Spanish GP 2026 driver ratings: Classy Norris, Sainz underwhelms

Kimi Antonelli won the Spanish Grand Prix, but it was Lando Norris who impressed most as the visited the brand-new Madring.

Were it not for the timing of the Safety Car, Norris would almost certainly have won the race in a 56-lap affair that saw a strong performance from Franco Colapinto and a home race to forget for Carlos Sainz.

Spanish GP 2026: Full Driver Ratings and Analysis

Kimi Antonelli – 8/10

Qualified: 2nd | Race: 1st

Antonelli won, but by his own admission he did not drive a winning race on pure merit.

He lost the start to Norris, twice had to bail out of the chicanes to avoid contact and then benefited from the VSC that allowed Mercedes to pit while Norris could not, turning a likely second or third place into victory.

This was more about execution and fortune than outright superiority.

Max Verstappen – 8/10

Qualified: 3rd | Race: 2nd

Verstappen extracted an excellent result from a race in which Red Bull did not appear to have the pace to beat Norris or Antonelli, finishing second from third on the grid.

He recovered well from the chaotic opening lap, including the enforced position reversal after the Hamilton incident, and avoided turning that situation into a race-ending problem.

He then capitalised on Norris’s VSC misfortune and managed the race cleanly, but he was clear that victory was beyond him on outright pace.

Lando Norris – 9/10

Qualified: 1st | Race: 3rd

Norris delivered one of the strongest drives of the weekend, starting from pole and building a lead of more than six seconds before the VSC arrived at exactly the wrong moment.

A slow stop compounded matters, leaving him fifth and with no realistic opportunity to recover on a circuit where overtaking was extremely difficult.

He still fought back to third and closed on Verstappen late, but the race was effectively lost through circumstances outside his control rather than any weakness in his driving.

Charles Leclerc – 8/10

Qualified: 5th | Race: 4th

Leclerc drove a fine race and arguably extracted almost everything Ferrari had available, finishing fourth from fifth on the grid and leading for a time.

Ferrari’s decision to run hard-to-soft and wait for a late Safety Car was logical given how difficult overtaking was

The weakness remained Saturday: Leclerc identified Ferrari’s qualifying performance and deployment as the reason he started behind the cars he ultimately could not pass, rather than any significant race-day deficiency.

George Russell – 7/10

Qualified: 6th | Race: 5th

A P5 finish suggested that Russell was unable to extract the most from his Mercedes.

Contact with Piastri at the start did not appear to materially compromise his race and while starting sixth and finishing fifth was respectable, teammate Antonelli won from second.

Russell therefore fell short of what was available, the foundations for which were laid in qualifying.

Liam Lawson – 8/10

Qualified: 8th | Race: 6th

Lawson delivered a strong P6 from P8, gaining two places in a race where overtaking was exceptionally difficult.

He had to work hard to get past Colapinto, and doing so was one of the few genuine midfield overtakes of the afternoon, before managing his hard-tyre strategy effectively despite the VSC working against him.

Given that Red Bull’s own pace had not looked especially convincing through Friday, and Lawson acknowledged that his main weakness had been qualifying, this was a very useful race execution.

Franco Colapinto – 9/10

Qualified: 9th | Race: 7th

Colapinto delivered one of his strongest weekends of the season, finishing P7 and scoring six points for Alpine.

He managed the long hard-tyre stint well, then made the decisive pass on Bortoleto, although getting stuck behind the Audi cost him time.

After an excellent Q3 lap on Saturday, he backed it up with a disciplined race and extracted virtually everything available from the Alpine.

Oscar Piastri – 5/10

Qualified: 7th | Race: 8th

Piastri had a poor race by his standards, losing three places in the opening-lap incident with Russell and sustaining front-wing damage.

He recovered some pace on the hard tyre, but the VSC timing and then being released into traffic left him with little opportunity to recover the lost track position, while the medium-tyre stint was particularly weak.

McLaren’s own post-race assessment acknowledged that the damage and poor starting position had compromised him, but Piastri has to own the fact that he did not qualify higher and put himself in that situation.

Arvid Lindblad – 8/10

Qualified: 10th | Race: 9th

Lindblad delivered a strong drive to P9, particularly after crashing in FP2 and then qualifying P10.

He had the pace to go with Colapinto, but the circuit gave him virtually nothing to work with; he then defended successfully from Hülkenberg late on.

The FP2 crash was a blot on the weekend, but recovering to Q3 and hen finishing ahead of his starting position showed good composure and pace.

Nico Hulkenberg – 7/10

Qualified: 11th | Race: 10th

Hulkenberg delivered a solid, controlled drive to P10, gaining a place from his P11 grid position and securing another point for Audi.

He lost out to Ocon at Turn 2 but recovered that through the pit sequence.

His suggestion that P7 was available if he had kept Ocon behind felt a little optimistic, but P10 represented a good extraction of the Audi package.

Esteban Ocon – 7/10

Qualified: 13th | Race: 11th

Ocon had a strong race, getting both Bortoleto and Hülkenberg off the line and running in the points before losing out to Audi at the pit stop.

P11 was a fair reflection rather than an underachievement or a miracle drive.

Pierre Gasly – 8/10

Qualified: 14th: Race: 12th

Gasly drove a much stronger race than his P12 suggested, recovering from a poor qualifying performance with genuinely competitive long-run pace.

He gained roughly a second per lap through the middle stint, but the VSC timing cost him around 15 seconds and effectively killed his chance of converting that pace into points.

The Alpine driver had extracted everything available from the car on Sunday and was one of the more convincing midfield performers despite the result.

Gabriel Bortoleto – 6/10

Qualified: 12th | Race: 13th

Bortoleto’s P13 was a frustrating result, but there was little he could have done once the VSC failed to give him the strategic break he needed.

He had started 12th and was stuck on the wrong tyre strategy.

His pace was respectable given the circumstances, and he kept the Audi clean, but there was no real evidence of a standout drive.

Yuki Tsunoda – 6/10

Qualified: 15th | Race: 14th

Tsunoda’s race was compromised at the start when Carlos Sainz hit him, costing positions and leaving him with significant damage.

He still produced respectable pace despite the damage but remained stuck behind slower cars as the Madring offered no realistic overtaking opportunities.

There was little he could have done after Lap 1, although being beaten by the circumstances rather than extracting something special from them made this more damage limitation than a standout drive.

Alex Albon – 7/10

Qualified: 16th | Race: 15th

Albon had a reasonable weekend, but that still translated to only P15.

He had been essentially faultless in a difficult car and was unable to manufacture an overtake on Tsunoda, which was more a reflection of the Madring and Williams’ deficiencies than his driving.

The pace deficit was severe, but Albon extracted about as much as was available and his own description of the weekend as “super sketchy” was fair.

Oliver Bearman – 5/10

Qualified: DNQ | Race: 16th

Bearman was never going to salvage much from a pit-lane start after his FP3 crash, but he drove a sensible race and showed pace once he got into clear air.

He had been unable to get past Albon despite having the newer tyres, with the medium tyre overheating badly, but the hard-tyre pace was genuinely encouraging.

The bigger issue was his costly FP3 error, which ruled him out of qualifying and effectively destroyed his weekend before the race had started.

Fernando Alonso – 6/10

Qualified: 18th | Race: 17th

Alonso had a difficult Madrid race, but the underlying pace was not as poor as the result suggested: he started 19th after Sainz’s penalty and Aston Martin had expected to be closer to the midfield than in Monza.

He then suffered early damage, which prevented the team from seeing the car’s full race potential, while Alonso also reported power unit problems that cost him time under blue flags.

Valtteri Bottas – 5/10

Qualified: 20th | Race: 18th

Bottas had a decent launch and gained several places before the race settled down.

A lack of downforce and the resulting sliding hurt the tyres, and his pace, while brake-temperature management forced him to lift throughout, leaving him unable to make meaningful progress.

There is, however, some credit for getting through a difficult race and fighting in the lower order.

Carlos Sainz – 3/10

Qualified: 17th | Race: DNF

Sainz made a strong launch but contact with Yuki Tsunoda damaged his floor and effectively ruined his race, leaving him around a second off the pace.

He compounded that with a clash with Fernando Alonso, for which he received a five-second penalty.

Given the Williams’ limitations, there was little to salvage once the floor was damaged, but Sainz had still made his own afternoon unnecessarily difficult.

Sergio Perez – 7/10

Qualified: 19th | Race: DNF

Perez survived the first-lap chaos to move forward and then ran essentially at Albon’s pace.

He was comfortably ahead of teammate Bottas before reliability issues forced him out.

Cadillac was hardly a contender, but Perez showed good race execution and had left little on the table.

Lance Stroll – 4/10

Qualified: 21st | Race: DNF

Stroll’s weekend had been compromised by Aston Martin’s reliability problems, but he had done little himself to suggest he could have extracted much from it, failing to set a qualifying time and starting at the back.

He had made a decent start and gained a position before debris damaged the car, after which a long brake pedal and lack of power progressively compromised his race.

His retirement triggered the VSC that ultimately swung the race in Kimi Antonelli’s favour, but this had been another weekend where Stroll had failed to put a complete performance together.

Lewis Hamilton – 5/10

Qualified: 4th | Race: DNF

Hamilton’s weekend unravelled early, with a brake-pedal problem forcing his retirement on lap seven.

He had qualified fourth and Ferrari believed the pace was good enough to fight for the podium, but Hamilton’s FP3 crash had already cost him valuable preparation and the race ended before he could demonstrate that potential.

The mechanical failure was not his fault, but this still rated as a poor weekend given the earlier error and his inability to convert a competitive Ferrari into points.

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read next: Spanish GP conclusions: Imaginary Hamilton challenge over, Norris joins elite, soulless Madring