The Momentum ranking measures who is accelerating or cooling off by comparing recent points-per-race to earlier-season form. After the British Grand Prix, George Russell’s +9.17 surge puts him top, while Lando Norris’ 15-place jump reshapes the top three.
By Camille Fontaine
George Russell is the new leader of the Momentum ranking after round 9 at Silverstone, replacing previous leader Isack Hadjar. Russell’s value of +9.17 is the clearest signal in the field that his last three rounds have been scored at a markedly faster rate than his earlier-season baseline — and the leaderboard shift matters here, because this metric only appears once there’s enough season behind it to separate a genuine upswing from a blip.
Russell’s Silverstone result underlines why the needle is pointing so sharply upward. From fourth on the grid he finished second, banking 18 points over 52 laps. In a ranking built explicitly around points-per-race momentum, that kind of return strengthens the ‘right now’ average that is being compared against everything that came before.
The most dramatic climb of the week belongs to Lando Norris, whose movement of +15 takes him from 17th to 2nd in one update. His +4.67 momentum value puts him within touching distance of the other front-runners in this metric, and it changes the texture of the ranking: what had been a Hadjar-led picture is now a Russell-led one with Norris immediately installed as the closest challenger on current form.
Norris’ British Grand Prix weekend provided the points that feed that rise. He qualified sixth, started sixth, and finished fourth for 12 points across 52 laps. In Momentum ranking terms, that’s not about a single headline number so much as what it does to the three-round ‘recent’ slice — enough to make Norris the biggest gainer and to ensure the top three has changed, with Hadjar now third on +4.33.
Pierre Gasly is the clearest example of how unforgiving this ranking can be when recent points dry up. He drops 17 places, from 4th to 21st, with a momentum value of −3.33 for Alpine F1 Team — the largest movement magnitude in either direction this week. Even a points finish at Silverstone was not enough to stop the slide, because Momentum is explicitly a comparison against his own earlier-season scoring rate, not against the field.
Gasly’s British Grand Prix line reads like a salvage job: 12th in qualifying, 15th on the grid, and 10th at the flag for 1 point, classified as Finished after 52 laps. In isolation, that’s a positive Sunday; inside a measure calibrated to ‘are you scoring faster than before?’, it can still register as a steep cooldown if the last three rounds lag the baseline.
Beyond the headline swings at the sharp end, the top 10 churn tells its own story. Gabriel Bortoleto appears as a top-10 entrant at 8th on +1.00 for Audi, while Charles Leclerc’s week is a different kind of inflection: he climbs 11 spots from 21st to 10th, yet lands exactly on 0.00. That ‘flatline’ value is revealing — it signals that his last three rounds are scoring at essentially the same rate as his earlier races, even as his relative rank improves because others have moved more dramatically.
The exits underline how quickly momentum can reverse: Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon, and Esteban Ocon fall out of the top 10 in this update. Albon is also a named top loser, sliding from 8th to 17th with −0.83, while Oscar Piastri drops from 3rd to 9th despite remaining slightly positive on +0.17 — a reminder that the midfield of this ranking can be separated by small margins once the biggest surges and slumps are accounted for.
| Driver | Team | Before | After | Δ | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pierre Gasly | Alpine F1 Team | 4 | 21 | -17 | −3.33 |
| Lando Norris | McLaren | 17 | 2 | +15 | +4.67 |
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 21 | 10 | +11 | 0.00 |
Russell’s jump to P1 with +9.17 gives the Momentum ranking a new benchmark for ‘who’s trending up’, but Norris’ leap to P2 on +4.67 keeps the front of the metric in flux, with Hadjar still close on +4.33. With top-10 entries and exits — and Leclerc rising to 10th even at 0.00 — the next update will test whether the latest reshuffle is the start of a stable order or another week of sharp swings.