George Russell crowned Formula 1's 2026 sprint champion

George Russell is Formula 1's unofficial sprint champion for 2026, with the Briton racking up a total of 34 points across the season's six sprint events.

Across those races, he took three victories, two fourth-place finishes, and suffered a single retirement while leading in Singapore last week. That allowed the Mercedes driver to edge out Charles Leclerc on countback, as the Monegasque also amassed 34 points across the six sprints but finished behind Russell after failing to claim a sprint win. Leclerc recorded two second-place, two third-place, and two fifth-place finishes across China, Miami, Canada, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Singapore.

Third place, just a single point adrift of Russell and Leclerc, belongs to reigning champion Lando Norris. Norris claimed victory in the Miami sprint and picked up two additional top-three finishes with second and third at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and Silverstone, respectively. Championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli missed out on the sprint podium, earning one win at the British Grand Prix sprint and gathering 31 points in total from the six 100-kilometer races.

Meanwhile, the winner of the year's final sprint, Max Verstappen, finished down in seventh place with just 21 points. Sitting ahead of him are Lewis Hamilton on 27 points and Oscar Piastri on 21, with 12 drivers in total scoring points across the six sprints. Among the drivers representing the top four teams (Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren, and Red Bull), Isack Hadjar was the only one who failed to register a single sprint point, with his best results being a pair of ninth-place finishes in Miami and Great Britain.