Liam Lawson’s Canadian GP drive from 12th on the grid to seventh added 6 points to his “outside the top 10” haul and moved him ahead of Max Verstappen. With only 2 points between them, the early-season benchmark for comeback scoring is tightening.
By Diego Torres
Liam Lawson now leads the 2026 “Points from outside the top 10” ranking after the Canadian Grand Prix, turning a 12th-place start into seventh at Montreal to bank 6 points and lift his total to 14. That single result was enough to swap him past previous leader Max Verstappen, who drops to second on 12 — a decisive change in a category where one clean recovery drive can rewrite the order.
The contrast between the two Red Bull-affiliated stories is what makes the shake-up meaningful. Lawson’s points here came specifically from the kind of compromised Sunday this ranking measures: a start outside the top 10 and a points finish anyway, even with his race classified as “Lapped” after 67 laps. Verstappen, by comparison, scored 15 points for third after starting sixth over 68 laps — valuable for the championship, but irrelevant to this table’s core test, and it left him vulnerable once Lawson added another outside-top-10 score.
Behind them, Oliver Bearman holds third on 7, establishing a clear split: Lawson (14) and Verstappen (12) have created a leading pair, while the next marker sits at half Lawson’s total. Further down the list, the only movements were single-position shuffles — Isack Hadjar edging from 10th to ninth on 0, while Arvid Lindblad fell from ninth to 10th, also on 0 — underlining that, five races into the season, meaningful progress in this ranking still depends on converting the occasional poor grid slot into real points.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liam Lawson | RB F1 Team | 2 | 1 | +1 | 14 |
| Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | 10 | 9 | +1 | 0 |
| Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 1 | 2 | -1 | 12 |
Lawson’s move to 14 puts him 2 points clear of Verstappen in a ranking that can pivot on a single recovery drive from 11th or lower; with Bearman on 7, the fight is already defining itself as a two-driver duel at the top after five races.