifts likely to come from whoever can turn a single weekend into a clear grid-to-flag recovery — something Suzuka, for Hamilton at least, simply didn’t provide.
Hamilton’s +1.00 average stays intact after a neutral Suzuka (P6 to P6), but the cushion to Leclerc (+0.67) is small enough that one solid recovery drive could compress or flip the order. With Antonelli on 0.00 and Russell on −0.67, the early story is as much about avoiding losses from the official grid as it is about headline gains.