Kimi Antonelli won the Spanish Grand Prix at the Madring from second on the grid, taking the chequered flag 4.351s clear of Max Verstappen, with pole-sitter Lando Norris third after a lap 13 Virtual Safety Car wrecked his strategy.
Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez all retired in what was not a first race at the new circuit in Madrid to remember.
Nevertheless, who came out of the Spanish GP with a strong driver rating? Check out the RacingNews365 driver ratings below!
Spanish GP
The top five
Lando Norris - 9.5
Norris was the fastest driver in Madrid and left with the smallest reward of the podium three. His 1:31.824 took pole by 0.011s from Antonelli, and he led until the lap 13 VSC caught him just past the pit entry. Antonelli and Verstappen pitted cheaply behind him and the race was gone. Third place, 5.089s adrift, was damage limitation rather than a result he could influence.
Kimi Antonelli - 9
The championship leader did what the situation demanded and nothing more. Beaten to pole by 0.011s, Antonelli stayed within range for 13 laps, took the cheap stop when Stroll's barrier contact brought out the VSC, and controlled the rest from the front on a circuit where nobody could pass. Eight wins from 14 rounds, and 292 points now stand 81 clear of team-mate George Russell.
Max Verstappen - 9
Third on the grid, second at the flag, and no obvious way to do better in a Red Bull that has not won all year. Verstappen exploited the same VSC window as Antonelli to jump Norris, then held the Mercedes honestly enough to finish 4.351s back while Norris shadowed him to the line. He acknowledged afterwards that Norris had been the unlucky party. Red Bull's best Sunday in some time.
Franco Colapinto - 9
Ninth in qualifying, seventh at the flag, and the only Alpine driver to score while team-mate Pierre Gasly trailed home 12th and a lap down. On a layout where overtaking was close to impossible, gaining two places was largely a matter of not making the mistake others made. Colapinto's 27 points now matter directly in Alpine's fight with Racing Bulls for fifth in the constructors' standings.
Arvid Lindblad - 8
The 19-year-old crashed at Turn 13 in FP2, forcing a chassis rebuild that restricted his FP3 running, then still put the RB into Q3 in 10th. Ninth on Sunday, a lap down but ahead of Nico Hulkenberg on the road and two points banked. Yuki Tsunoda, with a clean weekend, qualified 15th and finished 14th. That intra-team gap is the number that keeps Racing Bulls in the fifth-place fight.
The bottom five
George Russell - 5
Sixth in qualifying, sixth-tenths adrift of Antonelli's time, and a lap 1 collision with Oscar Piastri that damaged the McLaren's front wing. Russell came home fifth, 29.829s behind his team-mate and 0.713s behind Charles Leclerc's Ferrari, with the same car and the same strategic opportunities available to him at the VSC. Mercedes won the race; the second Mercedes was anonymous throughout.
Oscar Piastri - 5
Seventh on the grid, eighth at the flag, 95.839s behind the winner and more than 90s behind his team-mate. The lap 1 contact with Russell cost Piastri his front wing and any hope of pace, which leaves the fault line unclear. What is not unclear is the season shape: 120 points to Norris's 186, and a McLaren sitting third in the constructors' standings behind Mercedes and Ferrari.
Valtteri Bottas - 5
Bottas qualified 20th, 6.187s off pole and 2.098s behind Sergio Perez in the sister Cadillac, which is the harder number to explain away. Damage from a Turn 1 incident on the opening lap and brake temperatures he had to manage for the rest of the afternoon left him 18th and three laps down. He said the circuit exposed the issues Cadillac already knows it has.
Lance Stroll - 4.5
No qualifying time, 22nd on the grid, and a retirement on lap 13 after hitting the barriers at Turn 20 with a suspected brake failure. The VSC that followed reshaped the entire race. The mechanical element is not Stroll's to answer for, but Aston Martin's 2026 has produced three points in 14 rounds, all of them Fernando Alonso's, and Sunday added another blank.
Carlos Sainz - 4
The home race went wrong in sequence. Sainz qualified 17th, made contact with Yuki Tsunoda on lap 1, clipped Alonso's front wing on lap 13 and picked up a five-second penalty for it, then retired with a technical problem shortly after serving it. The precise cause of the failure was not spelled out in Williams's post-race debriefs. Two incidents in 13 laps is the part that belongs to the driver.
Check out our full ratings below!
2026 F1 Spanish Grand Prix - Madrid Driver Ratings
| Driver | Race Rating | Season Average |
|---|---|---|
| Lando Norris | 9.5 | 8.0 |
| Kimi Antonelli | 9 | 8.9 |
| Max Verstappen | 9 | 7.8 |
| Franco Colapinto | 9 | 6.5 |
| Arvid Lindblad | 8 | 7.4 |
| Liam Lawson | 8 | 7.3 |
| Charles Leclerc | 7.5 | 7.1 |
| Nico Hulkenberg | 7.5 | 6.5 |
| Lewis Hamilton | 7.5 | 7.3 |
| Esteban Ocon | 7 | 5.6 |
| Gabriel Bortoleto | 6.5 | 6.8 |
| Pierre Gasly | 6 | 7.3 |
| Fernando Alonso | 6 | 5.8 |
| Sergio Perez | 6 | 5.5 |
| Yuki Tsunoda | 5.5 | 7.0 |
| Alex Albon | 5.5 | 5.4 |
| Oliver Bearman | 5 | 5.6 |
| George Russell | 5 | 7.1 |
| Oscar Piastri | 5 | 6.6 |
| Valtteri Bottas | 5 | 5.3 |
| Lance Stroll | 4.5 | 4.7 |
| Carlos Sainz | 4 | 5.6 |
| Isack Hadjar | N/A | 7.0 |
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