MADRID / 13 SEPTEMBER 2026

Madrid returned. Strategy decided it.

Kimi Antonelli won the first Grand Prix at Madring. Lando Norris looked in control until one interruption changed the afternoon.

01

Kimi Antonelli

02

Max Verstappen  +4.351

03

Lando Norris  +5.089

Norris started from pole and kept Antonelli behind through the opening exchanges. The McLaren began to stretch the gap. On pace, this appeared to be Norris’s race.

Then Lance Stroll stopped at Turn 20 and the Virtual Safety Car arrived. Mercedes and Red Bull brought Antonelli and Verstappen in under reduced speed. Norris missed that window and stopped after racing resumed; a seven-second tyre change returned him to the circuit behind both of them.

Charles Leclerc stayed out, waiting for another interruption that never came. When Ferrari finally stopped him after 48 laps, Antonelli inherited the lead and kept it. He completed the 57 laps in 1:34:23.754, with Verstappen second and Norris less than a second further back.

The home result was harder. Fernando Alonso finished seventeenth. Carlos Sainz retired. Lewis Hamilton and Lance Stroll also failed to finish after brake problems.

Madring’s first answer was not a single, cinematic pass. It was a race decided by timing: the right stop under the right flag, then enough pace to make the advantage hold. Antonelli took his eighth victory of the season and left Madrid with an 81-point championship lead.

Madrid waited forty-five years. The race returned. Then the city carried on around it.