Round 17 at Marina Bay didn’t change the top three of the ‘Biggest improvement vs qualifying’ ranking, but it did reshape the chasing pack. Isack Hadjar’s jump from 22nd to 10th helped lift him into the top 10 on this metric, while Andrea Kimi Antonelli dropped out.
By Nadia Okafor
Esteban Ocon continues to lead the 2026 ‘Biggest improvement vs qualifying’ ranking after the Singapore Grand Prix, holding P1 on a season mean of +4.17. The headline change at Marina Bay wasn’t at the very top — the top three stayed intact — but in the squeeze behind it, where a single standout recovery could still move a driver multiple places in the standings.
Ocon’s advantage remains clear but not untouchable. Sergio Pérez is still second on +4.00, just 0.17 behind, while Alexander Albon remains third on +3.33. With 17 races completed and a minimum of three classified events required to appear in the table, this metric is increasingly about sustained patterns rather than one-off anomalies — which makes the stability at the front notable even on a weekend that produced big swings elsewhere.
Isack Hadjar’s rise into the top 10 is the round’s most meaningful shift for this ranking. He climbed two places in the standings, from 11th to ninth, and now sits on a +1.80 season average — a tidy figure in a section of the table where small changes can flip ordering quickly.
That movement was backed up by a concrete Singapore result that fits the spirit of the metric. Hadjar qualified 22nd and finished 10th, a 12-place improvement across the weekend’s competitive sessions, and was the race’s biggest mover on a grid-to-flag basis. This ranking uses qualifying position rather than starting grid, so it’s a purer read on how often a driver converts Saturdays into stronger Sundays; Hadjar’s Singapore was exactly that kind of conversion.
The ripple effect was immediate: Antonelli slipped from 10th to 11th and therefore became the top-10 exit. There’s no need for a collapse for that to happen — the mid-table is compressed enough that one driver landing a signature improvement weekend can force another out of the top bracket.
Oscar Piastri also gained two positions, moving from 17th to 15th, but his valueDisplay remains at 0.00. That underlines how this table can shift on relative movement even without a positive season average: as others around him fall back, holding station can still translate into rank gains in the lower half.
At the other end of the movers list, Lewis Hamilton took the biggest hit among the key names, dropping two places from 12th to 14th despite still being marginally positive at +0.06. Singapore itself was a weekend that didn’t bolster his case on this specific measure: he qualified third and finished sixth, which is a negative swing for a metric explicitly defined as qualifying position minus race finish.
Max Verstappen, meanwhile, nudged down one spot in the ranking from ninth to 10th and stands on +1.67. That’s an interesting contrast point from Singapore’s headline result — he converted pole into victory — because this ranking isn’t about winning, it’s about consistently outperforming one’s own qualifying baseline.
The top three staying unchanged doesn’t mean the picture is settled; it simply shifts the focus to the margins where the movement is currently happening. Hadjar’s entry at ninth on +1.80, Verstappen sitting 10th on +1.67, and Antonelli now 11th on +0.69 illustrate the spread: a relatively small change in average can mean the difference between being inside or outside the top 10.
This is also where the methodology matters most. Because it’s qualifying position minus race classification position — and explicitly not based on starting grid — it’s insulated from grid penalties and is better read as a driver’s repeatable ability to improve from Saturday to Sunday when they are classified. With the season deep enough that averages are harder to shift dramatically in one round, the next big reshuffle is more likely to come from another pronounced recovery drive, rather than gradual drift at the very top.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Isack Hadjar | Red Bull | 11 | 9 | +2 | +1.80 |
| Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 17 | 15 | +2 | 0.00 |
| Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 12 | 14 | -2 | +0.06 |
Ocon’s +4.17 lead is holding firm, but Pérez remains within 0.17, so the top of this ranking still has pressure built into it. The more immediate fight is around the top 10: Hadjar’s move to ninth on +1.80 and Antonelli’s drop to 11th show how one strong Sunday relative to qualifying can redraw that boundary quickly.