R3 2026-03-29 · Japan · Suzuka

2026 Japanese Grand Prix Driver ratings & race analysis

Round 3 of 13 · DriverIndex best: LEC · official winner: ANT

DriverIndex's grade-based ranking puts Charles Leclerc on top for the Japanese Grand Prix, ahead of official winner Kimi Antonelli. The stand-out single-metric performance of the weekend was Charles Leclerc's Cleanliness (10.0). George Russell shows the widest gap between the two rankings this weekend: P16 in the DriverIndex classification against P4 officially — 12 places worse once the car is stripped out.

← R2 SHA R4 MIA →

2026 Japanese Grand Prix race replay

the real race, lap by lap — press play

Reconstructed from official lap-by-lap timing: every position, overtake, pit stop, retirement and safety-car period is real. The track outline and the gaps between cars are stylized — an illustration, not telemetry.

How the Japanese Grand Prix was won, lap by lap

every car, every lap — click a lap to jump the replay there

DriverIndex podium

1 LEC Ferrari

2 PIA McLaren

3 OCO Haas F1 Team

Official podium

1 ANT Mercedes

2 PIA McLaren

3 LEC Ferrari

Japanese Grand Prix driver ratings — who drove best

ranked by the combined race grade (all nine scores)

Pos	Driver	Team	Grade	DI pts	Sub	Grid	Official	+/−
1	LECCharles Leclerc	Ferrari	9.4	25	21	4	3 Finished	▲ 2
2	PIAOscar Piastri	McLaren	9.3	18	20	3	2 Finished	•
3	OCOEsteban Ocon	Haas F1 Team	9.2	15	19	12	10 Finished	▲ 7
4	GASPierre Gasly	Alpine	9.1	12	18	7	7 Finished	▲ 3
5	VERMax Verstappen	Red Bull Racing	8.8	10	17	11	8 Finished	▲ 3
6	PERSergio Perez	Cadillac	8.5	8	16	19	17 Finished	▲ 11
7	ANTKimi Antonelli	Mercedes	8.4	6	15	1	1 Finished	▼ 6
8	LAWLiam Lawson	Racing Bulls	8.4	4	14	14	9 Finished	▲ 1
9	SAICarlos Sainz	Williams	8.3	2	13	16	15 Finished	▲ 6
10	STRLance Stroll	Aston Martin	8.2	1	12	22	R Retired
11	ALOFernando Alonso	Aston Martin	8.1		11	21	18 Lapped	▲ 7
12	HAMLewis Hamilton	Ferrari	8.0		10	6	6 Finished	▼ 6
13	NORLando Norris	McLaren	7.9		9	5	5 Finished	▼ 8
14	HULNico Hulkenberg	Audi	7.9		8	13	11 Finished	▼ 3
15	ALBAlexander Albon	Williams	7.6		7	17	20 Lapped	▲ 5
16	RUSGeorge Russell	Mercedes	7.5		6	2	4 Finished	▼ 12
17	LINArvid Lindblad	Racing Bulls	7.3		5	10	14 Finished	▼ 3
18	BORGabriel Bortoleto	Audi	7.0		4	9	13 Finished	▼ 5
19	HADIsack Hadjar	Red Bull Racing	7.0		3	8	12 Finished	▼ 7
20	BOTValtteri Bottas	Cadillac	6.6		2	20	19 Lapped	▼ 1
21	COLFranco Colapinto	Alpine	6.4		1	15	16 Finished	▼ 5
22	BEAOliver Bearman	Haas F1 Team	6.1		0	18	R Retired

Japanese Grand Prix results vs driver merit

the driver’s race, score by score

DriverIndex vs official result

who over- and under-delivered

Score breakdown

drivers × the nine metrics

Japanese Grand Prix race pace and strategy analysis

statistical deep-dives from official timing — click to enlarge

Pace Race pace — all drivers Every clean racing lap, one column per driver, ordered by typical (median) pace, fastest to the left. The shaded box is the middle 50% of laps, the dotted line the median, the solid line the average.

Pace Race pace — top 10 The same lap-by-lap picture, narrowed to the ten drivers with the fastest typical (median) clean pace so the battle at the front is readable.

Pace Race pace — bottom 10 The same picture for the ten slowest typical (median) clean paces — often where the scrappiest racing of the day happened.

Pace Summarised pace distribution Lays every lap a driver completed end to end, each one sized by how far off the race’s single fastest lap it was. A driver who stayed close to the ultimate pace all race ends with a short bar; one who shed time lap after lap ends with a long one.

Pace Head-to-head pace delta matrix Every driver’s average race pace compared against every other driver’s, one pair at a time. Read across a row to see exactly how much faster or slower that driver was than the rest of the field.

Pace Fuel-corrected pace ranking Ranks drivers by typical lap time after levelling out the fuel each car was carrying — a heavy car early in the race is unavoidably slower than the same car on a near-empty tank late on, so the correction puts every lap on equal footing.

Pace Lap-time consistency Measures how tightly a driver’s lap times clustered together once the natural trend of a tyre stint — cars speeding up as fuel burns off, slowing as tyres wear — is stripped out. A small number reads as metronomic; a large one reads as an up-and-down afternoon.

Traffic Laps spent in traffic Counts how many laps each driver spent running close behind another car rather than in clean air, shown both as a share of their race and in raw seconds lost — traffic that can flatter or mask a driver’s true pace.

Traffic Traffic heatmap (lap by lap) The same traffic measurement laid out lap by lap across the whole race, so you can see exactly when each driver got stuck in a queue and when they broke free into open track.

Traffic Clean air vs dirty air pace Compares each driver’s pace when running unobstructed against their pace while stuck within two seconds of the car ahead — showing who lost the most time to traffic, and who was on the attack rather than stuck in it.

Racecraft Teammate head-to-head The most controlled comparison the sport offers: same car, same weekend. Shows which driver in each team had the faster qualifying lap and which had the faster race pace, and by how much.

Racecraft Positions: start vs finish Tracks positions gained or lost twice over — from the grid to the end of the opening lap, and separately from the grid all the way to the chequered flag.

Racecraft Overtakes made & suffered Counts genuine on-track passes — not positions swapped through pit stops — made and suffered by each driver, sorted by their net total for the race.

Strategy Tyre strategy & stints Every driver’s tyre strategy laid out as a timeline: which compound they started and switched to, how many laps each set covered, and when each stop happened.

Strategy Tyre degradation by compound Tracks how much pace each tyre compound loses as it ages within a stint, averaged across every driver who ran it — the steeper the line, the faster that compound fades.