Championship Leader Antonelli Claims Victory at the Spanish Grand Prix
After a chaos filled weekend, Kimi Antonelli took the win at the brand new Madring circuit in Madrid and extended his championship lead to 81 points from teammate George Russell.
Before the weekend, it was announced that Isack Hadjar would miss yet again another Grand Prix due to his wrist injury which meant that Liam Lawson would continue with Red Bull Racing and Yuki Tsunoda would be with Racing Bulls again. And looking at Red Bull, they announced earlier in the week that they had signed Robin Räikkönen, the son of world champion Kimi Räikkönen, as a part of their driver development programme from 2027 onwards. Going back to Madrid, Williams revealed a new livery for this weekend as a tribute to the 1981 car, which was the last Williams to race in Madrid at the Circuito Permanente del Jarama in Jarama.
Friday
The first FP1 session would be the first time that the drivers go out onto the new circuit with Esteban Ocon reporting straight away that the grip was high. However, after a few laps, he had to come in due to needing to change his suspension. Also with a change to their car was Charles Leclerc who decided to run this weekend with the old Ferrari engine, after there were concerns that the ADUO engine might have been damaged after the massive crash in Monza last time out.
Alpine didn’t get as much track time as anyone else as both cars were sitting in their garages for the first 15 minutes as they were waiting for the track conditions to improve. On the other side of the track, there was a lot of traffic at Turn 12, also known as La Monumental, with Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton being the common denominator in the majority of these radio messages. But topping the session was George Russell with a 1:34.077 followed by Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc.
Moving on to the second session of the day, FP2, it was a slightly more chaotic session, starting with Lando Norris not setting a time due to McLaren needing to change his gearbox, which unfortunately took up the whole of the session. The first F1 red flag was brought out after Arvid Lindblad had a spin with the car hitting the barrier. As the red flag came out, Ocon was about to come out of the pit lane but as he was going to cross the line, the light went red to signify the stopping of the session. He sat there for a few minutes as the mechanics were not allowed in that certain section of the pit lane, however, the FIA did give Haas permission to go and collect him to take him back into the garage.
After the red flag period the drivers went back out and Charles Leclerc had started a push lap with Sergio Perez in front of him and ultimately turned it into a practice race run. Charles went to overtake Sergio but as he was about to complete the move, Perez moved to the right and blocked Charles’ run whilst getting out of the way. Rounding off the day, it was Antonelli who topped the leaderboard with a 1:33.662.
Saturday
The first session of Saturday was FP3 which started off with Arvid Lindblad staying in his garage for most of the session due to needing a chassis change after the crash in FP2. Following this, the Aston Martin mechanics broke curfew on the previous night after needing to change Lance Stroll’s battery which resulted in him starting the Grand Prix from the back of the grid.
The main talking point of this session was the red flag that was brought out due to Lewis Hamilton hitting the tech pro barrier at the final corner from locking his tyres up. He then reversed his car out of the barrier and proceeded to drive the track with his front wing underneath the nose of the car which many thought would have been investigated for driving in an unsafe condition after being told twice to stop the car, but this wasn’t investigated so Hamilton avoided any penalties. While the rest of the pack went out beforehand, it was Alex Albon, Max Verstappen and Arvid Lindblad who didn’t set a time. With 15 minutes and 30 seconds remaining, the FIA temporarily suspended the session and stopped the timer to allow the marshalls to fix the tech pro barrier as there were some issues with one side moving when they tried to fix the other. Race Control then resumed the session at 13:32 local time with Ollie Bearman crashing in the last few seconds at Turn 10 and 11 causing the second red flag with Antonelli topping the table with a 1:32.797.
Next up was qualifying and there were 2 drivers not taking part in the session. First it was Ollie Bearman who had crashed in the previous session as the mechanics were completing a chassis change meaning he couldn’t take part. And the other driver was Lance Stroll who had a suspected water pressure issue. The Cadillac’s were the first cars out on track in Q1 in hopes to finally get an appearance in Q2. This was unsuccessful as they were eliminated. The bottom 6 of Q1 were home heroes Sainz and Alonso, Perez and Bottas and then the 2 that didn't partake in the session. In Q2, Franco Colapinto nearly had a big crash at La Monumental but had managed to save it and aborted his lap. With 4:30 left of the session, both Alpine cars still hadn’t set a lap time however, when they went out, it was Franco who had managed to put his car into the top 10 whilst teammate Pierre finished the session in 14th position. Eliminated from this session was Hulkenberg, Bortoleto, Ocon, Gasly, Tsunoda and Albon. Finally we have Q3 and Lando Norris was given a black and white flag for failing to follow the race director's instructions. But this didn’t stop him as he managed to put the McLaren on pole with a time of 1:31.824.
Sunday
The final event of the weekend was the Grand Prix with the drivers racing 57 laps around the 5.414km circuit. Before the race had even started, it was announced that Ollie Bearman would start the race from the pitlane after he changed multiple power unit elements of his car. Along with this, Carlos Sainz also received a 3 place grid penalty for impeding Valtteri Bottas in Qualifying, so he started the race in P20.
Lights went out and immediately Kimi Antonelli overtook Lando Norris however, he went off track and had to give the place back. This happened again coming up to turns 5, 5a and 6 and Antonelli gave the place back with Max also coming through. At the start, George Russell also made contact with Oscar Piastri at the start with the papaya driver losing a bit of his front wing and also dropping down to 11th place.
Hamilton then claimed that he hit the wall and told his engineer to check the rear of the car. Max had then made a move around Lewis however, it was off the track and he let Hamilton past. While doing this, he had also let Antonelli past him as he was in between the two. The bad luck continued for Lewis as he had reported about a brake failure and the pedal feeling long, simultaneously losing positions to Max and Charles.
Lap 6 came along and Lewis had been given a black and white flag for track limits as his brakes weren’t working. His engineer then told him to retire the car at the end of that lap. Both Oscar Piastri and Arvid Lindblad were noted for yellow flag infringements however, both of them concluded in no further action.
On Lap 13, Sainz had collided with Alonso resulting in him gaining a 10 second time penalty. Lance Stroll had gone into the run-off area after his brakes failed which caused a virtual safety car. At this point, Lando was leading the race but by the time the VSC was called, he was already past the pit entrance which gave Antonelli and the others a free pitstop. However, the only driver that didn’t dive into the pits was Charles Leclerc and this put him in the lead for the race as Ferrari had put him on the hard tyres and were aiming for a one stop strategy. At the end of the lap, Lando was called in for his pit stop but as he approached the entrance, the VSC ended which allowed the drivers behind to return to normal racing speed and overtake him. A few laps later, Kimi had started to report that his steering felt weird and he then lost half a second to Charles within a lap.
Lap 25 was when the black and white flags came out for track limits with Carlos Sainz being the first one to receive it. Four laps later on Lap 29, Russell completed a 2nd pit stop to cover from Piastri and changed from the hard to medium compound. Sergio Perez faced his 11th DNF this season on Lap 31 with Alonso pitting on Lap 39 after 25 laps on the softs whilst also getting a new front wing after the collision with Sainz.
In the midfield, there was a battle for P9, 10 and 11 with Lindblad chasing Colapinto who was chasing Bortoleto with Arvid dropping back and Franco starting to catch Gabriel. Also in this section of the leaderboard was a bunch of drivers who hadn’t pitted yet with the likes of Oscar Piastri, Liam Lawson, Gabriel Bortoleto and Pierre Gasly. Oscar was the one to start these pit stops off as he had come in on lap 43 and came out in 11th place. On this lap, Carlos Sainz was also told to come into the pits to retire his car. This then made the Red Bull engineers tell Lawson to speed up to create a gap to Oscar. Lap 46 was when Liam had the call to come in and he had managed to prevent the undercut from Oscar.
Towards the end of the race, many of the drivers had struggled to stay on track with Franco going off when trying to make a move on Bortoleto and Oscar too when trying to overtake Franco, both at turns 5, 5a and 6. Lap 49 was when Charles Leclerc was finally told to box after doing all of them laps on the hard compound and he changed to soft tyres coming out just 2.7 seconds in front of George Russell. A few drivers had also gained black and white flags for track limits with Piastri and Bortoleto being on their last warning. Following the Ferrari late pit stop, Pierre Gasly had pitted on the very last lap as he was hoping for a VSC or safety car so he could keep his track position in 9th place.
Winning the first race in Madrid was Kimi Antonelli who extended his championship lead to George Russell to 81 points. The driver of the day was Max Verstappen with George Russell gaining the fastest lap of the day with a 1:35.587. After the race, Pierre Gasly was given a 5 second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane and dropped from P11 to P13. During this race, Charles Leclerc had also reached a record of 1000 laps led in a Grand Prix throughout his career.
Article Written by Sophie W
