وَٱلسَّٰبِقُونَ ٱلْأَوَّلُونَ مِنَ ٱلْمُهَٰجِرِينَ وَٱلْأَنصَارِ وَٱلَّذِينَ ٱتَّبَعُوهُم بِإِحْسَٰنٍ رَّضِىَ ٱللَّهُ عَنْهُمْ وَرَضُوا۟ عَنْهُ
"The first to go ahead — of the emigrants and of the helpers — and those who followed them in goodness: God is pleased with them, and they are pleased with Him."
The root س-ب-ق was treated in al-Baqara at 2/148 and in al-Wāqiʿa at 56/10 — there al-sābiqūn was analysed as the name of a class. I rely on that treatment.
And the construction is worth recording: wa'lladhīna'ttabaʿūhum bi-iḥsān — "those who followed them in goodness."
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the qualification bi-iḥsān: the list is not built as a closed circle. The third group is unbounded in respect of time, and it has one condition only: that the following be in goodness.
And the fa-inna'llāha lā yarḍā ʿani'l-qawmi'l-fāsiqīn of the ninety-sixth verse stands face to face with the raḍiya'llāhu ʿanhum here. The same root (ر-ض-و), four verses apart, in two opposite rulings.