Round 11 at the Hungaroring flips the top of the Most overtakes ranking, with Max Verstappen moving ahead on 63. Behind him, the fight is tight: Hadjar is on 61 and Russell has surged to third on 59.
By Diego Torres
The Hungarian Grand Prix has produced a change at the very top of the 2026 Most overtakes ranking. Max Verstappen is now the leader on 63, replacing previous pacesetter Isack Hadjar, who drops to second despite still sitting just two back on 61.
That swing matters because it comes with the order at the front now compressed into a three-driver squeeze. George Russell’s jump to third puts him on 59, meaning the gap from first to third is only four overtakes after 11 races completed. In a metric that rewards season-long racecraft rather than one-off spikes, that’s a narrow margin to protect—and a reminder that the leaderboard can move quickly even without wholesale reshuffles through the top 10.
Hadjar’s demotion to second isn’t a collapse; it’s a sign of how fine the margins are at the front of this list. On 61, he remains directly in Verstappen’s slipstream, and the ranking now reads like a three-way contest rather than a single-driver runaway: Russell’s 59 puts him within striking distance of both Red Bull drivers.
What makes Russell’s presence in third particularly significant is the pace of his climb. He has moved from eighth to third in one update, the biggest rise of any driver highlighted after Budapest. It reframes the top end from a two-car Red Bull story into a broader fight, with Mercedes now represented in the top three and the pressure redistributed across the leading group rather than concentrated on Hadjar alone.
Russell’s five-place gain is the headline mover: eighth to third, now on 59 for Mercedes, after finishing seventh at the Hungaroring from sixth on the grid. It’s the kind of progress that doesn’t need a win or a headline result to show up in this ranking—because it’s built from lap-by-lap position changes and filters out pure pit-stop shuffles unless the move becomes a lasting strategic gain.
The biggest fall is equally stark. Oscar Piastri drops five places from third to eighth on 50 for McLaren, and his Hungarian Grand Prix ended as a retirement after 55 laps, classified as “R” and worth 0 points. In a system that only credits passes while both cars are still running, a shorter race distance naturally reduces opportunities to add to an overtake tally, and the ranking reflects that lost volume.
Further back, Lance Stroll’s movement is smaller but still notable: up three places from 22nd to 19th on 27 for Aston Martin. It underlines how this table has meaningful battles beyond the podium line—where incremental gains can be the difference between being stuck in the lower reaches and starting to reel in the midfield runners on raw passing output.
The immediate takeaway from round 11 is how little separates the front three. Verstappen’s 63 sets the benchmark, but Hadjar at 61 and Russell at 59 mean any swing in race-to-race passing volume can rewrite the order again. With no top-10 entries or exits flagged in this update, the story is less about new faces arriving and more about the front of the existing group reshaping itself.
There’s also a clear contrast in trajectories among the key movers: Russell’s surge suggests momentum toward the lead battle, while Piastri’s drop to eighth shows how quickly a single weekend can knock a driver out of the top three on this metric. Meanwhile, Stroll’s slow climb hints at a longer, steadier campaign—one where consistent incremental passing counts can still translate into meaningful rank gains over time.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| George Russell | Mercedes | 8 | 3 | +5 | 59 |
| Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 3 | 8 | -5 | 50 |
| Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 22 | 19 | +3 | 27 |
Verstappen’s move to 63 gives him the Most overtakes lead, but Hadjar is only two back on 61 and Russell has closed to 59. With just four separating the top three, the next swing in passing volume could reshuffle the podium positions again—especially for Piastri, now down to eighth on 50 after a costly Hungary.