Lewis Hamilton’s British GP third place was enough to flip the 2026 ‘Best average race finish’ ranking, moving him ahead of Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The biggest swing came lower down, where Max Verstappen’s retirement dropped him four places and tightened a mid-table cluster on pure finishing outcomes.
By Nadia Okafor
Lewis Hamilton is the new leader of 2026’s Best average race finish ranking after round 9 at Silverstone, edging ahead of previous leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Hamilton’s move is small in positional terms — up one place from 2nd to 1st — but decisive in what this table measures: the mean of official classification positions across all race entries, with retirements counted where they’re classified. After nine races completed, Hamilton’s average is 3.56 for Ferrari, compared to Antonelli’s 4.56 for Mercedes.
That change at the top was set against a controlled Sunday from Hamilton: he started 3rd, finished 3rd, completed 52 laps and took 15 points. In a ranking where every classified result counts and “good enough” still matters, that kind of clean, high finish is the currency — and it’s why Hamilton now sits first even without the headline of a win listed here.
The top three remains the same set of names, but the order is now Hamilton over Antonelli, with George Russell holding 3rd on a 5.22 average. The gap between 1st and 2nd is exactly 1.00 in average finish (3.56 vs 4.56), which is substantial over nine races — but not a runaway given how quickly one outlier result can reshape a mean when retirements are baked in.
For Mercedes, the story is nuanced rather than negative. Antonelli only drops one place, yet loses the lead; Russell stays third, keeping Mercedes with two drivers inside the top three. In other words, the team’s collective week-to-week finishing strength is still intact, even as Hamilton’s nine-race body of work has now become the benchmark this particular ranking is rewarding.
Max Verstappen takes that unwanted honour. He qualified and started 7th at Silverstone but was classified 20th with a status of Retired after 46 laps, scoring 0 points. In a metric that explicitly counts retirements via their classification order, a 20th is the kind of result that drags an average sharply — and Verstappen drops four places from 5th to 9th as a result, landing on a 9.56 average for Red Bull.
That slide also tells you something about the ranking’s texture after nine races: it is not merely a list of who is fast, but who repeatedly converts entries into solid classifications. Verstappen’s movement magnitude of 4 is the largest in this update, and it creates opportunity for the drivers around him who are compiling steady, unspectacular points-and-finishes weekends rather than absorbing a single heavy score.
McLaren is where the incremental gains stack up. Lando Norris jumps from 8th to 6th, improving to a 9.22 average, after finishing 4th from 6th on the grid at Silverstone, completing 52 laps and scoring 12 points. Oscar Piastri also nudges forward, from 6th to 5th, sitting on a 9.00 average. Neither move grabs the headline like the lead change or Verstappen’s drop, but together they underline how this ranking rewards turning weekends into clean classifications.
There’s also a quieter downside elsewhere: Esteban Ocon slips from 13th to 14th for Haas F1 Team, now on a 12.56 average. No top-10 entries or exits are flagged in this update, and there’s no streak signal either, so the biggest storylines are concentrated in the lead swap, Verstappen’s setback, and the McLaren pair inching into better positions as the sample size grows to nine races.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 5 | 9 | -4 | 9.56 |
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 8 | 6 | +2 | 9.22 |
| Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 2 | 1 | +1 | 3.56 |
Hamilton’s 3.56 average gives him a clear, measurable edge over Antonelli’s 4.56, but the ranking remains sensitive to outliers because retirements count. Verstappen’s drop to 9th shows how quickly one classified 20th can reshape the picture, while Norris and Piastri’s small gains hint at a developing McLaren climb built on finishing cleanly.