Antonelli Fastest as Norris and Lindblad Hit Trouble in Spanish GP Practice

George Russell topped Formula 1’s first competitive running at Madring, edging Kimi Antonelli by 0.286 seconds as Mercedes locked out the top two in FP1. Antonelli went quicker again in FP2, a 1:33.662 that held up as the fastest lap of the day, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton keeping Ferrari within two tenths of it. The session was stopped for around 12 minutes after Arvid Lindblad crashed at Turn 13 while running fourth, and Lando Norris managed only two laps before a gearbox issue put his car on stands for the rest of the hour. Track limits deletions ran through both sessions from the opening minutes to the last, a new circuit giving twenty-two drivers almost nothing to reference and no shortage of ways to find out where the limits actually are.

Key Points: F1 Spanish Grand Prix 2026 Practice

• Russell tops FP1 with a 1:34.077, 0.286s clear of Antonelli, Mercedes locking out the front two
• Antonelli fastest overall with a 1:33.662 in FP2, Leclerc and Hamilton keeping Ferrari within 0.15s of it
• Arvid Lindblad crashes at Turn 13 in FP2 while running fourth, red flag stopping the session for around 12 minutes
• Lando Norris completes just two laps in FP2 before a gearbox change ends his session early
• Track limits deletions affect the majority of the grid across both sessions, concentrated at Turns 5, 6, 11, 17 and 18
• Air temperatures reach 30.6°C and track temperatures peak at 53.1°C in FP2, warmer than the FP1 hour

FP1: Russell Leads a Mercedes Lockout

Hamilton set the early benchmark on the Medium, a 1:34.620 that led for a large part of the opening running before Leclerc moved Ferrari to the top with a 1:34.536, still on the Medium. Mercedes then switched to the Soft. Russell built through a representative lap into a 1:34.145 to take a provisional lead, then improved again to close the session on a 1:34.077, the fastest lap of the hour. Antonelli completed the top two for Mercedes, 0.286s back, with Leclerc third and Hamilton fourth, both Ferraris still setting their fastest times on the Medium compound rather than the Soft.

Verstappen was fifth, 0.626s off the pace, Norris sixth. Arvid Lindblad finished seventh in his first competitive session at the new circuit, ahead of Oscar Piastri in eighth, who reported something loose in the cockpit during his stint and returned to the pits for the team to investigate, ending his session on 22 laps. Carlos Sainz completed the most laps of the session, 30, working through a home race in front of his own crowd. Yuki Tsunoda lost the second half of the hour to a power steering problem. A clutch issue during Alonso’s post-session practice starts would go on to delay his start in FP2.

Track limits deletions were already a theme by the finish, Turns 1, 4 and 5 among the early offenders, catching Perez, Antonelli, Piastri and others across the hour.

Leclerc had the fastest first sector of the top 10, Lawson edged the middle sector by a fraction from Leclerc, and Russell had the fastest final sector, three different cars sharing the honours across the split even before the front of the field had fully settled.

FP1 Sector Splits: Top 10

Bold indicates fastest sector across the top 10.

FP2: Antonelli Fastest Despite the Red Flag

Leclerc set the pace early in FP2, before Antonelli moved Mercedes back to the top and kept extending, eventually landing the 1:33.662 that stood as the fastest lap of either session. Leclerc ended up 0.113s back in second, Hamilton third for Ferrari, Lindblad an impressive fourth on the Soft before his session ended early. Russell was fifth, Verstappen sixth after a lap that briefly went top before a track limits deletion took it away from him, Piastri seventh.

The session stopped just past the halfway point. Lindblad’s Racing Bulls stepped out of line entering Turn 13, sliding sideways into the barriers and catching them with both the front and rear of the car. He climbed out of the car unaided, but the red flag halted the session at 15:35 and running did not resume until 15:47, close to 12 minutes lost from the clock. Teammate Liam Lawson clipped the same wall with both front and rear tyre around the same time, an early sign of how easily the circuit was catching drivers out.

Norris’s session amounted to two laps. His car was called into the garage and put up on stands for a gearbox change, ending his running for the rest of the hour and leaving him with no representative time from FP2 at all, last on the timesheet as a result.

FP2 Classification

Lindblad had the fastest first sector of anyone in FP2, set on the lap before his session ended early. Verstappen had the fastest middle sector despite a steering complaint that would surface later in the hour. Antonelli’s final sector was the quickest of the top 10, the piece that completed his benchmark lap and put him fastest overall for the day.

FP2 Sector Splits: Top 10

Bold indicates fastest sector across the top 10.

A Track With No Reference Points

Deletions ran through both sessions from the opening minutes to the last, concentrated at Turns 5, 6, 11, 17 and 18, catching Perez, Antonelli, Piastri, Norris, Sainz, Leclerc, Hulkenberg, Bottas, Stroll, Hamilton, Russell, Verstappen, Bortoleto, Bearman, Tsunoda, Alonso, Albon, Colapinto and Gasly across the day between them. That is close to the full grid. No previous F1 running, no established racing line, and a 22-turn layout gave every driver a long list of ways to lose a lap time that would otherwise have counted.

Neither session produced a sustained representative stint on either compound. Every quick lap across both hours was bracketed by a slow one, whether from traffic, a driver backing off after a moment, or simply working out where the car could actually be pushed. That left Friday with a clearer picture of the single-lap order at the front and almost nothing reliable on race pace. FP3 on Saturday is where that picture starts to fill in.

Behind the Front of the Grid

Esteban Ocon had a strong day for Haas, beating his teammate in FP1 and running inside the top 10 again in FP2. Verstappen’s FP2 running ended with a steering complaint, the car feeling suddenly heavier through his hands, something for Red Bull to look at overnight alongside the reliability work already declared for Madrid, covered in CCM’s Spanish Grand Prix upgrades breakdown. Tsunoda lost a lap to traffic behind Hamilton during FP2. Stroll had a scare of his own in the closing minutes, nursing the car slowly back toward the pits from Turn 17.

Piastri ran wide at Turn 7 in FP2 and looped the car around to rejoin without further damage, one to watch for track limits into qualifying. Alonso finally got his FP2 running going once the clutch issue from his post-FP1 practice starts was sorted, still finding his way around the lap on home soil, caught in traffic more than once along the way. Sainz’s 30 laps in FP1 were the most of anyone on the grid, early evidence of how much ground there was to cover before a single representative lap counted for much.

Conditions and the Tyre Picture

FP1 ran with air temperatures between 26.2°C and 28.2°C and track temperatures from 46.7°C up to 52.4°C. FP2 was warmer across the board, air up to 30.6°C and track temperature peaking at 53.1°C before easing back into the high 40s by the end of the hour. Pirelli have brought the C2, C3 and C4 compounds to Madring, and with track temperatures already touching the low 50s on Friday, tyre management will be one of the areas to watch once teams finally get a representative long run.

Most of the grid used the Medium early before switching to the Soft. The interruptions meant Friday gave teams little clean long-run data, leaving strategy and degradation difficult to judge until FP3.

Coffee Corner Take

Madring did what a new circuit always does on day one. It exposed everyone equally, and a handful of drivers paid for it more than others.

Antonelli’s Friday was the closest thing to a clean one on the grid. Second in FP1 and fastest in FP2, he ended Friday with the quickest lap of anyone, no incidents, no lost track time, building on a championship lead that already sits at 66 points over Russell before a wheel had turned in Madrid this weekend. That is the kind of day a points leader wants at a circuit where almost everyone else spent the hour finding the limits the hard way.

Norris’s lost session matters more than two missing laps normally would. This is a track with no history and nothing to lean on beyond what gets logged this weekend, and every hour missed here costs proportionally more than an hour missed somewhere McLaren already understand. He goes into FP3 playing catch-up in a way most of the field will not be.

Lindblad’s crash is not a story about a driver who cannot handle a car running this fast. It is a story about a rookie pushing hard enough at a brand new circuit to run fourth before it caught him out, the same way it nearly caught his own teammate, and the same way the deletion sheet caught most of the rest of the grid at least once across the day. New tracks do this. Madring did it to plenty of the field on Friday.

Saturday needs to answer the question Friday could not. Who actually has race pace here, not just a clean single lap between two moments of traffic.