World Championship leader did not have control of the race in Madrid, but took advantage of the opportunity opened by the VSC; Norris’s performance before the neutralization, Verstappen’s reaction, and difficulties of Ferrari and Audi help explain the first GP at the new circuit.
Read more F1 today: Antonelli wins, Bortoleto struggles and Madring becomes the target
Kimi Antonelli left Madrid with the victory and another important result for his campaign leading the Formula 1 World Championship. But the final result of the first Spanish GP held at Madring does not alone tell the story of the weekend.
Mercedes won, but did not dominate.
Before the Virtual Safety Car intervention, Lando Norris seemed to have the race under control. The McLaren driver started from pole position, resisted Antonelli’s attacks in the first corners, and quickly began to build a gap. By lap 7, there was already 4.7 seconds separating the two.
More than that, McLaren indicated over the radio that Antonelli’s tires were in worse condition than Norris’s. Until that moment, therefore, the trend was favorable to the Briton.
Everything changed on lap 15.
Stroll had brake problems and the VSC was deployed just after Norris passed the pit entry. Antonelli, Max Verstappen, and George Russell immediately took advantage of the neutralization to make their stops with reduced time loss.
Norris did not have that possibility.
McLaren had to wait until the next lap and also made a lengthy stop. When he returned to the track, the pole sitter was only in fifth.
That was the moment that transformed the Spanish GP.
Antonelli took advantage. And this may be the main merit of the championship leader in Madrid.
Antonelli wins a race that seemed to slip away
Antonelli’s race was far from perfect.
The Italian attacked Norris immediately after the start but went through the chicane and had to give the position back. He tried again and cut the section once more. While focusing his efforts on McLaren, he ended up leaving space for Verstappen to take second place.
In the first laps, Norris also seemed to have better pace.
Antonelli, however, stayed close enough to take advantage of any change in scenario. When the VSC appeared, Mercedes did not hesitate and put their driver in the pits.
From that moment, the race completely changed configuration.
There were still difficulties. Antonelli reported strange behavior in the steering during the race and, near the end, informed Mercedes that he had touched the wall at the entrance of Turn 7.
None of that prevented the victory.
When Verstappen tried to increase the pace after Charles Leclerc’s late stop, Antonelli responded. The Dutchman began to lose contact and the Mercedes driver was able to manage the last laps until receiving the checkered flag.
For someone fighting a championship, this may be one of the most valuable wins.
Antonelli did not need to dominate the weekend to win. He took the opportunity that appeared, survived his own mistakes, and finished with the best possible result.
This is exactly the kind of race that usually makes a difference in the points tally at the end of a season.
Norris lost the win, but McLaren confirmed growth
If Antonelli was the big winner on Sunday, Norris may have left Madrid with a result worse than his performance really deserved.
Third place does not fully represent what McLaren showed.
Norris took pole position and controlled the start of the race. After defending the lead in the first corners, he managed to escape and began to manage the gap to his rivals.
Without the VSC at that specific moment, the strategic dynamic would have been completely different.
It does not mean Norris’s victory was guaranteed. There were still more than 40 laps, different strategies underway, and doubts about tire degradation on a completely new circuit. But until the neutralization, he was the one who had the race in his hands.
What happened afterward also matters.
Norris dropped to fifth and had to rebuild his race. He recovered ground, caught Verstappen on lap 42, and spent practically the entire final stretch trying to find a way to overtake the Red Bull.
He did not succeed.
Even so, Madrid adds another important piece of evidence to McLaren’s recent streak.
Norris won in Hungary. He won again in the Netherlands. And now he took pole and showed pace to fight for another win in Spain.
Three different circuits, three weekends in which McLaren appeared capable of challenging Mercedes.
The trend is becoming hard to ignore.
Verstappen turns defense into second place
Max Verstappen also deserves a reading beyond the result.
The Dutchman took advantage of Antonelli’s early mistakes to take second position, got involved in the confusion that resulted in Red Bull’s instruction to give a position back, and later recovered ground by overtaking Hamilton on track.
But it was at the end that his performance gained importance.
Norris had speed.
McLaren definitively caught Red Bull on lap 42 and began to pressure. On a track that had already shown huge difficulty for overtaking, Verstappen needed to position the car almost without errors.
That is what he did.
Norris tried different approaches and even put the car on the outside after a small mistake by the Dutchman in the final laps. Still, Verstappen closed the necessary gaps and secured second place.
Antonelli had already escaped ahead.
For Red Bull, therefore, P2 probably represents more than the car could deliver in pure pace at that moment of the race.
And Verstappen showed again why he remains an important variable even in a season in which Red Bull does not have the technical reference of recent years.
Read more F1: Drivers call for changes in Madring after «sleepy» race
Ferrari leaves Madrid without definitive answers
Ferrari ends the first GP at Madring in a much less clear situation.
Charles Leclerc finished fourth but spent much of the race executing an extremely long strategy. The Monegasque stayed on track until lap 49 and even led the group formed by Antonelli, Verstappen, and Norris before finally making his stop.
When the strategic order normalized, Ferrari did not have the pace to fight for the win.
Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, practically had no opportunity to show the car’s potential during a full race.
The Brit started on soft tires and appeared among the protagonists in the first laps. Then, he began to report problems.
First, he reported that the brake pedal was excessively long. Shortly after, he went straight and radioed that he had no brakes.
Ferrari immediately ordered Hamilton to stop the car.
It was the premature end of a weekend that had already been complicated by the crash suffered in TL3.
And that leaves an important question for the next stages.
After the changes and work done by Ferrari in recent races, Madrid should have offered another reference on the current stage of the car. But Hamilton’s retirement and Leclerc’s strategy made a direct comparison with Mercedes and McLaren difficult.
Fourth place represents important points. It does not necessarily represent an answer.
Audi bet on Bortoleto and waited for something that did not happen
Gabriel Bortoleto experienced a different situation.
The Brazilian started 12th but lost several positions still on the first lap and dropped to 15th. On a circuit where following another car and completing overtakes proved extremely difficult, this immediately compromised his chances.
Audi then chose a different path.
Bortoleto had started on hard tires and the team decided to extend the first stint as much as possible. As rivals began to stop, the Brazilian gained positions and even appeared inside the top 10.
But the position did not represent the real race pace.
Audi was betting on an opportunity.
If another Safety Car or VSC appeared, Bortoleto could make his stop with reduced loss and turn a race practically lost from the first lap into a points possibility.
The neutralization did not come.
The team waited until lap 48 before finally calling Gabriel to the pits. By then, his hard tires had practically the distance of a full race and rivals with newer compounds were starting to arrive quickly.
Without the event that would justify the bet, Bortoleto inevitably lost ground and finished outside the points zone.
It is possible to question whether Audi waited too long. At the same time, a conventional strategy would probably have left the Brazilian stuck in traffic after the poor start.
It was a low-risk bet in a race that already offered few prospects.
Nico Hülkenberg followed a more conventional path and managed to complete the top 10, securing a point for Audi.
Mercedes won, but Madrid left a warning
Before the Madring debut, one of the big questions was precisely whether the characteristics of the new circuit would reduce some of the advantages that made Mercedes the reference of the 2026 season.
One race does not allow a definitive conclusion, especially after such a decisive VSC intervention.
But Madrid produced an important piece of information.
Mercedes won. But McLaren had the speed to take pole position and control the race before the neutralization.
This changes the reading of the result.
Antonelli leaves Spain even stronger in the championship fight because he turned a difficult race into a win. It is an extremely important characteristic for anyone aiming to be champion.
Mercedes, however, cannot simply look at first place and conclude that it maintained the same margin over rivals.
McLaren left Madrid without the win, but with a third consecutive demonstration of competitiveness after Norris’s triumphs in Hungary and the Netherlands.
Verstappen continues finding ways to maximize Red Bull’s potential. Ferrari remains close but still needs to show it can sustain a direct fight for victory. And Audi keeps trying to turn evolution into more consistent results for Bortoleto.
The Madring debut, therefore, delivered a known winner of the season, but a much less comfortable conclusion for those who look only at the final classification. Antonelli won the Spanish GP. Mercedes, however, left Madrid knowing that McLaren is getting closer and closer.
Read more F1: Mekies defends Red Bull’s decision for Verstappen to give position back to Hamilton
