After the Japanese Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc remains the Power ranking leader on 69.0, keeping a clear margin to Andrea Kimi Antonelli on 63.7. The bigger story is behind them, with the top three order changing even though the lead did not.
By Camille Fontaine
Charles Leclerc has left Suzuka still heading the Power ranking, and the number that matters most is unchanged at the top: 69.0 for the Ferrari driver after round 3 of 2026. With Andrea Kimi Antonelli next on 63.7, the gap is 5.3 points — meaningful in a model that blends teammate head-to-head, grid-to-finish progress, consistency/reliability and average qualifying position into a single 0–100 composite.
Leclerc’s Japanese Grand Prix weekend fits the profile of a points-generating, damage-limiting round that supports a ranking lead rather than forcing it. He qualified fourth and finished third, scoring 15 points over 53 laps, and that grid-to-flag improvement (4th to 3rd) is exactly the kind of small but bankable gain that helps on a metric where positions gained carries 30% weight.
The more fluid picture is immediately behind: the ranking’s top three order changed this round even without a change of leader, with Lewis Hamilton currently third on 48.3. That places Ferrari with two of the top three drivers by composite score after three races completed — but with a large internal spread, as Hamilton sits 20.7 points back from Leclerc, underlining how much the 40%-weighted teammate head-to-head component can shape the competitive picture.
Mercedes’ own split tells a similar story in a different part of the table, with Antonelli second on 63.7 and George Russell fourth on 27.5. That 36.2-point separation is a reminder that, as early as round 3, the ranking is already separating drivers not just by headline results but by how consistently they stack up against the only constant reference point available: their teammate.
With three races logged, Leclerc’s 69.0 gives him a 5.3-point cushion over Antonelli that looks like a real early-season margin rather than a tie-break. But the reshuffled top three and the big intra-team gaps at Ferrari and Mercedes suggest the next shifts are more likely to come from teammate head-to-head swings than from any single headline finish.