It’s not easy to beat Max Verstappen.
The reigning world champion doesn’t need to start from pole position to win. He doesn’t need the fastest car either.
He just needs the opportunity.
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At the Spanish Grand Prix Verstappen had one opportunity, and he executed perfectly.
Dejected Norris falls short of Max again | 02:20
The first half of his victory chance came off the line. Lando Norris got an okay launch from pole but suffered wheel spin when he shifted into second gear. It gifted Verstappen some momentum — despite running onto the grass — to pass the Briton down the inside of the first turn.
The second half of that chance came two laps later, at the beginning of lap three.
George Russell had picked up a powerful slipstream from the second row and swept around both Verstappen and Norris into the lead at the first turn.
Rapidly passing the slower Mercedes car was critical, and Verstappen pulled out a robust move into the first corner to get it done on lap 3.
Without those two acts, Verstappen could not have won in Barcelona.
Without the clear air of the lead and the strategy freedom of first place, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do so.
It’s a reminder that the Verstappen-Red Bull Racing combination is and always has been more than just a fast car. This is a pair operating at an extremely high level. Together they not only make winning look easy but also are extremely hard to beat.
But that isn’t the key message of the race.
It’s more important that we take away the fact that McLaren, despite squibbing its victory shot, really has caught Red Bull Racing.
NORRIS CAN’T CONVERT, BUT STATEMENT HAS BEEN MADE
At a circuit that should have seen Red Bull Racing win easily, McLaren had the fastest car.
Only execution separated it from the top step, with Norris instead forced to accept second place in exchange for his superb pole position.
“Not could [have won], should have done,” he said. “I got a bad start, simple as that.
“The car was incredible today. I think we were for sure the quickest. I just lost it at the beginning.
“A lot of positives, one negative and that ruined everything.
“A big thanks to the team, because the car was amazing.”
It wasn’t even that his start was bad. It just wasn’t as close to perfect as Verstappen — or Russell — managed on either side of him.
And anyway, that botched launch couldn’t detract from what we saw from the rest of the race.
McLaren relented to Norris’s desire to roll the dice with strategy. Rather than play it safe and simply cover the Mercedes drivers for a spot on the podium, the team attempted to build a tyre offset in the middle stint that could make up for the time lost off the line and launch Norris into an assault on the lead.
In the end he fell short by just 2.2 seconds — not bad considering he was more than 11 seconds adrift after the first pit stops and spent more than 10 laps bottled behind the slower Mercedes cars during the middle stint. It was certainly enough to argue that the McLaren was the fastest car this afternoon.
“We knew that the pace was strong,” McLaren boss Andrea Stella told Sky Sports. “In the end we missed that little time to fight or the victory.
“I think the two cars are very, very close. I think in Canada the difference in qualifying was 0.02s. Here it was again a few milliseconds and very similar in the race. That’s a great achievement for McLaren if you think how this interview would have been 12 months ago [when both cars finished outside the points].”
Horner paid tribute to Norris’s individual performance, the Briton having found another gear this year and in particular in the last two grands prix.
“The two of them [Verstappen and Norris] were circa 18 seconds ahead of the rest of the field,” he said. “Lando in particular had longevity. They went for a slightly different strategy, but in the end we got the job done and won the race.
“I think since Miami Lando has been probably the most standout competitor. We’ve had to be at the top of our game to be winning these races. They’re tight wins, but we keep winning, which is the most important thing.
“We’re just keeping our nose ahead. It’s important we keep pushing because there’s a long, long way to go.”
The result takes Norris to second in the drives championship for the first time in his career, albeit a hefty 69 points behind Verstappen.
McLaren retains third in the constructors standings 93 points behind Red Bull Racing.
“We do have to keep the trajectory up,” Stella said. “It’s not obvious. It requires a lot of work. It requires us to keep evolving what we know about the car so we can keep improving it.”
With 14 rounds still to go, development could decide whether either title battle is reopened. Certainly the constructors championship still feels up for grabs given Sergio Pérez put in another lacklustre weekend, albeit a rare off round for Oscar Piastri meant McLaren lost ground on the title table.
But regardless of whether this year’s championship ends up disputed, McLaren’s Spanish Grand Prix performance strongly suggests we should be on for a thrilling rest of the year.
LECLERC CLAIMS SAINZ BROKE TEAM ORDERS IN DAMAGING DUEL
Charles Leclerc ended the grand prix in a largely anonymous fifth, with Ferrari never appearing to have the pace to challenge for the podium.
The Monegasque’s sole bright spot came in the final laps, when with softer tyres he bore down on Russell and came with 0.389 seconds of overhauling the Briton.
But that wasn’t his only race highlight.
The footage more likely to be reviewed came much earlier in the race, when teammate Carlos Sainz launched an assertive move around his outside into the first turn, making light contact on the way, to deprive him of fifth place.
Strategy eventually got Leclerc back ahead, with Sainz lumbered with the hard tyre that worked poorly for almost everyone.
But the reversal of positions wasn’t enough to wipe the bitter taste from Leclerc’s mouth over having been raced so hard by a teammate — and, he suggested, against team orders.
“We had a clear strategy at the beginning of the race, with both to save tyres to attack later on,” Leclerc said, per Autosport.
“Carlos didn’t do any saving in turn 14 and of course had an opportunity to overtake me in turn 1, which is a bit of a shame because we lost time between us.
“I damaged my front wing because of Carlos making the turn and not seeing I was inside, and that made our race more difficult.
“I didn’t understand the point of doing that when it was clearly stated before the race that we had to save in this part of the race.”
The battle between Sainz and Leclerc has had the potential to erupt all year. Sainz is motivated to race only for himself after being turfed for Lewis Hamilton.
And while he has at least two concrete offers on the table for 2025, neither will be competing for podiums and victories, meaning Sainz will undoubtedly want to get the most from his opportunities with Ferrari this year.
Leclerc was sympathetic with Sainz’s plight but still argued it was too bold for an intrateam duel.
“It’s a bit unnecessary,” he said. “I also understand that it’s his home race and it’s also an important moment of his career, so I guess he wanted to do something a bit spectacular.
“But I probably wasn’t the right person to do that with.“
It’s debatable, but the minor damage sustained by Leclerc could well have meant the difference between fourth and fifth.
While Sainz is showing no signs of acting in bad faith, close moments like these will likely become only harder for Ferrari to manage, and given it quite possibly lost valuable points this weekend, it’ll weight only heavier on the Scuderia’s mind with each passing week.
HAMILTON TAKES FIRST PODIUM OF THE SEASON IN MERCEDES RESURGENCE
It’s been a long, long time since Lewis Hamilton has smiled like this on a Sunday night.
It’s been 13 grands prix since the seven-time champion last stood on a Formula 1 podium, dating back to last year’s Mexico City Grand Prix, where he finished second.
But this podium is notably more meaningful than any of last year’s trophy collection.
That Mercedes should be quick enough to collect silverware at a circuit like this is a big tick for the team’s tortured development program, now in its fruitless third season of this regulatory era.
Coming off the back of a strong result in Canada, a totally different track, there’s hope at Brackley and in F1 that the German marque could become a victory contender by the end of the year.
“I feel great,” Hamilton said. “I feel fantastic.
“We’re getting there. We’re getting loser. A big, big thankyou to the team, because we’re slowly closing the gap.
“This is the best weekend I’ve had all year and for a long, long time — 15 races (sic) or something crazy.
“It’s good to be back. It’s good to have battles like today. It’s good to reassert and reaffirm.”
Hamilton credited his hefty 17-second deficit to Verstappen to the time he spent stuck behind the Ferrari cars early in the race. While that’s true, Mercedes still appears a tenth or too off in race trim based on this weekend.
That, however, is such an enormous improvement on even a few rounds ago, and it will surely have the papaya team feeling punchy at less extreme circuits.
BAD DAY AT THE OFFICE FOR THE AUSSIES
After a standout month of May for Oscar Piastri, the Aussie suffered a rapid comedown in tough race made more difficult by an unflattering comparison with teammate Norris.
The genesis of Piastri’s struggles were in his failure to set a qualifying time in Q3, leaving him ninth on the grid and a long way back from the podium around a circuit that makes overtaking difficult.
While Piastri was happy to gain a pair of places to finish seventh, he was mystified by his sudden performance drop-off this weekend.
“I think P7 as looking pretty realistic going into the race,” he said. “I didn’t quite have the pace this weekend in general.
“I need to understand why that was the case. Obviously when you qualify that far back it makes life very tough. I just need to understand why it’s been so difficult.”
Some have already lined up to kick the Aussie based on this one tough weekend and the ballooning points gap to Norris.
But critics should remember Piastri was the better McLaren driver between Miami and Monaco, and the teammates were closely matched in Canada.
One tough result doesn’t negate an otherwise strong star to the year.
Meanwhile, things were worse at RB, where the full race distance confirmed its sweeping upgrade package has left it worse off relative to its season average, with Daniel Ricciardo and teammate Yuki Tsunoda finishing 15th and 19th.
“It’s a weird one because am I happy with 15th? Absolutely not. But am I happy with my race and how we managed it? Yes.
“I honestly felt like we both did a good job and just didn’t have anything more to show this weekend.
“Yesterday I missed maybe just a touch, but today if let like I maximised it.
“Obviously with a new package we’re missing something.
“There are a few corners where I feel it’s not really giving us a little bit extra we’re looking for. There are some places that are a little bit more clear.
“Probably now we’re just lacking overall load. This is a pretty high-speed circuit, a lot of fast corners, and that’s maybe where we’re currently a little bit weak.
“I took plenty of notes through the race and have plenty of feedback to give to the team, so we’ll try to put it to good use and come back in Austria.”
But with less than five days before cars hit the Red Bull Ring for the only practice session of a sprint weekend, RB will be up against it to return to form.