The Belgian Grand Prix flips the 2026 Momentum ranking on its head: Charles Leclerc becomes the new benchmark for recent scoring rate, while Lewis Hamilton suffers the biggest fall of the week.
By Camille Fontaine
Charles Leclerc is the new leader of F1’s Momentum ranking after the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, jumping from 10th to 1st with a +7.38 momentum score for Ferrari. It’s a decisive swing not just in position but in direction: this metric measures how much faster a driver is scoring now (over the last three rounds) compared to earlier in the season, and Leclerc’s number is the biggest statement on the board after round 10.
The lead change is explicit: George Russell is displaced at the top, and the reshuffle isn’t confined to first place. Max Verstappen rises to 2nd on +4.00 and Isack Hadjar sits 3rd on +3.81, meaning the entire top three has changed. Ten races into the season, that’s the ranking’s way of saying the most recent three rounds are exerting real pressure on the established order.
Leclerc’s climb is the standout mover in either direction: +9 places, from 10th to 1st, and a +7.38 momentum figure that dwarfs the next-best numbers at the front. At Spa he converted a 4th-place grid spot into 2nd at the flag, banking 18 points across 44 laps, having qualified 5th. Whatever his earlier-season baseline was, the last three rounds have meaningfully outpaced it.
The Ferrari contrast is sharp because the ranking punishes a cooling trend as aggressively as it rewards a hot one. Hamilton, also in a Ferrari, drops from 5th to 20th with a −2.52 score — the largest movement magnitude in the ranking this week at 15 places. Even with a solid Spa result on paper (grid 5th to finish 4th, 12 points, qualified 6th, 44 laps), his most recent three-race points-per-race rate has fallen below his earlier-season average.
Hamilton isn’t the only driver sliding, but he is the most dramatic: −15 places to 20th and a negative momentum score that makes him the clearest ‘cooling off’ story after Belgium. Liam Lawson also heads the wrong way, dropping from 7th to 14th for RB F1 Team with a −0.38 value — a smaller swing than Hamilton’s, but still a meaningful reversal in a ranking built to spotlight shifts over a short window.
Not every fall comes with a negative number, which is part of what makes this ranking useful: it separates raw points from the change in scoring speed. Lando Norris, for example, drops five places from 2nd to 7th despite still carrying a +0.43 momentum score for McLaren — a reminder that relative form can remain positive while rivals accelerate faster.
The cut line moved too. Lance Stroll, Nico Hülkenberg and Sergio Pérez are the new names inside the top 10 at 8th, 9th and 10th respectively — all three sitting on 0.00, the literal midpoint between heating up and cooling down. Stroll is also one of the biggest gainers overall, up three places from 11th to 8th for Aston Martin, effectively turning neutral momentum into top-10 positioning as others slip.
Those entries come at a cost elsewhere: Lewis Hamilton, Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri are listed among the top-10 exits. And just outside the podium places, Gabriel Bortoleto has quietly inserted himself into the leading group by rising four spots from 8th to 4th on +2.38 for Audi — the kind of upward drift that can become a bigger story if it continues to outpace the earlier-season baseline.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 5 | 20 | -15 | −2.52 |
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 10 | 1 | +9 | +7.38 |
| Liam Lawson | RB F1 Team | 7 | 14 | -7 | −0.38 |
Round 10 underlines how quickly the Momentum ranking can flip once the last-three-race window shifts: Leclerc’s +7.38 sets a new reference point, Verstappen and Hadjar form close company, and Hamilton’s −2.52 shows how a driver can slide hard even when still scoring points. With several drivers clustered around 0.00 at the top-10 cutoff, the next recalculation could reshape the mid-table as much as the lead.