Two races into 2026, the Most overtakes ranking is already a tight three-way picture at the top: Max Verstappen leads on 19, but Oliver Bearman and Liam Lawson are both on 15. The Chinese Grand Prix also reshuffled the top 10, with big drops for Lando Norris and Gabriel Bortoleto and a surge from Isack Hadjar.
By Camille Fontaine
Max Verstappen remains the season leader in Most overtakes after the Chinese Grand Prix, sitting on 19. The headline number is that the lead didn’t change, but the context did: the chase group is close enough that one strong Sunday can flip the picture, with Oliver Bearman and Liam Lawson tied on 15 apiece and therefore just four behind Verstappen.
That tension is sharpened by Shanghai’s own contrast. Verstappen is still the benchmark for pass-making across the first two rounds, yet his Chinese Grand Prix ended as a retirement after 45 laps, from grid 8. Even with that, the ranking rewards the cumulative body of work, and the early-season pattern is clear: the top of the table is being shaped by drivers who repeatedly move forward in race conditions rather than relying on one-off spikes.
Bearman’s presence in second on 15 is one of the defining early stories because it pins a midfield team, Haas, right onto the same headline line as Red Bull. And it’s not just Bearman: Haas also places Esteban Ocon inside the top 10, seventh on 10, making it one of the best-represented teams near the front of this specific metric.
Lawson matching Bearman on 15 means the ranking has a rare early logjam for second and third, and it matters because ties are split by season points before alphabetical order. With only two races completed, that’s a reminder that this list isn’t simply “who passed the most on track” in isolation: it’s a season-long accounting that can be separated by what those Sundays ultimately delivered.
The biggest climber among the featured movers was Isack Hadjar, up eight places from 19th to 11th with 9 overtakes credited so far. Shanghai underlined how quickly this ranking can move when a driver strings together real position changes: Hadjar qualified ninth, finished eighth, completed 56 laps and scored 4 points, and that total progress was mirrored in his overtaking column.
Carlos Sainz made an even bigger jump within the top end of the table, rising seven spots from 12th to fifth on 11. He now sits directly ahead of Nico Hülkenberg (fourth on 12), and with the top three on 19 and 15s, drivers in that 10–12 range are close enough that a single strong round can break into the headline positions.
Ocon’s move from 13th to seventh (up six) on 10 adds to that theme: these are not marginal shuffles. They’re meaningful changes in rank that reshape the top 10 picture after only two races.
The sharpest drop belongs to Lando Norris: down 11 places from second to 13th with 7 overtakes. His Chinese Grand Prix explains the immediate stagnation in count—he did not start from grid six, recording 0 laps and 0 points—so while others added to their totals, Norris effectively stood still and was overtaken in the standings.
Gabriel Bortoleto suffered the same scale of decline, also down 11 spots from third to 14th on 7. Along with Andrea Kimi Antonelli also exiting the top 10, it leaves a clear dividing line between drivers building early-season overtaking volume and those who’ve already seen their ranking position erode.
The flip side is that the top 10 has new shape and fresh names: Hülkenberg sits fourth on 12 for Audi, while Sainz (Williams) and Ocon (Haas) are now embedded in the top 10 mix. After Shanghai, the streak of ranking stability at the very top (Verstappen still P1) is paired with volatility just beneath it.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 2 | 13 | -11 | 7 |
| Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | 3 | 14 | -11 | 7 |
| Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | 19 | 11 | +8 | 9 |
Verstappen’s 19 keeps him in control of the Most overtakes ranking, but with Bearman and Lawson both on 15, the margin is thin enough that the next clean points-scoring weekend for either could turn the top into a genuine three-way scrap. Meanwhile, big movers like Sainz (up to fifth on 11) and Hadjar (up to 11th on 9) have pulled themselves within striking distance of the top 10’s upper tier, while Norris and Bortoleto’s twin drops to 13th and 14th show how quickly a stalled race weekend can undo an early-season position.