Round 5 in Montreal didn’t change the leader at the top, but it reshuffled the chasing pack. Oscar Piastri’s 10-place surge to fourth is the headline move, while Liam Lawson slipped out of the top 10.
By Camille Fontaine
Max Verstappen remains the season’s reference point in the Most overtakes ranking after the Canadian Grand Prix, holding first place on 37 with the top three unchanged. The bigger story, though, is immediately behind that settled summit: Oscar Piastri produced the largest swing of the week, jumping from 14th to fourth to land on 26 and drag the shape of the top 10 into a very different-looking order after five races.
That contrast captures where this table is right now. At the front it is about consolidation — Verstappen still has a clear buffer over Nico Hülkenberg’s 29 and George Russell’s 28 — but from fourth down it is suddenly crowded and volatile. Piastri has moved himself into the first page of the ranking in one hit, while others have found how quickly a couple of quiet weekends can erase early-season momentum.
Piastri’s rise is the cleanest example of why this ranking can diverge from the result sheet. He was 11th in Montreal, lapped after 66 laps and scored 0 points, yet in overtaking terms he has surged to fourth overall on 26. That is a 10-position improvement — the biggest movement magnitude recorded in the post-Canada update — and it shifts the conversation from “outside the picture” to “one big weekend away from the podium places” in this specific metric.
It is also a reminder of what is being measured: genuine on-track position gains across consecutive laps, with pit-stop shuffles stripped out unless they become lasting strategic gains. A driver can have a messy Sunday in the classification and still bank substantial passing volume over the season, and Piastri’s jump suggests his overall tally has now caught up with the kind of race-to-race fluctuation this table typically rewards.
If Piastri’s movement was the week’s statement, the counter-story was the top-10 trapdoor opening beneath several names. Liam Lawson dropped from sixth to 12th on 20, a six-place slide that also makes him one of the ranking’s most visible losers after round 5. Andrea Kimi Antonelli fell from seventh to 11th on 20, and Isack Hadjar went from ninth to 13th on 18 — three exits from the top 10 in a single update.
Lawson’s Canada weekend underlines the split between Sunday result and season-long overtaking accumulation. He started 12th and finished seventh, lapped after 67 laps for 6 points, but in this ranking he still moved backwards — evidence that other drivers’ passing output is accelerating faster than his total is rising. In a mid-table metric where the gaps are small, holding station is not enough; you can score points and still lose ground.
McLaren has become the main beneficiary of the Canada reshuffle. Piastri’s leap to fourth was backed up by Lando Norris climbing from 12th to eighth on 21, giving McLaren two drivers inside the top eight of the Most overtakes table. That kind of paired presence matters in a ranking built on repeated, granular position gains: it signals a team consistently placing both cars in situations where real passes are being made — and counted.
Audi, meanwhile, continues to hit at the top end through Hülkenberg’s second place on 29, and it also has Gabriel Bortoleto sitting ninth on 21, keeping a foothold in the top 10 while others dropped out. And at Williams, Carlos Sainz nudged from eighth to sixth with 26, landing on the same displayed total as Piastri while sitting two spots higher — another hint of how tight the fight is once you get beyond Verstappen’s 37.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 14 | 4 | +10 | 26 |
| Liam Lawson | RB F1 Team | 6 | 12 | -6 | 20 |
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 12 | 8 | +4 | 21 |
Verstappen’s 37 keeps him comfortably clear at the top, but Canada tightened the next layer: Hülkenberg (29) and Russell (28) are within a handful, and Piastri’s jump to 26 puts him right on the doorstep of the top three. With multiple drivers clustered around the low-to-mid 20s, the next updates are likely to hinge on who can keep generating repeatable, counted on-track passes rather than simply preserving position.