Kimi Antonelli turned the first Spanish Grand Prix at the Madring into another milestone in his remarkable 2026 campaign, taking his eighth victory of the season after a race that slipped away from polesitter Lando Norris through a disastrous strategic call.
The McLaren driver had looked firmly in control from the moment the lights went out. But an ill-timed pitstop, a slow service and a virtual safety car that played perfectly into the hands of his rivals transformed a comfortable lead into a desperate fight for the final podium places.
The decision-making began before the race itself, with Pirelli predicting a 2.31-second advantage for the soft over the medium compound. That encouraged Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton to start on the red-walled tyres, while Norris and Antonelli opted for mediums.
Results to follow...
Hamilton made the better launch but had nowhere to go at Turn 1. Antonelli and Verstappen both ran wide at Turn 2, although Antonelli immediately surrendered the advantage to Norris.
Verstappen was less accommodating. The Red Bull driver insisted he had been forced into evasive action by Hamilton, but with Red Bull urging him to avoid a penalty, he eventually allowed Antonelli and Hamilton through on lap four.
Hamilton's race then unravelled almost immediately. He reported braking problems, lost pace on lap five, ran off track the following lap and eventually retired after repeated instructions to pit.
Norris, meanwhile, was disappearing into the distance. By lap 10 he had built a five-second advantage over Antonelli, with Verstappen another six seconds back and Charles Leclerc and George Russell completing the top five.
Then came the twist.
Lance Stroll suffered a brake failure on lap 13, bringing out the virtual safety car. Antonelli, Verstappen and Russell immediately stopped, but Norris and Leclerc stayed out.
When the VSC ended, McLaren called Norris in anyway. The timing was brutal, and a slow pitstop made it worse. The championship leader rejoined fifth, 16 seconds behind Leclerc and 14 seconds adrift of Antonelli.
The victory had suddenly become a very different proposition.
Antonelli survives his own scare
Antonelli quickly closed on Leclerc and was on the Ferrari's tail by lap 18, but instead of attacking, he began losing ground. Something felt wrong.
“I didn’t touch the wall, but the steering feels weird,” he told Mercedes over the radio.
By lap 25, the Italian was more than three seconds behind Leclerc, while Russell was already questioning Mercedes' strategy after making an early second stop on lap 28.
“Why did we pit? I think we could have held Norris off,” the Briton complained.
Russell nevertheless recovered to fifth, passing Liam Lawson around the outside on lap 35.
Up front, the race remained finely poised. Ferrari continued gambling on a late neutralisation by leaving Leclerc out, but the hoped-for safety car never arrived. With nine laps remaining, the Monegasque finally pitted for softs, emerging in a lonely fourth place.
That left Antonelli, Verstappen and Norris to settle the win.
Three-way finale ends in stalemate
The closing laps produced plenty of tension but remarkably little overtaking. The three leaders were separated by mere seconds, yet the Madring's unforgiving layout offered almost no realistic opportunity to attack.
Norris relentlessly pressured Verstappen for third, while Antonelli and the Red Bull remained locked together at the front.
The only real flashpoint came on the penultimate lap, when Verstappen cut the Turn 5 chicane while dealing with backmarker traffic. Norris tried to exploit the moment but could not get close enough to make the move stick.
Antonelli, meanwhile, had done enough.
The Mercedes youngster pulled clear on the final lap to claim his eighth win of 2026, with Verstappen second and Norris forced to settle for third after leading so comfortably in the opening phase.
Leclerc held fourth by the narrowest of margins from Russell, while Lawson took sixth on his third race back with Red Bull.
Gasly's gamble falls apart
Pierre Gasly had spent most of the afternoon attempting the race's longest strategic gamble, stretching his hard tyres for 55 laps in the hope that a late neutralisation would provide a free opportunity to change them.
It never came.
Forced to pit under green flags, the Alpine driver tumbled to 12th, while team-mate Franco Colapinto benefited from the early VSC to run a far more conventional strategy and finish seventh.
Oscar Piastri salvaged eighth after starting only seventh following what he had called a “pretty shocking” qualifying performance. His afternoon was compromised almost immediately by front-wing damage after contact with Russell, and he never possessed his McLaren team-mate's pace.
Arvid Lindblad and Nico Hulkenberg completed the points scorers for Racing Bulls and Audi respectively, with Esteban Ocon 11th for Haas.
Among the final seven finishers, Alexander Albon was the only driver to benefit from a cheap late pitstop.
For the home crowd, there was little to cheer elsewhere. Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz collided while fighting over 17th, damaging Alonso's front wing and earning Sainz a five-second penalty. Alonso finished where he had been running, while Sainz joined Sergio Perez, Stroll and Hamilton on the retirement list.
The Madring had delivered its first Spanish Grand Prix winner — but the race may have left Norris wondering how a five-second lead could disappear so quickly.
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via X and Facebook
Spanish GP: Antonelli wins in Madrid – as VSC penalizes Norris F1i.com.
Hence then, the article about spanish gp antonelli wins in madrid as vsc penalizes norris was published today ( ) and is available on F1 News ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Spanish GP: Antonelli wins in Madrid – as VSC penalizes Norris )
Also on site :