Is Verstappen held to a higher standard? Debating our F1 rankings

Each grand prix weekend, Edd Straw's Formula 1 driver rankings feature is among the most popular across The Race and our Members' Club.

But what did he get right and wrong in his final order from the Canadian Grand Prix?

The Race Members' Club has always been the place to let him know that but, in a new regular post-race series from The Race F1 Podcast, each episode we'll be enlisting the help of a special guest to interrogate Edd using your feedback.

Glenn Freeman is first up to put your questions to Edd on topics including why the Mercedes drivers locked out the top spots, what prevented Franco Colapinto from earning another 'rankings podium' and, as we'll explore in more depth below, whether Max Verstappen gets held to a higher standard than his peers.

You can watch episode one below or listen to it here, and if you want to hear your questions being put to Edd but aren't yet part of The Race Members' Club, explore our Membership packages and all the benefits that come with being part of our community.

Marking Verstappen

Verstappen scored his and Red Bull's first podium of the 2026 season in Canada, albeit aided by George Russell's retirement and McLaren's strategic misstep, and after ceding a place to Lewis Hamilton late in the race.

So was he undermarked? Perhaps, according to our Champions' tier members - who also get the chance to submit their own rankings each race weekend - as their aggregate rankings had Verstappen one place higher in fourth, with Hamilton in the alternative top spot.

Champions' Canadian GP top 10 (Edd's position in brackets)

1 Lewis Hamilton (3rd)
2 Franco Colapinto (7th)
3 Kimi Antonelli (2nd)
4 Max Verstappen (5th)
5 George Russell (1st)
6 Carlos Sainz (8th)
7 Liam Lawson (9th)
8 Arvid Lindblad (6th)
9 Lando Norris (4th)
10 Ollie Bearman (14th)

And the majority of questions we got on Verstappen centred on what he could have done to earn a higher ranking.

Adam B asked: Do you think Max is held to a higher standard because his typical performance is higher than most other drivers?

"Fifth's still high, I should say for a start," said Edd. "I still think that's a very good ranking but I think he could have beaten Hamilton.

"If you look at the race pace, I always do some race pace calculations and try and work out baselines for what they were doing. Actually the Red Bull was probably quick enough to have beaten Hamilton.

"So again this is when I mean not quite at his best: he wasn't completely comfortable with the car, wasn't completely happy with the car. And on weekends like that, he doesn't tend to be able to achieve, to deliver the levels of pace that we're used to.

"He's still very good and very quick. I don't think he was perfect, though.

"Certainly if he'd beaten Hamilton in the grand prix, which I think was doable because Hamilton got ahead of him - and that was obviously, there was an unfortunate moment in terms of him just running out of energy and Hamilton went past, but he still had to keep himself ahead.

"So, I thought that in terms of who had a better grand prix, Hamilton versus Verstappen, it was very marginally Hamilton."

Edd conceded Verstappen was "difficult" to judge but did not think he was judged against a higher bar.

"Usually he comes out on top of these rankings, ultimately on average ranking for the past however many years," he said.

End-of-season rankings winners

2025: Max Verstappen
2024: Max Verstappen
2023: Max Verstappen
2022: Max Verstappen*
2021: Max Verstappen*

*as driver ratings

"Actually ever since we've had them he's been the top-ranked on average and I suspect when we were still doing numbers ratings he was best on average as well.

"So, I don't think he's held to a higher standard, but yeah, it just came down to [the fact that] there was probably a little bit more in the car.

"Could he have got help and got the set-up direction a little bit better for what they took into the main part of the weekend? Because we give drivers credit for when they do that and they're part of that and so if they don't do it, well, there's a little bit of a negative there.

"So, it's all just sort of small negatives and yeah, he did struggle a little bit on the medium tyres, but I think there was a way for Verstappen to beat Hamilton and Verstappen absolutely nailing it would have probably just been able to."

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