Thirteen rounds into 2026, the Most overtakes ranking is tightening at the very top even without a change of leader. Monza’s big winner, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, also delivered the ranking’s biggest jump, while Oliver Bearman’s slide opened the door for a new top-10 name and forced an exit.
By Elena Marsh
Gabriel Bortoleto remains the season leader for Most overtakes after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, sitting on 74. The key point, though, is that the lead is no longer comfortable: Max Verstappen has moved up to second on 70, cutting the gap to just 4 overtakes in a top end that is now separated by margins you can erase across a single busy weekend.
That compression is underlined by George Russell in third on 69, only 1 behind Verstappen and 5 off Bortoleto. With the top three unchanged but bunched, Monza reads less like a status-quo round and more like a warning shot: Bortoleto can keep the number-one spot without dominating every race on track, but the room for quiet weekends is shrinking fast.
The standout mover is Andrea Kimi Antonelli, whose surge is as dramatic in rank as it is in context. He jumps seven places, from 15th to 8th, and lands on 60 overtakes — instantly turning him from an also-ran in this metric into a genuine top-10 presence with a clear line of sight to Russell’s 69 in third if the trend holds.
What makes that climb resonate is how neatly it aligns with his Italian Grand Prix outcome: Antonelli won from 19th on the grid, the biggest grid-to-finish gain in the race at +18. That doesn’t automatically equate to counted passes under this ranking’s methodology, but it does fit the broader picture of a weekend defined by forward progress and sustained position gains rather than simply inheriting places.
Monza also quietly re-ordered the pack just outside the podium places in this ranking. Verstappen’s one-place rise from third to second matters because it’s the most direct pressure applied to Bortoleto: 70 is now close enough that the leader has to keep scoring overtakes — on track or via lasting strategic gains — simply to hold station.
Liam Lawson’s progress reinforces that Red Bull has two drivers moving in the right direction on this measure. Lawson climbs three positions from 16th to 13th with 55 overtakes, not yet a top-10 threat but no longer stranded in the mid-pack of the table. In a ranking where ties are split by season points, getting closer in raw overtake count is only part of the battle, so rank momentum matters.
The biggest loser among the highlighted movers is Oliver Bearman, dropping four spots from 11th to 15th and sitting on 49 overtakes. That’s a significant fall because it moves him away from the top-10 conversation at the exact moment a new name is breaking into it, and it leaves Bearman needing not just incremental progress but a weekend that decisively swings his total back upward.
Antonelli’s rise has a direct knock-on effect: he is the new top-10 entrant at 8th, and Esteban Ocon is the top-10 exit. The signal from this round is not merely that one driver had a spike; it’s that the borderline of the top 10 is live, and a single strong race can redraw it. Separately, Isack Hadjar slips from 4th to 6th on 62, and that matters because it loosens the chase group behind Russell — a reminder that even solid totals can be vulnerable when others are moving fast.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 15 | 8 | +7 | 60 |
| Oliver Bearman | Haas F1 Team | 11 | 15 | -4 | 49 |
| Liam Lawson | Red Bull | 16 | 13 | +3 | 55 |
Bortoleto’s 74 still sets the pace, but Verstappen at 70 and Russell at 69 have turned the Most overtakes lead into a week-to-week squeeze rather than a cushion. Antonelli’s leap to 8th on 60 shows how quickly the top 10 can change, while Bearman’s drop to 15th illustrates how punishing a flat weekend can be in a metric built on sustained, counted gains.