Attack & Defence
Racecraft in traffic: converting attacking opportunities into position gained, and holding ground when under fire — always weighted by the opportunities the race actually offered, so quiet races don’t distort the picture.
This season, Max Verstappen leads Attack & Defence: 9.83 against the grid, across 11 rated races. The single best Attack & Defence performance of the year belongs to Pierre Gasly — 9.7 at the SPA.
How the grid reads on Attack & Defence in 2026
what the season table actually saysAt the top. Max Verstappen leads Attack & Defence on 9.83, 0.66 clear of Oliver Bearman on 9.17. 23 drivers have enough running to be rated, and the field runs from 9.83 down to 6.26 — a spread of 3.57 of a grade point.
The speciality. Franco Colapinto is P10 on Attack & Defence but only P22 on The Index overall — 12 places better here than at everything else put together. On this one measure, this is what they are for.
The soft spot. Fernando Alonso runs the other way: P7 on The Index but only P22 here, 15 places worse. A driver good enough to rank high overall is giving something back on attack & defence.
Same car, same measure. Team mates share machinery, so the gap between them is as close to a clean read as attack & defence gets. The tightest pair on the grid is McLaren — Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri separated by just 0.02. The widest is Cadillac, where Sergio Perez is 1.90 ahead of Valtteri Bottas.
What this number is not. Attack & Defence is one of nine independent measures, and a driver can lead it while sitting mid-table overall — the season grade in the last column is this metric alone, not a summary of the driver. It is also a rating against the rest of the grid this season, not against history: it says who is doing this best right now, not who has ever done it best.
Season ranking
click a round to sort · each round on its own, Season against the grid| Pos | Driver | MEL | SHA | SUZ | MIA | CAN | MON | ESP | AUT | GBR | SPA | HUN | NED | ITA | Season |
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A race grade rates one afternoon; a season grade rates a driver across the year against the rest of the grid. They answer different questions, so they are not versions of the same number and the season figure is not the row added up. – = not classified that race (insufficient running, or the situation made the metric unmeasurable — the driver is never penalised for it), and never counted towards the season; the championship still accumulates per-race points.