Here are the fresh F1 driver rankings after the 2026 Canadian Grand Prix.
The rankings are based on currently expected performance levels. They are not an accumulation of grades, not solely based on previous performances, nor based on a driver’s potential deep into the future.
We simply try to determine: Who is the best right now?
1. Max Verstappen
Still the best racing driver in the world. He’s had a tough start to the year, mainly due to an uncompetitive car – but he still shows outstanding race pace and finally reached the podium in Canada. It should be fun to watch him battle it out all year. His constant whining is getting annoying, though. We all know that the current regulations are flawed. Perhaps it’s time to consider a move to Mercedes or McLaren.
2. Charles Leclerc
One of F1’s most exciting drivers. He’s an incredible qualifier and he also excels at starts, wheel-to-wheel battles, and racecraft. Leclerc has a huge edge over Hamilton and is projected to pick up some wins this year. Mistakes are a bit too frequent, but that’s a natural consequence of driving at the very edge. I don’t think Leclerc should change his style, because reducing those occasional errors would also reduce his insane pace. Canada was a down performance, but he should bounce back quickly.
3. Lando Norris
He’s one of the world’s fastest drivers based on pure speed, especially when there are no other obstacles. It’s also a good sign that he is actively working on his weaknesses: His starts are no longer an issue, and he can drive with a calmer state of mind now that he is already a champion. Norris had a quiet start to the year but finally had a breakthrough performance in Miami – and he looked faster than Piastri in Canada.
4. Oscar Piastri
Piastri took a huge step forward in 2025. This year, we’ve seen him perform very well (in Japan) and horribly (in Canada). The matchup against Norris should be close all year. Right now Norris seems to be in better form, but it’s close.
5. Carlos Sainz
The more I think about it, Sainz is probably the only driver who’s been flawless this season. He deserves to drive for a better team but foolishly decided not to sign with Audi for 2025 and beyond. Hopefully, he can continue to perform at a high level and eventually find a better seat.
6. George Russell
Mr. Saturday has been underwhelming so far. Despite having a dominant car at his disposal, Russell’s performances have been fairly weak. Of course, he had technical issues in China, Japan and Canada, so that complicates things. But Miami was just flat out disappointing. Russell obviously has great speed in qualifying and is strong in clean air. He is a bit too passive in actual racing, though. Antonelli is leading the championship, but Russell’s had all the bad luck so far.
7. Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton is no longer at his peak – but still a pretty good racer when the opportunity presents itself. His deficit to Leclerc was expected due to age, so let’s not read too much into it. He has bounced back nicely in 2026 with a really nice start to the season – likely because three of the five opening races were his best tracks. I expect a drop in performance soon, with Leclerc continuing to dominate the battle between the Ferrari drivers.
8. Kimi Antonelli
Antonelli is overrated at the moment. Miami was an elite performance, admitted, but he was lucky to come away with his other wins. The young Italian makes mistakes in almost every single session but is saved by his dominant car. All the good fortune has been on Kimi’s side so far. It will be exciting to see how he performs under pressure – we saw some very competitive racing between the Mercedes drivers in Canada.
9. Alex Albon
Albon has proven to be nearly as good as Sainz. Not in terms of one-lap pace, which is still Albon’s main weakness – but he performs very well over a full race distance. Just like Oscar Piastri, Albon needs to be more consistent: He must avoid a drop in performance by the end of the year. He’s been a bit unlucky to start the season, and the car is not doing him any favours either. At the same time, Sainz has been incredible, so Albon hasn’t really been noticed.
10. Oliver Bearman
Bearman continues to show amazing progress. He has huge potential and is already out-performing Ocon at just 20 years old. Bearman looked really good by the end of 2025. He seems like a top 10 driver already, or thereabouts. The interesting question is how much further he can progress. Young drivers tend to improve a lot in their first 3-4 seasons, but Haas isn’t a great environment, so hopefully Ferrari will promote Bearman as soon as possible.
11. Pierre Gasly
An excellent qualifier who lacks some racepace. A less exciting version of Jarno Trulli. By the end of last year, we finally saw flashes of his talent again – mainly at Interlagos. He’s obviously a solid driver, and if the motivation is there, he can compete at the upper midfield. We saw this happening at Suzuka where he kept Verstappen at bay for over half the race to secure sixth. It also helps that his car is much quicker this year. But he’s been behind Colapinto the last two weekends.
12. Fernando Alonso
Still one of the most entertaining racers to watch. He is great at both overtaking and defending. It’s so unfortunate that Aston Martin cannot even compete in the midfield. He’s strolling around as a backmarker due to the disappointing car, and that’s no worthy way of finishing his career. It may not be clear due to having a weak teammate, but Alonso’s pace is slowly deteriorating which is natural because of his age (turning 45 in July). He says he wants to continue, but eventually his decline will get exposed.
13. Nico Hülkenberg
The Hulk has not only revived his career over the last three seasons; he has also made some major adjustments to his driving style. Previously known as an excellent qualifier, he now values race setups more. A small decline is expected due to his age, and perhaps later in the year, he will drop behind Bortoleto. For now, he still looks slightly better in race trim than his teammate, though it’s hard to judge in the inconsistent Audi.
14. Gabriel Bortoleto
Bortoleto showed great racecraft and aggressiveness in the junior series. In F1, his drives have been fairly anonymous. Despite performing well against Hülkenberg in head-to-head stats, Bortoleto did not show any major upside in his rookie year. Bearman, Antonelli and Hadjar all had their big moments – the Brazilian did not. Perhaps it could change this year: Drivers usually improve in their second season (and even more in their third) but he still seems a bit behind Hülkenberg.
15. Esteban Ocon
Esteban Ocon has very little upside. He is awful at setups and cannot lead a team, hence why he always performs at a level slightly below his teammates. When the car is good, he can score some points. In a typical Ocon fashion, he will probably lose to Bearman slightly more often than not. Based on early 2026 data, it looks like Bearman is pulling away faster than expected which does not bode well for Ocon’s future. Haas should start looking at other options, because Ocon seems to be getting worse – losing to a young driver like Bearman will not do his mind any good.
16. Isack Hadjar
Hadjar had a solid, albeit overrated, rookie campaign. He was promoted to Red Bull a bit prematurely, but the good news is that Red Bull have a brand new car philosophy this year, plus a better environment, so Hadjar may not struggle like the previous Red Bull second-drivers. He finally had a strong weekend in Canada, but is still way off Verstappen’s overall racepace.
17. Sergio Pérez
He didn’t get a fair chance at Red Bull by the end of his stint there. A return for Cadillac could work out for him. Pérez actually thrives in slower cars and can occasionally deliver some unexpected results due to his tyre management skills. Based on his performances this year, he seems more motivated than Bottas, and quite a bit ahead in race trim.
18. Arvid Lindblad
He performed a bit worse than expected in F2, but F2 results don’t mean much anymore: There’s simply too much variance. Lindblad is projected to be slightly slower than Hadjar was in his rookie year, mainly due to his young age (18) and having less experience going into F1. However, Lindblad has massive upside and could be a top 5 driver by 2030. So far, he’s had a great performance in Australia, but results have been lacking since. Let’s see if he can beat Lawson as the season progresses. At the moment, it’s fairly close between the two, but I’m still absolutely convinced that Lindblad is the better prospect at Racing Bulls.
19. Liam Lawson
He lacks general pace and he makes too many mistakes. That’s obviously not ideal for a modern F1 driver, so Lawson must be ranked near the bottom. He was slightly slower than Tsunoda and much slower than rookie Hadjar. That’s not very promising. If Lindblad beats him this year, he could be in trouble. The good news is that the Racing Bulls car is quite fast, so Lawson could have some inflated results that might convince another team to pick him up next year. His seventh-place finishes in China and Canada look impressive on paper, so Lawson is currently overrated.
20. Franco Colapinto
Colapinto finally had some strong performances as he finished 7th in Miami and 6th in Canada. The car must be really quick. Colapinto will have to back it up with more good drives – if he continues to perform well against Gasly, he should rise in the rankings.
21. Valtteri Bottas
It’s weird to have Bottas back. He accomplished nothing in his final three seasons at Sauber, aside from the first handful of races. After a season away from the sport, his level is probably worse than before. He could beat Pérez in qualifying sessions, since that is his speciality, but expecting more than that is unlikely. Bottas doesn’t seem super motivated either – and based on his social media post, he may have gone mentally insane. With that said, he’s been very unlucky this season and things could improve eventually.
22. Lance Stroll
How is Lance Stroll still in F1? If his father had any ambitions for Aston Martin, he should have replaced his son a long time ago. His big weakness is still wheel-to-wheel racing, and after so many years in F1, he is just not showing any signs of improvement. An absolute waste of a seat. His qualifying performance reached a new low in 2025 as he lost every single session to an old Alonso. This year his car sucks, so Stroll won’t achieve anything. Sadly, he will still keep his seat for obvious reasons.
Check my current team rankings here!
Overrated drivers
A quick list of drivers that are currently overrated by the media and fans. For betting purposes, it’s useful to identify the drivers that are excessively hyped.
Kimi Antonelli: Most fans consider him the championship favourite now. But he’s making mistakes in every single race, and only gets away with them because of the car’s dominance. His first two wins were entirely down to luck (Russell had battery issues in both China and Japan, and the Suzuka safety car timing was perfect for Antonelli). Only the Miami win was impressive, but even with that in mind, Antonelli is still very overrated.
Pierre Gasly: He’s driving well, but car improvement is the main factor behind his good results. He didn’t suddenly turn into a top driver at 30 years old.
Isack Hadjar: Some good qualifying sessions to open the season, but he’s incredibly far off Verstappen’s race pace. Someone on F1 Discussions called him a “superstar”.
Lewis Hamilton: People think he’s “back”. The truth is that the season began with three of his strongest tracks – Melbourne, Shanghai and Montreal. Leclerc should beat him convincingly the rest of the year.
Liam Lawson: He sucks, but he’s had some fortunate results to start the year and a solid points haul. I expect Lindblad to win the H2H battle over the entire season.
Underrated drivers
And here are some underrated drivers at the moment.
Lando Norris: Very quiet start to the year. But we know how fast he is once he gets into a good rhythm, and if McLaren can improve the car, Lando could challenge for wins at some tracks. We saw this in Miami where he performed at a world-class level.
Carlos Sainz: He doesn’t get much attention in the slow, overweight Williams, but he’s pulling off some great drives. Just watch his qualifying onboards and his consistency in the races. Since the middle of last season, he’s had a clear edge over Albon. From a sporting perspective, Ferrari made the wrong decision to replace him with Hamilton.
Arvid Lindblad: Lindblad shows great promise. He was unlucky in the first two qualifying sessions of the year, and despite being faster than Lawson at Suzuka, he finished behind him. The entire Miami weekend was bad, but by the time F1 comes to Europe, I expect Lindblad to beat Lawson more often than not.
Valtteri Bottas: Bad strategies, unreliability, and poor qualifying timing have cost Bottas a lot. He’s behind Perez in most stats so far, and he had horrible race pace in Japan and Miami. While motivation is always a question mark for Bottas, the early 2026 results are probably not representative. He should be close to Perez’s level on average – and at times, better.
