After the Hungarian Grand Prix, Liam Lawson’s edge at the top of the Biggest improvement vs qualifying table holds steady — but the big movement comes from Max Verstappen climbing three places into ninth.
By Elena Marsh
Liam Lawson remains the benchmark in 2026’s Biggest improvement vs qualifying metric after round 11 at the Hungaroring, still leading on +3.80. The headline here isn’t a change at the front — there wasn’t one — but the way Lawson continues to build a profile as the season’s most reliable improver from Saturday to Sunday.
Hungary gave a neat snapshot of why he’s there. Lawson qualified 11th and was classified eighth, picking up 4 points in the process. That’s exactly the kind of repeatable gain this ranking is designed to capture: not a one-off spike, but a steady mean improvement that keeps him ahead of the pack after 11 races completed.
The top three remains unchanged, but it’s not static. Esteban Ocon sits second for Haas F1 Team on +3.75, only 0.05 behind Lawson’s +3.80 — a small enough margin that a single swing weekend can matter once the sample grows. Sergio Pérez is third for Cadillac F1 Team on +3.67, 0.13 off the lead and within 0.08 of Ocon.
That spread is the story: the lead is intact, yet the gap isn’t. With the ranking built as the mean of qualifying position minus classified race classification (and requiring at least 3 races, so nobody is being flattered by a tiny sample), the top looks more like a long-form duel than a runaway — even if Hungary didn’t reshuffle the podium places.
Max Verstappen produced the most significant ranking shift after the Hungarian Grand Prix, climbing three places from 12th to ninth on +1.43 and, crucially, entering the top 10. His weekend underlined how this metric can reward a driver even when the narrative elsewhere focuses on raw finishing position: Verstappen’s qualifying position was sixth, but he was classified second and scored 18 points.
The movement has a knock-on effect. Carlos Sainz slips one place from ninth to 10th for Williams, sitting on +1.33, while Arvid Lindblad drops from 10th to 11th on +1.25 — and that demotion takes him out of the top-10 list entirely. In a ranking where gains are typically incremental, a single three-place jump is enough to rearrange the cut line.
Isack Hadjar’s move is modest on paper — up one place from 15th to 14th for Red Bull on +0.86 — but it fits the emerging pattern of small, cumulative steps that define this table once the season reaches 11 rounds. With the front stable, these marginal shifts become the clearest signal of who is trending in the right direction.
Sainz’s Hungary was the opposite kind of data point. He qualified 18th and was classified 18th, scoring 0 points, which offers no positional ‘recovery’ to feed the metric. In a measure explicitly about turning a qualifying spot into a better race classification position, a weekend with no improvement is doubly costly: it doesn’t just fail to add, it allows rivals around the top-10 threshold to edge past.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 12 | 9 | +3 | +1.43 |
| Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | 15 | 14 | +1 | +0.86 |
| Carlos Sainz | Williams | 9 | 10 | -1 | +1.33 |
Lawson’s +3.80 lead is holding, but Ocon is only 0.05 behind and Pérez is 0.13 off the top — margins that can flip without any dramatic ‘leader change’. Verstappen’s leap to ninth on +1.43 reshapes the top-10 battle and puts extra pressure on drivers clustered around 10th, where Sainz (+1.33) and the newly displaced Lindblad (+1.25) are now separated by the smallest of buffers.