Four races into 2026, Arvid Lindblad remains joint-worst for net places lost despite gaining two spots in Miami from 16th to 14th. The bigger shake-up came behind: Charles Leclerc’s Miami slide from 3rd to 8th pushed him up to third overall on this metric, while both McLarens dropped out of the top 10.
By Elena Marsh
The headline at the top is stability rather than a takeover: Arvid Lindblad keeps P1 on the Most positions lost ranking after Miami, still sitting at −4 for the season. That number underlines how finely balanced this table is after four rounds, because Gabriel Bortoleto is also on −4 — but the lead does not change, and Lindblad remains the name at the top.
Miami itself added an intriguing layer to Lindblad’s story because his Sunday ran counter to his season-long metric. From a grid slot of 16th he finished 14th (56 laps completed, classified as Lapped), a net gain of two positions on the day. In other words, he ‘recovered’ ground in Miami, yet still leads a ranking designed to spotlight who has bled the most places from grid to flag across the year so far.
The biggest mover in the table was Charles Leclerc: he jumped eight ranking positions, from 11th to 3rd, now carrying a season value of −3 for Ferrari. That leap is explained by a very specific Miami swing — Leclerc started 3rd and finished 8th, a five-place loss even though it still yielded 4 points and a full race distance of 57 laps.
That combination is exactly what makes this ranking useful. Points can disguise an uncomfortable Sunday relative to qualifying; Leclerc’s Miami weekend shows how a driver can be productive in the classification yet still add significant ‘lost places’ into this season total. With the top now clustered at −4, −4 and −3, Leclerc has moved from outside the top 10 of the table to right in the fight with a single result.
Miami also produced the most conspicuous downward movement, and it came as a double-hit for McLaren. Lando Norris dropped six places in the ranking (from 7th to 13th) and is now sitting on +3, while Oscar Piastri also fell six (from 8th to 14th) and is on +5. Both are listed among the top-10 exits alongside Carlos Sainz, and that matters because it re-frames McLaren’s season narrative in this specific measure: instead of being prominent for losing places, they are now trending the other way.
Norris’s own Miami numbers capture the tension between one race and the season table. He started 4th and finished 2nd, gaining two places across 57 laps and scoring 18 points. But this ranking is cumulative: a strong recovery day reduces the chance of remaining high on the ‘most places lost’ list, which helps explain why he moved away from the top 10 rather than towards it.
Two new names broke into the top 10 after Miami: Esteban Ocon (Haas) rose three spots from 12th to 9th, while Nico Hülkenberg (Audi) climbed from 13th to 10th — and both sit on +2. In a ranking where negative totals are ‘worse’ and positive totals are ‘better’, that shared +2 is a reminder that the table is not only about who is struggling; it also tracks who has, across four races, more often moved forward than backward from their grid slots.
The net result is a more sharply defined split. The front of the ranking is still occupied by drivers carrying negative season totals (Lindblad −4, Bortoleto −4, Leclerc −3), while the reshuffled lower end of the top 10 now contains drivers with positive values. With the signals flagging top-three change, a top-10 entry, and the season’s biggest movement magnitude at eight places, Miami felt less like a routine update and more like a pivot point for how this list will read as the sample size grows beyond four races.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 11 | 3 | +8 | −3 |
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 7 | 13 | -6 | +3 |
| Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 8 | 14 | -6 | +5 |
After four races, the top of Most positions lost is a tight cluster: Lindblad and Bortoleto are level on −4 and Leclerc is only one place behind on −3. With Norris and Piastri moving out of the top 10 and Leclerc suddenly in it, the next few rounds will matter less for ‘who’s fastest’ and more for who keeps turning qualifying positions into race results — because one swing like Leclerc’s 3rd-to-8th in Miami can reshape this table.