After round 6 at Monaco, the top of the Most overtakes ranking is unchanged — but the midfield order isn’t. Lindblad, Ocon and Gasly were the big movers as the gaps tighten behind Verstappen.
By Elena Marsh
Max Verstappen remains the reference point in 2026’s Most overtakes ranking after the Monaco Grand Prix: 37 is still enough for P1, and the signal this week is consolidation rather than a changing of the guard. What makes that notable is that Monaco was a weekend where Verstappen’s own event ended immediately — he is recorded as retired with 0 laps completed — yet the ranking lead didn’t budge. In a metric that only credits passes while both cars are running (and filters out pit-lane shuffles unless they become lasting, strategic gains), staying top without adding anything from the race itself underlines the strength of his earlier-season work.
The margin is not comfortable, though. Nico Hülkenberg sits second on 33, only four behind, while George Russell is third on 29, eight back from the lead. With the top three unchanged after round 6, the tension shifts from “who’s in front?” to “how quickly can the next tier convert small weekends into big swings?” — especially because this ranking can move in bursts when a driver strings together multiple genuine on-track passes.
Arvid Lindblad’s Monaco weekend is the standout upward move: up four places from 20th to 16th on 16 overtakes for RB F1 Team. The move matters because it’s the largest rank change recorded this round (the maximum movement magnitude is 4), and it comes with a clear race-day datapoint to support momentum: Lindblad started 15th and finished 7th, completing 78 laps and scoring 6 points. Even without breaking down which of those changes were on-track versus strategic gains, the overall profile fits a driver whose Sundays are starting to translate into measurable position-making rather than just damage limitation.
Behind that, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly each gained three places — the kind of jump that can quietly redefine the “next targets” in the table. Ocon climbs from 10th to 7th for Haas F1 Team and now has 25 overtakes; Gasly rises from 14th to 11th for Alpine F1 Team on 21. Neither is close enough to talk about the podium positions yet, but both have moved into the zone where one strong race can put pressure on the drivers immediately ahead — and, crucially, where consistent passing becomes a season-long identity rather than an occasional spike.
The same ranking that rewards a weekend like Lindblad’s can punish drivers who simply don’t add to their totals. Andrea Kimi Antonelli drops three places from 11th to 14th despite sitting on 20 overtakes, and the contrast with his Monaco result is stark: he converted pole into victory, leading from grid P1 to finish P1 with 25 points over 78 laps. That underlines a central truth of this methodology — it doesn’t care how dominant your win is if it doesn’t involve passing; it cares about the act of gaining positions against other running cars across consecutive laps (with pit-related swaps mostly filtered out).
Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas each fall three places too, and their raw totals show how quickly the table can separate: Hamilton goes from 16th to 19th on 13 overtakes for Ferrari, while Bottas slips from 18th to 21st on 12 for Cadillac F1 Team. With no top-10 entrants or exits listed this round, the story is less about a dramatic reshuffle at the very top and more about churn in the lower half — where a handful of passes (or their absence) can flip several ranks at once.
Six races into the season, the headline pattern is stability at the top and movement underneath it. Verstappen’s 37 still sets the bar; Hülkenberg’s 33 keeps the lead within reach; Russell’s 29 holds him firmly in the top three. With the “streak” signal flagged true and no leader change, the ranking currently reads like a slow squeeze rather than a weekly coin-flip — but the gaps are small enough that one productive weekend can rewrite the story.
The more immediate pressure points are clustered around the movers. Ocon at 25 and Gasly at 21 are now positioned to turn incremental gains into visible rank jumps, while Lindblad’s rise to 16th on 16 suggests the next threshold is less about cracking a specific number and more about sustaining his ability to move forward from deeper grid positions. Conversely, Antonelli’s drop — paired with a Monaco win — is a reminder that this isn’t a “form table” or a points proxy: it’s a specific measurement of racecraft under this pass-counting lens, and it can diverge sharply from headline results.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arvid Lindblad | RB F1 Team | 20 | 16 | +4 | 16 |
| Esteban Ocon | Haas F1 Team | 10 | 7 | +3 | 25 |
| Pierre Gasly | Alpine F1 Team | 14 | 11 | +3 | 21 |
Verstappen staying on 37 despite a Monaco retirement keeps the Most overtakes lead intact, but Hülkenberg is only four back on 33. The more telling shift is behind them: Ocon (25) and Gasly (21) have moved into striking distance of the next group, while Lindblad’s jump to 16th on 16 shows how quickly the lower order can be rewritten when a driver strings together real passes.