The Austrian Grand Prix reshuffled the edges of the 2026 “Best average positions gained” ranking: Charles Leclerc fell three places in the standings after losing six on the road, while Oscar Piastri climbed into the top three.
By Nadia Okafor
Charles Leclerc’s weekend at the Red Bull Ring landed as a direct hit to his “Best average positions gained” profile. Starting second and finishing eighth means a net loss of six positions in Spielberg, and that single result dragged him down from seventh to 10th in the ranking with a season average of −0.83. In a metric that rewards recovery drives from the official grid, a P2 start offers little room to score gains — and the eighth-place finish instead turned into negative movement that now defines his average through eight rounds.
Up front, Liam Lawson’s lead remains intact at +5.33 despite a race that offered no help to his numbers: he started ninth and finished ninth, collecting 2 points as the last classified car on 70 laps. That steadiness at the top matters because the chasing group is changing shape behind him. Max Verstappen holds second at +3.50, while Oscar Piastri has moved up to third on +2.40, a meaningful climb in a ranking where small per-race swings can reorder the podium spots quickly.
Piastri’s move is part of a broader mid-table churn: he rises from fourth to third, while Isack Hadjar advances two places from 10th to eighth after turning eighth on the grid into sixth at the flag, scoring 8 points over 71 laps — a straightforward two-position gain that still only leaves him on 0.00 for the season average. The signal is clear: with the minimum-race threshold already met and the season now eight races deep, single weekends like Austria can still move established names several ranks, even when the headline average changes look small.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 7 | 10 | -3 | −0.83 |
| Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | 10 | 8 | +2 | 0.00 |
| Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 4 | 3 | +1 | +2.40 |
Lawson’s +5.33 lead is holding, but the battle just behind is tightening in shape: Piastri has taken over third on +2.40, while Leclerc’s drop to −0.83 shows how quickly a single grid-to-flag loss can sink a season average in this metric.