A front-row finish in Shanghai wasn’t enough to keep George Russell afloat in 2026’s ‘Most positions gained’ ranking, as his season total sits at 0 and he slides five places to 10th. Lewis Hamilton also loses ground in the table even with a +3 season tally, while Max Verstappen remains clear at the top on +14 after two rounds.
By Julian Reyes
George Russell’s Chinese Grand Prix underlined the central tension in a grid-to-flag ranking: you can have a big Sunday and still lose in a table built on net movement. Russell qualified and started 2nd in Shanghai and finished 2nd after 56 laps for 18 points, but that’s a neutral swing in this metric — leaving him on a season total of 0 and tumbling from 5th to 10th in the ‘Most positions gained’ standings.
That slide is mirrored in Mercedes’ other entry in the key movements. Andrea Kimi Antonelli also sits on 0 for the season and drops from 6th to 9th, a reminder that early-season volatility cuts hardest for drivers whose weekends begin near the front: there simply aren’t many places available to be ‘gained’, and the ranking doesn’t reward holding position.
Lewis Hamilton’s movement is subtler but more telling for the emerging shape of the order. He falls from 2nd to 4th despite a season figure of +3, squeezed by rivals whose two-race totals have piled up faster — Liam Lawson now sits 2nd on +7 and Oliver Bearman 3rd on +5. With Pierre Gasly and Isack Hadjar both on +1 inside the top 10, the mid-table is forming around small positives while the top end is defined by bigger swings.
At the front, the headline number remains Max Verstappen’s +14 for Red Bull, and the lead doesn’t change after round two. The twist is that Verstappen’s Shanghai weekend itself was the opposite of what this ranking celebrates: he started 8th and was classified as retired after 45 laps. Even so, the accumulated buffer from the opening two races is already large enough that the chasing pack’s incremental gains haven’t yet applied real pressure.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| George Russell | Mercedes | 5 | 10 | -5 | 0 |
| Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 6 | 9 | -3 | 0 |
| Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 2 | 4 | -2 | +3 |
Two rounds in, Verstappen’s +14 is a meaningful early cushion in a ranking that can swing quickly — but Russell and Antonelli’s drop shows how drivers on 0 are vulnerable to being overtaken even without ‘bad’ race results. Hamilton’s fall to 4th with +3 also highlights that the battle behind the leader is already being shaped by who can stack multi-race recovery drives rather than simply finish well from the front.