MADRID — Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli won the Spanish Grand Prix at the new Madring after McLaren's Lando Norris lost a comfortable lead from pole position because of the timing of a virtual safety car on lap 15.
Norris was leading comfortably when the VSC was called, but he had already passed the pit exit and could not stop. Antonelli and Verstappen were able to pit under the VSC and save time, while the caution period ended before Norris could make it around to the pits again. When he did come in, the stop was slow and he rejoined in fifth place, recovering only to third on a circuit where overtaking is next to impossible.
The victory was Antonelli's eighth win in 14 races this season and tightened his stranglehold on the championship. He now leads team-mate George Russell by 81 points after Russell finished fifth following a difficult race on a confusing strategy, and is 101 points clear of Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, who retired early on with brake failure. For Norris, the VSC denied him a likely third victory of the year after a brilliant pole on Saturday.
The maiden race on the Madring highlighted the difficulty of overtaking on the new track, which was designed from a clean sheet of paper yet offered few obvious overtaking places. The result underlined both Norris's misfortune and Antonelli's fortune in a season that is surrendering to him as well as being seized by his performances.