After the Italian Grand Prix, Lando Norris remains the clear reference on the Momentum ranking — while Charles Leclerc’s weekend triggers the biggest swing anywhere on the table.
By Julian Reyes
Lando Norris still leads the Momentum ranking after round 13 at Monza, and the margin is the story: his +12.97 is not just a positive trend line but a different category of form compared to everyone else. In a metric built on the change in points-per-race rate over the last three rounds versus earlier in the season, Norris is accelerating harder than any rival — and he is doing it without needing a headline-making jump this week, because he was already out front and stays there.
The more dramatic headline is behind him. Charles Leclerc has suffered the largest movement of the update, falling 19 places from 2nd to 21st, with a Momentum value of −3.17. That single swing flips the shape of the top end: the top three is now Norris, Isack Hadjar (+3.04) and Max Verstappen (+2.80), a reshuffle driven as much by Leclerc’s collapse as by Red Bull’s pair establishing themselves as the nearest challengers on recent-rate scoring.
Monza’s results underline how quickly this ranking can turn: Leclerc is classified Retired, completing 1 lap and scoring 0 points after qualifying 4th. In a ranking that compares “now” against a season baseline, one weekend like that doesn’t just hurt the latest three-race average — it can also reframe the entire narrative of momentum.
Norris’s +12.97 reads like an outlier because it is one. The next-best figure is Hadjar’s +3.04, with Verstappen close behind on +2.80 — leaving Norris with a gap of 9.93 to second place on this measure. That matters because it suggests Norris is not merely “in form”; he is improving his scoring rate relative to his own earlier-season standard far more sharply than the rest of the field’s leading group.
His Italian Grand Prix result is a useful reminder of what this ranking is — and isn’t. Norris finished 4th and collected 12 points, starting from a qualifying position of 9th and completing all 53 laps. Momentum is not a single-race ranking, so a fourth place doesn’t automatically translate to a leap, but it does show why his lead can be resilient: even a weekend that’s not a win still feeds a recent three-round points rate strong enough to preserve a commanding positive delta.
The biggest gain belongs to George Russell, whose Momentum week is defined by a 15-place rise from 22nd to 7th. His value is only +0.20 — modest in absolute terms — but the jump signals a recent rate that has edged above his earlier-season baseline just enough to slice through a crowded midfield of trends. Russell’s Monza weekend provides the hard points behind that move: he finished 2nd for 18 points after qualifying 2nd, again completing 53 laps.
Leclerc’s 19-place fall is the counterweight, and it also explains two other signals: there’s a top-10 entry and a top-10 exit this week. Russell is one of the new arrivals in the top 10 at 7th, while Leclerc is one of the drivers who drops out. The other top-10 exit is Gabriel Bortoleto, who slides 10 places from 7th to 17th on a Momentum of −1.00, a meaningful cooling relative to his own earlier-season average.
A quieter but telling subplot is how thin the line is around the edges of the top 10. Valtteri Bottas sits 10th with a perfectly flat 0.00, the pivot point between “improving” and “cooling off”. That makes Russell’s +0.20 enough to matter, and it turns small shifts in recent scoring rate into large positional swings — exactly the kind of volatility this ranking is designed to surface.
This update draws a clear split: one driver with runaway positive momentum, a pair of Red Bull drivers closest behind, and then a compressed pack where tiny deltas separate a rise from a slide. Hadjar’s +3.04 and Verstappen’s +2.80 give the top three a coherent shape, but Russell’s appearance in 7th on +0.20 shows how quickly the “form table” changes once you get beyond the very top.
The exits reinforce the fragility. Leclerc’s drop from 2nd to 21st is extreme, but Bortoleto’s fall from 7th to 17th is the more typical warning sign: a driver can go from top-10 momentum to outside it in a single update when their last-three-round average underperforms the earlier-season baseline. With the ranking requiring a meaningful earlier-season sample, these shifts are not noise — they are the ranking’s way of flagging who is genuinely speeding up versus slowing down.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 2 | 21 | -19 | −3.17 |
| George Russell | Mercedes | 22 | 7 | +15 | +0.20 |
| Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | 7 | 17 | -10 | −1.00 |
Norris is not just leading the Momentum ranking — his +12.97 gives him a 9.93 cushion to Hadjar, while the Russell and Bottas numbers show how little separates the next tier. The flipside is brutal: Leclerc’s fall to 21st and Bortoleto’s drop to 17th underline how quickly recent scoring rate can overturn the form picture.