Posted on by

Formula 1 gives Kimi Antonelli another win and Lando Norris a headache

Kimi Antonelli has now won eight Formula 1 races in 2026, which is becoming a rather tiresome habit for everyone who isn’t driving a Mercedes.

The latest victim was Lando Norris, who started from pole, appeared to have the pace to win the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at Madring and, by his own assessment, did pretty much everything right.

He finished third.

Welcome to Formula 1, where sometimes you can execute a weekend almost perfectly and still get mugged by a Virtual Safety Car.

Antonelli took the victory by 4.351 seconds over Max Verstappen, with Norris another 0.738 seconds behind in third. Charles Leclerc finished fourth for Ferrari, George Russell was fifth for Mercedes and Liam Lawson took sixth for Red Bull.

But the final result doesn’t really explain what happened.

The race belonged to Norris for much of its opening act. Starting from pole, the McLaren driver made a clean getaway and quickly established a lead of roughly 4.5 seconds over Antonelli.

Antonelli, meanwhile, was behaving like a man who had been told that second place was illegal.

He attacked Norris into the opening chicane, went off the circuit and had to rejoin behind him. Then he tried again and managed essentially the same trick. This time Verstappen slipped through into second.

It was aggressive, slightly messy and exactly the sort of thing that makes Formula 1 considerably more entertaining than it has any right to be.

Lewis Hamilton was also involved in the opening-lap drama, believing Verstappen had gained an advantage and should give the position back. Red Bull apparently decided that arguing with the stewards was less appealing than simply telling Verstappen to hand the place back, allowing Antonelli and Hamilton to move forward.

Unfortunately for Hamilton, his race lasted about as long as a British summer.

The Ferrari driver reported a brake problem, ran wide on Lap 6 and retired one lap later.

Up front, Norris continued doing Norris things: driving quickly and efficiently while looking increasingly likely to win.

Then came Lap 13.

Lance Stroll stopped at Turn 20 with a suspected brake problem, bringing out the Virtual Safety Car. And this is where Norris’ perfectly good afternoon wandered directly into a ditch.

Antonelli, Verstappen and Russell dived into the pits immediately.

Norris stayed out.

Then the VSC ended.

So Norris eventually had to pit under green conditions, and his stop took around seven seconds. By the time he returned to the track, the man who had led the race comfortably was running fifth behind Leclerc, Antonelli, Verstappen and Russell.

If you’ve ever wondered why Formula 1 teams spend approximately the GDP of a small nation practicing pit stops, this was your answer.

The VSC had effectively handed Mercedes the strategic advantage, while Norris had been left holding the very expensive equivalent of a restaurant bill he never ordered.

Leclerc then inherited the lead because Ferrari had elected not to stop. The Monegasque driver stayed out on the hard tires, apparently hoping for another Safety Car or a red flag that would turn his unconventional strategy into genius.

It didn’t happen.

Antonelli closed in and, despite reporting an odd sensation through the steering wheel, remained comfortable at the front. Mercedes could find nothing alarming in the data, so the young Italian carried on.

By now, Norris had worked his way back into contention and began hunting Verstappen.

The McLaren was quicker. Quite a lot quicker, in fact.

Russell made a second stop on Lap 28, returning to hard tires, and Norris used the opportunity to move forward. Russell eventually recovered to fifth by going around the outside of Lawson on Lap 35, because apparently there are still people in Formula 1 who think passing another car around the outside is a sensible thing to attempt.

Leclerc finally surrendered his gamble with nine laps remaining, stopping for soft tires and rejoining fourth.

That left Antonelli leading Verstappen and Norris.

And now we got the race we probably should have had from the beginning.

Norris closed rapidly on Verstappen, who was struggling to keep the McLaren behind. Antonelli had enough of a cushion to avoid any real panic, but Verstappen was suddenly driving for his life.

On the penultimate lap, Verstappen cut the Turn 5 chicane while dealing with traffic. Norris pulled alongside, but couldn’t complete the pass.

And that was that.

Antonelli crossed the line to collect his eighth victory of the season, extending his championship lead to a frankly ridiculous 81 points.

“I think Lando today deserved to win,” Antonelli admitted afterward. “But overall, you know, we’ll take it.”

He’s not wrong.

Norris was understandably less philosophical.

“Of course, I believe I deserved it today,” he said. “We did a very good job, I feel like I did everything right this weekend so for it to be lost like today is just pretty crappy.”

Pretty crappy is probably the cleanest possible description.

Norris wasn’t beaten by a faster driver on Sunday. He wasn’t beaten because McLaren had a terrible strategy. He wasn’t beaten because he made some monumental error.

He was beaten because the timing of a Virtual Safety Car created a strategic lottery, followed by a slow pit stop that made the whole thing considerably worse.

And Norris knows the rules. He even admitted that if the same thing had happened in his favor, he wouldn’t be complaining quite so loudly.

“If it was the other way round of course it would suit me,” he said. “But when I feel like I’ve driven a perfect weekend and I did such a good job yesterday, and I feel like I did a great job today, it hurts.”

That is the problem with Formula 1.

Sometimes the fastest car wins.

Sometimes the best driver wins.

And sometimes a guy parks his car in the wrong place at exactly the right moment and completely rearranges the afternoon.

For Antonelli, it was another enormous victory and another substantial chunk of championship breathing room.

For Norris, it was a reminder that in Formula 1, doing everything right is not necessarily enough.

And for Verstappen, second place was considerably better than the race pace suggested he deserved.

“Of course, we know that Lando got unlucky with that VSC,” Verstappen said. “For us I think P2 is an incredible result because you could see how much Lando was catching me.”

He later put it even more bluntly.

“I think it was quite clear that Lando and Kimi were a lot faster.”

Which is a rather brutal way of saying: congratulations, here’s your second place.

Antonelli will take it.

Norris will take the points.

And somewhere, a Virtual Safety Car is probably taking the rest of the afternoon off, completely unaware that it may have just helped decide a championship.

FORMULA 1 GRAN PREMIO DE ESPAÑA 2026

Pos. No. Driver Team Laps Time / Retired Pts.
1 12 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 57 1:34:23.754 25
2 3 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing 57 +4.351s 18
3 1 Lando Norris McLaren 57 +5.089s 15
4 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 57 +29.116s 12
5 63 George Russell Mercedes 57 +29.829s 10
6 30 Liam Lawson Red Bull Racing 57 +86.746s 8
7 43 Franco Colapinto Alpine 57 +94.281s 6
8 81 Oscar Piastri McLaren 57 +95.839s 4
9 41 Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls 56 +1 lap 2
10 27 Nico Hulkenberg Audi 56 +1 lap 1
11 31 Esteban Ocon Haas F1 Team 56 +1 lap 0
12 10 Pierre Gasly Alpine 56 +1 lap 0
13 5 Gabriel Bortoleto Audi 56 +1 lap 0
14 22 Yuki Tsunoda Racing Bulls 56 +1 lap 0
15 23 Alexander Albon Williams 56 +1 lap 0
16 87 Oliver Bearman Haas F1 Team 56 +1 lap 0
17 14 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 55 +2 laps 0
18 77 Valtteri Bottas Cadillac 54 +3 laps 0
NC 55 Carlos Sainz Williams 43 DNF 0
NC 11 Sergio Perez Cadillac 31 DNF 0
NC 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 12 DNF 0
NC 44 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 6 DNF 0

* Provisional results. Note – Gasly received a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

Greg Engle
Latest posts by Greg Engle (see all)
The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy Instagram profileMy YouTube channel

Greg Engle

Editor at Caraganza.com
Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community. Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
,