Max Verstappen clinches victory at the Spanish Grand Prix, narrowly beating Lando Norris

Max Verstappen secured his seventh win of the season in the Spanish Grand Prix by fending off Lando Norris in pole position.
Lap 3 saw the Red Bull driver take the lead for the first time after George Russell's Mercedes, which had started fourth, took advantage of an electric start to take the lead early in the race.

After seemingly being squeezed by Norris at the beginning, Verstappen was not happy. However, the three-time world champion calmed down and managed to pass the McLaren driver before overtaking Russell for the lead with a move outside Turn 1.

Norris, who had been praising his "perfect lap" in qualifying the day before, would lose valuable time to Russell in the race's opening stages and eventually lose the lead.

Verstappen would control the race and hold his lead as the checkered flag approached, with the Red Bull driver saving a set of new softs for his final stint of the Grand Prix. The lead would exchange hands multiple times as drivers made their pit stops.

Despite Verstappen's late-race difficulties, which were exacerbated by his second pit stop being a sluggish 3.6-second effort, Norris finished second, meaning that his attempts to catch up to the Dutchman and challenge for the win were futile.

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes secured his first Grand Prix podium of the year after engaging in two thrilling on-track battles with Carlos Sainz of Ferrari. Russell finished in P4, citing discomfort from his hard tyre during his final stint.

There was no chance of a Scuderia challenge around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as the Ferraris driven by Charles Leclerc and Sainz finished P5 and P6, respectively.

With a well-earned ninth place finish, Pierre Gasly led Alpine, and Esteban Ocon's P10 finish gave the team a double-point victory.

After starting from 11th place the last time in Canada due to a three-place grid penalty, Sergio Perez was able to partially reverse the damage by overtaking Gasly for eighth place in the closing stages.

A five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane would hurt Nico Hulkenberg's Haas, which would finish in 11th place. Fernando Alonso's effort was only good enough for 12th place, capping a challenging weekend for Aston Martin.

Zhou Guanyu of Kick Sauber would finish in 13th place, ahead of Alonso's teammate Stroll. Daniel Ricciardo took P15, leaving RB perplexed following a challenging weekend in which they unveiled a significant new update.

On a day without retirements or yellow flags, Yuki Tsunoda finishing in 19th place added to the difficulty, while Bottas, Magnussen, and Albon placed 16th, 17th, and 18th, respectively. The last vehicle to cross the finish line in 20th place was Logan Sargeant's Williams.

Norris was left to lament a lost chance and acknowledge over the radio that he had botched his start, while Verstappen was ecstatic about his victory in Spain—his third consecutive victory.

Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes were the top four teams in the standings going into the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, and qualifying showed how close things were at the top when Norris secured an incredible pole position for Sunday's race.

Verstappen's P2 effort was only two hundredths of a second quicker than the McLaren driver's second career pole, which he last achieved at the Sochi Autodrom in 2021. Meanwhile, Mercedes once again displayed encouraging performance with Hamilton in P3 and Russell in P4. Despite being disappointed with their distance from pole position, Leclerc and Sainz, the Ferraris, who were slightly behind in P5 and P6, were eager to gain ground in the race.

One major question to address as the paddock came back together on Sunday following that thrilling qualifying session was what the weather was doing. Rain was predicted for the night and earlier in the day, but by the time the lights went out at 1500 local time, the weather had cleared up.

Prior to the race, there was a minor change made to the starting grid: Alex Albon and Williams decided to start from pit lane after qualifying, when he finished in P19, by changing the power unit components on their car.

With the exception of the aforementioned Albon, every driver had chosen to begin on the red-marked soft tyre when the tire blankets were removed. Verstappen started the race on used softs even though he had a new set of tires available, while Norris and Ferrari chose to use the new soft rubber. Both Mercedes vehicles started out in used condition.



It was then time for the show to begin, and as soon as the lights went out, Russell's Mercedes pulled into the party. Verstappen stormed through the outside barriers and took the lead in the race as a result of Norris making a strong start and trying to pull alongside him.

Verstappen was not amused by Norris's move and angrily protested over the radio, "I got pushed onto the grass," but after first reviewing the incident, the stewards did nothing.

Hamilton, Russell's teammate, did not get off to the best start as he lost to Leclerc at first, but he came back to take fourth place in the order. While Alonso was starting in eleventh place with his Aston Martin, he lost ground after appearing to be tagged from behind. As a result, he had to take the escape road at Turn 1, ultimately finishing in fourteenth place.



Russell had a fantastic start to the race, but Verstappen's quick pass on the outside of Turn 1 on the third lap, thanks to DRS and the tow, ended Russell's lead.

At the same turn, home favorite Sainz would move up on teammate Leclerc behind them; the two Ferraris appeared to touch, forcing the Spaniard to take the back road as well. He did, however, move up to P5 stick, and although the stewards quickly examined whether he had left the track and gained an advantage, they decided that no more inquiry was required.

Verstappen came dangerously close to a huge moment at Turn 7, but the Red Bull driver was able to avert any catastrophe. As the race moved into Lap 13, Race Control had flagged the Haas of Magnussen for a possible false start. A five-second penalty was soon to be handed to him.

The first round of pit stops then began, with Perez's Red Bull being one of the main stops on Lap 13 as the Mexican tried to make up for his three-place grid penalty from Canada. However, a sticky rear tire caused Pierre Gasly's Alpine to have a less than ideal stop that lasted 6.7 seconds. This caused him to fall behind his teammate and undo a lot of the good work he had done in the early stages of the race.

At the head of the order, Russell would visit the pits for the first time on lap 15, but he was hampered by a slow stop of 5.3 seconds, which allowed him to stay ahead of the similarly stopping Sainz. Verstappen had no such problems upon landing on Lap 17, remaining motionless for a mere 1.9 seconds as Norris took the lead in the race.

As Lap 18 of the Grand Prix approached, Hamilton and Sainz found themselves in a fierce battle for sixth position. The Mercedes driver moved into Turn 1 of the following lap with DRS supporting him, and the two had a dramatic moment of contact. Sainz yelled over the radio, "He touched me and ran me off!" “He needs to let me by.”

Even though the Ferrari driver protested, their collision did not warrant a second look.

By the time the race reached its halfway point, Verstappen was leading Russell, Norris, Hamilton, and Sainz—the McLaren driver having closed the gap on Hamilton on Lap 32. Norris had made his own stop from the lead on Lap 24, and most of the field was now on mediums.

Sixth-place finisher Leclerc looked displeased, questioning his team's approach and why they were using Plan A while his race engineer attempted to calm the Ferrari driver.

Verstappen was leading the drivers on their 34th lap of the track and was gaining ground on Russell, who was in second place, by more than eight seconds. With his sights set on overtaking the Mercedes driver, Norris and his fellow British driver engaged in a fierce battle from Turn 3 to Turn 7 of Lap 35.

Russell dove into the pits for the second time, hards subsequently going onto his W15, but Norris was able to make his move stick after the back and forth as he made his own second. Hamilton was now right on the tail of his teammate.



Verstappen's lead had narrowed to 5.9 seconds as the race approached Lap 41, and Norris was making an effort to close the gap as Red Bull had not yet sent in their driver for the second stop. They would not want to blink too soon, not with his new softs still in the bank.

Russell, who was using a hard tire, expressed his dissatisfaction over the radio, saying that his tires did "not feel good." Shortly after, Hamilton pitted to replace the hard tire.

With his new soft tires, Verstappen then followed suit into the pit lane. He was purposefully held back for this particular moment and slid onto his RB20, while Norris—staying out and now leading—instantly informed his race engineer Will Joseph, "This is our chance now," in an attempt to win the Spanish Grand Prix.

After leading Sainz by a wide margin in the battle for sixth place with 20 laps to go, Hamilton finally pulled away into Turn 1, and on the next lap, Norris was told to box. But the McLaren driver lost valuable time as Verstappen took back the lead in the race, and Norris managed to hold onto second place by just staying ahead of Russell.

Lower down the order, Hulkenberg, in 11th place, was given a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, which severely hurt his chances of moving up into the points-paying positions. The team's hopes for another double-point finish are growing as the Alpines of Gasly and Ocon manage to hold onto ninth and tenth place, respectively.

Tsunoda, who was in last place, received a five-second penalty for the identical infraction as Hulkenberg.

As the race approached its final stages, Verstappen had to exert a lot of pressure on Norris, who was slowly eroding his lead, which was 6.6 seconds on Lap 51 of 66.

Although the distance between the leading pair was narrowing, Norris needed to finish more laps if he wanted to win his second Grand Prix of the race. By the time of Lap 65, the difference had shrunk to just 2.3 seconds.



Eight years after his historic victory here in 2016, Verstappen maintained that lead as he defeated Norris to win three times in a row at the track in Barcelona.

Red Bull also had more success lower down the order when Perez, a three-stopper, pulled off a late pass on Gasly at Turn 1 to take eighth place. Every point will probably matter in the battle of the constructors.

Even though he had won Driver of the Day, Norris was visibly dejected as he crossed the finish line and acknowledged over his radio that his poor start had cost him the opportunity to win today.

However, Verstappen had another great day, recording his 106th podium result and sharing fourth place on the all-time list with none other than Alain Prost and Fernando Alonso.



"I think what made the race was the beginning," Verstappen remarked. "I took the lead on Lap 2, and that's where I had my buffer, then in that first stint where I could eke out that gap a little bit.

"I think after that, we had to drive quite a defensive race, you know? Lando and McLaren were very, very quick today, especially on DEG. It seems the last few laps of the stint were always very, very fast. "But then I think we did everything well; we drove quite an aggressive strategy, but luckily it paid out until the end. It was quite close until the end, but I was very happy to win here."