Lando Norris climbed to fourth in 2026’s best qualifying average after Montreal, while the top three remained unchanged. Mercedes continues to set the benchmark, with Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell running 1-2 on the metric after five rounds.
By Camille Fontaine
The sharpest shift after the Canadian Grand Prix was at McLaren: Lando Norris moved up one place from fifth to fourth on best qualifying average, now sitting on 4.80. With Oscar Piastri dropping the opposite way from fourth to fifth — also on 4.80 — the ranking is being decided not by pace differentials but by the tie-break, turning every single Saturday result into a high-leverage moment in an otherwise dead-even intra-team picture on this specific metric.
At the top, stability is the story — and it’s telling. Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains the qualifying-average leader on 1.40, with Mercedes team-mate George Russell next on 2.20, and Charles Leclerc third for Ferrari on 4.60. Antonelli’s Montreal weekend underlined why he’s so hard to dislodge: he qualified second at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and converted that into a win, scoring 25 points across 68 laps.
Behind them, the mid-table ordering continues to tighten with small but meaningful steps. Isack Hadjar nudged up from ninth to eighth for Red Bull on a 9.80 average, while Gabriel Bortoleto climbed from 16th to 15th for Audi on 13.80. The biggest downward movements were equally marginal — Pierre Gasly slipped from eighth to ninth to 10.20, and Esteban Ocon fell from 15th to 16th on 13.80 — illustrating that with a maximum movement magnitude of just one place, the ranking is currently rewarding consistency more than headline spikes.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 5 | 4 | +1 | 4.80 |
| Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | 9 | 8 | +1 | 9.80 |
| Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | 16 | 15 | +1 | 13.80 |
Antonelli’s 1.40 average and Russell’s 2.20 keep Mercedes in control of the qualifying-average narrative, while the 4.80 tie between Norris and Piastri shows how quickly a single session can flip the order. With movements capped at one place this week, the next shift is likely to come from sustained Saturdays rather than one-off outliers.