The Canadian Grand Prix reshuffled the middle of the 2026 ‘Most positions lost’ ranking, with Lewis Hamilton taking the biggest hit and Charles Leclerc also sliding. Up front, Arvid Lindblad’s season total stayed at −4 despite a Montreal non-start from ninth on the grid.
By Elena Marsh
Lewis Hamilton’s weekend at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve produced the sharpest ranking swing of round 5: he dropped five places in the season standings for positions lost, from 12th to 17th, after logging a +6 against his grid slot in Montreal. In a metric built purely on net grid-to-flag movement across classified starts, a single race that swings that hard can outweigh quieter rounds — and it’s why Hamilton’s Ferrari now sits deep in the table even though he finished second from fifth on the grid and collected 18 points over 68 laps.
Hamilton wasn’t the only Ferrari to take a backward step in this particular ranking. Charles Leclerc slid four places from 3rd to 7th, with a +1 added to his season ledger. It’s a useful contrast: Leclerc’s change was smaller in raw net movement, but in a tightly packed early-season table after five races completed, even a single-place loss can be enough to cede several ranking positions.
At the top, the headline is continuity rather than upheaval. Arvid Lindblad remains joint-highest on −4, level with Gabriel Bortoleto, and the lead did not change after Canada. Lindblad’s Montreal story was unusual — he was classified as ‘did not start’ after qualifying ninth — but the season table still has him on −4 as the ranking continues its early-year pattern of small totals deciding big swings.
The other notable movers show how quickly the chase group can compress. Isack Hadjar climbed from 4th to 3rd on −3, while George Russell moved up one place to 4th on −1. Franco Colapinto made the biggest gain among the improvers, jumping from 7th to 5th and sitting exactly on 0 after a Montreal run from 10th on the grid to 6th at the finish, scoring eight points despite being lapped.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 12 | 17 | -5 | +6 |
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 3 | 7 | -4 | +1 |
| Franco Colapinto | Alpine F1 Team | 7 | 5 | +2 | 0 |
With Lindblad and Bortoleto still tied on −4 at the top and Hadjar now up to third on −3, the front of the positions-lost ranking is being decided by tiny season totals. The bigger story after Canada is the volatility in the midfield: Hamilton’s +6 and Leclerc’s +1 show how quickly a single round can reshape the order after just five races.