Winners and losers from the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix

MADRID – Kimi Antonelli may have felt he was an “undeserved” winner of the Spanish Grand Prix, but he tops our Winners list from the Madring.

Here is PlanetF1.com’s full list of winners and losers from the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix.

Winners and Losers from the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix

Winner: Kimi Antonelli

Another day, another race, and another significant step closer to his maiden world championship as Antonelli took maximum points around the brand-new Madring circuit.

Having been pipped to pole position on Saturday, Antonelli had a relatively scruffy first lap as he and Lando Norris went toe-to-toe, but this was just as much down to the futility of trying to race cleanly around an unfavourable circuit layout as it was Antonelli being overly optimistic.

Settling into third place, the rest of the race came to the Italian: Verstappen’s own corner-cutting on Lap 1 saw him instructed to move aside to allow Lewis Hamilton back through, with Antonelli benefitting from this as it got him past the Red Bull.

McLaren’s misfortune with the timing of the Virtual Safety Car then got Antonelli into a net lead as he settled in behind the yet-to-stop Charles Leclerc, and that was, essentially, murder she wrote: all Antonelli had to do was keep his nose clean as he’s done for most of this year, and the victory was his.

Unlike the magic of Monza, this race victory needed a little more fortune and circumstance to fall into his lap but, as is often the case when drivers seem destined for a title, the cards usually seem to fall for the correct driver over the course of a year.

While jubilant in his victory, there was visibly more restraint than we’ve seen for some of his ‘bigger’ wins this year, and Antonelli pointed out that, without the fortune that went his way, it would likely have been a Lando Norris victory.

“It’s good to win and I think the pace at the end was good,” Antonelli said afterwards.

“But if I have to be realistic and honest, today we didn’t deserve to win. Lando deserved to win today, and so I think our result was probably P2 or even P3.

“I just didn’t do a good enough job at the start, being a bit too aggressive and then putting myself in a bad position. So yeah, definitely things to work on. But all in all, today went well and I’m happy with that.”

Asked by PlanetF1.com how the race may have wound up for Antonelli without the VSC timing, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff pointed to how it wasn’t all just luck: the team’s speedy decision-making saw race engineer Pete Bonnington call his driver in with only a few seconds in which to make the pit call – a decision that McLaren weren’t ready for, even if it would have involved pre-empting the yellow flags turning into a VSC.

“This time around, running second on the road gave us the advantage,” Wolff said.

“But I feel somewhat we deserved it. There were so many VSCs and safety cars that went against us this year, so it’s the first time that that it worked for us.”

With an 81-point lead over George Russell, and no sign of his momentum slowing as the gap relentlessly grows, the question now is at which race Antonelli wins the title, rather than whether he can.

Loser: Lewis Hamilton

It was a weekend to forget for Hamilton, with the seven-time F1 World Champion getting involved in multiple impeding incidents during practice, triggering frustrations from some of his fellow drivers.

This was followed by his FP3 crash that saw him ignore multiple team instructions to stop the car as he skated along the track on his floor and front wing remnants, having scattered debris on the circuit on his way back.

It took his race engineer, Carlo Santi, pointedly stating that it was a formal request from race direction, before Hamilton actually listened to the instruction, and his position on the track meant that the team didn’t get the car back for much longer than it would have been had he just stopped after his initial mistake.

A clean start to the race, on soft tyres, was all in vain as, just a few laps in, Hamilton’s brake pedal started to go long and he was unable to slow properly into the braking zones, resulting in him having to take more and more caution as it became evident he couldn’t continue.

A few weeks ago, it appeared as though Hamilton might be the only driver capable of joining in the World Championship fight against the two Mercedes drivers, but, in just a few short rounds, it’s become evident that it’s not possible: McLaren’s resurgence, combined with Ferrari’s reluctance to position Hamilton as its sole effort in the run to the finale, has all but ended that hypothetical.

Winner: Lando Norris

I debated whether or not to put Norris in the Winner or Loser column, as there is an argument to be made for him making the latter: he was the only driver whose positioning on the track meant he was maximally screwed by the timing of the Virtual Safety Car, and his final track result saw him lose ground on the only driver he couldn’t really afford to lose more points to.

But Norris’ performance was simply too good to justify him making that list – taking pole position, holding the lead off the start, and building a solid lead over the first 14 laps meant he was primed and ready to further close in on Antonelli in the Drivers’ Championship.

Destiny has other ideas this year, though, and Norris’ likely victory was undone by the timing of the VSC, escalating from the yellow flags right as he negotiated the final corner – Antonelli being far enough behind to be able to slow and dive into the pits.

Just as Norris came around the penultimate corner to follow suit a lap later, the VSC ended, meaning he pitted under normal race conditions, and he filtered back out in fifth; his race doomed to damage limitation from that point.

Neither Norris nor McLaren did anything wrong, and the world champion defended the only factor that could have been different: should McLaren have pre-empted the VSC by calling Norris in regardless, given that his tyres were “destroyed” anyway?

“It’s not like we did anything that made us lose it. We were just insanely unlucky today,” Norris said.

“It’s not the team’s fault, it’s not my fault. Simple as that. We were just unlucky.

“I was the only one on the whole grid, that didn’t get the chance to do the pit stop. That’s just unfortunate. You know, it’s happened in races and there’s been plenty of times where I’ve gained from it in the past and times where I’ve lost from it, and it’s racing, but never when fighting for a win.

“So, I think it’s probably one of the first times a win has been lost simply because of it. It’s frustrating, especially after the performance yesterday and the performance I was putting in at the beginning of the race, and I had all race, in fact. Of course I feel like I deserved more today, but the others also did a good race and I have to give credit to that too.”

Norris fought back to finish on the podium, closing up rapidly on Antonelli and Verstappen as they were held back by the long-running Leclerc, and put pressure on the Dutch driver, albeit an effort that proved in vain.

More from the Spanish Grand Prix

Spanish GP 2026 driver ratings: Classy Norris, Sainz underwhelms

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

Loser: Carlos Sainz

A good start was about all Sainz can really look back on as a high point from a tough weekend at his hometown race, with the Spaniard colliding with Racing Bulls’ Yuki Tsunoda at Turn 1 to end that momentum.

“I think I got three or four positions on the hard tyre, and then a lot of bunching up into Turn 1 that caught me a bit out, and had a small contact with Tsunoda that damaged my floor,” he said afterwards.

“Unfortunately, yeah, from there on, I had damage in the car, and it was a race of survival because I had no rear downforce in the car for the rest of the race.

“So yeah, we had nothing to lose on that first lap, and I wanted to get a good start to see if we could get anything going in this race, but in reality, even with a perfect race, we would not finish higher than 16th. Not a lot to fight for today.”

But his dramas didn’t end there, as a clumsy moment with Fernando Alonso saw Sainz fail to leave enough space for his compatriot, leading to both cars picking up damage in contact at Turn 5.

Sainz didn’t want to talk about it afterwards, choosing to point more at the nature of the corner than his culpability, but the stewards found he had been at fault for moving under braking and not leaving Alonso enough space.

With an uncompetitive car, Sainz proved the undoing of his own race through the two incidents, contributing to the conclusion of Alonso’s race to all but end the local interest in the race, and took some criticism on live television afterwards, too, as Nico Rosberg pointed to Sainz’s ambassadorship in the Madring as being a contributing factor for the poor racing qualities of the circuit.

Certainly, Sainz was reluctant to criticise the circuit when asked about the layout, with him instead choosing to point to the great organisation and logistics, with his only concession being that an open mind will be needed to alter the layout to introduce an overtaking point.

Winner: Franco Colapinto

On a day when the Spanish drivers’ races fell apart, particularly following contact between the only of them, Franco Colapinto gave the Latin crowd something to cheer about as the Argentine driver scored one of his most impressive race results of the season.

Even coming home ahead of a, admittedly compromised, McLaren as Oscar Piastri laboured through, Colapinto felt he had only lost out to Red Bull’s Liam Lawson after being held up in overtaking Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto, resulting in Lawson managing to get ahead through what the Kiwi dubbed a very risky pass.

Colapinto had been left emotional after Monza, realising that his mistake immediately after being passed by Verstappen had been enormous in nature, if not in consequence, and bounced back magnificently in Madrid.

Having the legs on Pierre Gasly throughout, Colapinto was proud to have maximised the car and, in particular, his qualifying performance; a key factor in his end result at a circuit that proved, essentially, to be a faster Monaco.

Colapinto might not yet be as consistent a performer as Gasly, but is proving that, with the confidence shown in him by Alpine, his turnaround to emerge as a genuine force in the midfield is almost complete.

Loser: Madring

There are two ways to look at the Madring, and I, as a paddock journalist, have to try looking at this in two different ways; I’ve often pointed out to colleagues how my own perception of race tracks can be influenced by the logistical elements of a weekend, rather than the quality of the track itself.

As an event, Madring ticked a lot of boxes, particularly for a first-time running. Logistically, the track was easy to access with no significant traffic build-up, the parking facilities were excellent, and the media were well looked after with a generously-sized media centre, a very decent cafeteria (far better than most!), and ample paddock treats.

Sure, there are quibbles: the paddock’s sheer size meant it was physically gruelling, and time-consuming, to get anywhere, and also meant that opportunities to ‘bump into’ contacts (an important consideration for a journalist!) were vastly reduced.

But, overall, it was a far calmer and smoother experience than, say, the recent rounds at Zandvoort and Monza, with no glaring issues in any particular area.

Aside from the track itself. Designed around the IFEMA exhibition centre, the circuit lacked character or any sort of visual identity and, instead, looked like what the Miami Autodrome has often been accused of being: a tarmac strip laid down through a series of car parks around a central location.

But Miami, despite being visually unattractive, does allow for good racing, which is a lot more than can be said for the Madring. For a brand-new circuit, designed around the dimensions of a modern car, the creation of a bland and forgettable layout with zero overtaking opportunities is simply unforgivable.

Yes, La Monumental could emerge as a great corner, in time, but isn’t, thanks to the weaknesses of the power units, as was pointed out by the likes of Alonso and Verstappen through the weekend. Banked it may be, but there was still only one line through it.

Having been awarded a long-term deal on nothing more than its location and ability to pay significant race fees, the circuit appears to have been designed to maximise the space to allow as many paying paddock guests and VIPs as possible, with the track layout a lesser consideration – leading to a bland design that resulted in negligible action and a race that epitomises the milquetoast nature of a currently neutered on-track product.

When the likes of Zandvoort, Spa-Francorchamps, Hockenheim, the Nurburgring, or any sort of race in France, continue to remain off the calendar, the granting of a long-term deal to a Formula E-esque venue, at a time when Formula E itself is moving away from destination-based calendar-based planning, just smacks of chasing the money, rather than the simplicity of what racing should be.

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