After Silverstone, Max Verstappen still leads the 2026 Most overtakes ranking with 51, but the fight immediately behind him has tightened. Oscar Piastri’s jump to second and George Russell’s move into third headline a top-three shake-up after round 9.
By Diego Torres
Max Verstappen remains the reference point in 2026’s Most overtakes ranking after the British Grand Prix, holding P1 with 51. The headline at the top isn’t a change of leader, but the way the pack has compressed: Oscar Piastri has surged to P2 on 49, leaving the gap to the lead at just 2 overtakes after nine races.
That tightening is made more striking by the contrast in their Silverstone outcomes. Verstappen started seventh and retired after 46 laps, while Piastri started eighth and finished 11th after 52 laps. Yet this metric isn’t about the finishing result; it’s about lap-to-lap position changes that stick, separating genuine on-track passes from pit-cycle shuffles unless a strategic gain is ultimately retained. Across that lens, the British GP has pulled the ranking into a two-driver fight at the top, even with the leader unchanged.
The most consequential mover is Piastri: up 4 places from P6 to P2 with 49. That single swing has reordered the entire podium of the ranking, because it has also pushed George Russell into P3 on 47 — a top-three change without a change in the lead.
The numbers underline how fine the margins now are. Russell sits 2 behind Piastri and 4 behind Verstappen, meaning one busy race can flip the shape of the top three even if Verstappen continues to bank overtakes at his season-leading rate. Piastri’s Silverstone weekend, ending 11th with zero points, is a reminder that this table can tell a different story from the Sunday headline: he can climb the overtake chart even when the points column doesn’t move.
Piastri wasn’t the only driver to make a decisive jump. Oliver Bearman also gained 4 positions, rising from P10 to P6 on 43 for Haas, a step that matters because it turns a top-10 cameo into a more stable-looking presence in the upper half of the table.
At the same time, Gabriel Bortoleto has taken the biggest hit among the featured movers: down 3 positions from P2 to P5 despite sitting on 46 for Audi. His British GP result shows the split between race outcome and this metric’s internal dynamics — he qualified 11th, finished eighth, and scored 4 points — but his ranking drop suggests others around him simply generated more sustained position gains through the lap chart.
Pierre Gasly slid 2 places from P5 to P7 on 42, and Carlos Sainz dropped 2 from P8 to P10 on 38. Those are smaller movements than the headline +4s, but in a ranking where the top is separated by single-digit totals, even a two-place slide can quickly change who is ‘in the conversation’ for the next tier up.
The British GP also reshaped the edges of the top 10. Franco Colapinto is the new name inside it, climbing from P11 to P9 with 40 for Alpine, while Lewis Hamilton has dropped out of the top 10. Those boundary shifts are easy to overlook compared to the Verstappen-Piastri gap, but they matter because they often reflect a driver’s week-to-week ability to repeatedly gain track position rather than merely hold it.
There is also a broader pattern signal: the ranking flags a continuing streak, and with nine races completed, the table is now deep enough that moves are increasingly meaningful. When the methodology filters out pit-only swaps and ignores retirements as a source of ‘free’ places, sustained progress becomes harder to fake — which is why Bearman consolidating P6 and Colapinto breaking into P9 are as telling as the reshuffled top three.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 6 | 2 | +4 | 49 |
| Oliver Bearman | Haas F1 Team | 10 | 6 | +4 | 43 |
| Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | 2 | 5 | -3 | 46 |
Verstappen’s lead in Most overtakes is intact, but Piastri at 49 has turned it into a 2-overtake margin, while Russell at 47 keeps the top three within 4. With Bortoleto on 46 and Bearman up to 43, the next shift is as likely to come from a single strong race as from any long-term trend.