Spanish GP: Oscar Piastri beats Lando Norris to win as Max Verstappen given penalty for George Russell collision
Oscar Piastri extends his world championship lead over Lando Norris to 10 points, while Max Verstappen eventually finishes 10th after being punished with a time penalty for a contentious late collision with Mercedes' George Russell
Tuesday 3 June 2025 09:15, UK
Oscar Piastri re-extended his world championship lead over Lando Norris after beating his McLaren team-mate to victory in the Spanish Grand Prix, as Max Verstappen was penalised for a controversial late collision with George Russell.
Claiming his fifth victory in nine races this season, Piastri always looked in full control at Barcelona once converting his impressive pole into the race lead at the start as Norris almost immediately dropped behind Verstappen to third.
Norris overtook Verstappen on lap 13 to reclaim second but a charge behind his team-mate never truly materialised, meaning Piastri ends the European triple header with a lead of 10 points in the title race.
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But reigning champion Verstappen is now 49 points back after a tumultuous - and highly contentious - end to the Red Bull driver's race saw him drop to fifth on the road and then demoted to 10th by the stewards.
Seemingly aware they were unlikely to beat the McLarens on absolute pace on the same strategy, Red Bull had rolled the dice by placing Verstappen on a three-stopper compared to Piastri and Norris' more conventional two.
That kept Verstappen in the hunt for second behind Norris into the closing stint before a Safety Car was called with 11 laps to go when Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes stopped in the gravel.
The leaders all changed tyres again but Verstappen was now vulnerable for the restart as, while Red Bull fitted his car with the only tyres they had left - new hards - the rest around him were on quicker softs.
How Verstappen's race remarkably unravelled
Verstappen came under immediate pressure when the race restarted on lap 61.
After doing brilliantly to avoid spinning out as the pack rounded the final corner when his car suddenly snapped away from him, Verstappen's lost momentum nonetheless onto the main straight meant he was overtaken by Charles Leclerc before Turn One.
The two cars made contact down the main straight as the Ferrari sped past. Stewards placed that incident under investigation too but ruled after the race that no further action was warranted.
Having seen Leclerc pounce on Verstappen's tyre warm-up struggles, Mercedes' Russell then tried to follow through himself down the inside into the first corner.
However, the two cars touched and the Red Bull was forced wide into the run-off area.
Verstappen came back on track out of Turn Two still ahead of Russell but the Red Bull pit wall, seemingly sensing a possible penalty for their driver from the stewards - which the officials later confirmed would not actually have been meted out - instructed the Dutchman to cede position to the Mercedes on track.
"What? I was ahead! He ran me off the road!" protested Verstappen on team radio, to which his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase replied: "But that's the rules."
But into lap 64 and with the two cars approaching Turn Five, Russell went to the outside of the Red Bull to seemingly overtake as the Dutchman appeared to slow down on the inside. But Verstappen did not cede the position and the two cars ended up making contact.
"What the ****?" said a stunned Russell on team radio.
"He just crashed into me."
Russell did overtake later around the lap as the Red Bull eased wide to finish fourth on the road, but stewards swiftly took a dim view of Verstappen's driving in the previous incident and issued the four-time world champion with a 10-second time penalty just as the race finished.
It dropped the Dutchman from fifth to 10th in the final classification, while stewards also imposed three further penalty points on his superlicence - leaving him one more away from an automatic race ban if he collects any more points before June 30.
With Leclerc taking third and Russell fourth, Nico Hulkenberg claimed an unexpected fifth for Sauber after a brilliant race from 15th on the grid was capped by a late overtake of Lewis Hamilton, who had struggled for pace all afternoon in the second Ferrari.
Hamilton had overtaken Russell at the start but, quickly dropping behind the leading trio once the race settled down, was told to let the quicker Leclerc by. He was then undercut by Russell, his old team-mate, at the second stops.
Isack Hadjar continued the fine start to his rookie season to come home seventh for Racing Bulls ahead of Alpine's Pierre Gasly.
And, racing in his 21st home Spanish GP, Fernando Alonso bounced back from an early trip through the gravel to finally register his first points of the season with what became ninth for the Aston Martin driver ahead of the demoted Verstappen.
Verstappen's Russell clash and 10-second penalty - what has been said?
George Russell speaking to Sky Sports F1:
"I was as surprised as you guys were. I've seen those sort of manoeuvres before on simulator games and go-karting but never in F1.
"Ultimately we came home in P4 and he came home in P10. I don't really know what was going through his mind.
"It felt deliberate in the moment, so it felt surprising."
Max Verstappen speaking to Sky Sports F1:
"Does it matter?
"I prefer to speak about the race rather than one single moment."
The official stewards' verdict:
"From the radio communications, it was clear that the driver of Car 1 [Verstappen] was asked by his team to 'give the position back' to Car 63 [Russell] for what they perceived to be an earlier breach by Car 1 for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage (in fact, we had later determined that we would take no further action in relation to that incident).
"The driver of Car 1 was clearly unhappy with his team's request to give the position back. At the approach to Turn 5, Car 1 significantly reduced its speed, thereby appearing to allow Car 63 to overtake.
"However, after Car 63 got ahead of Car 1 at the entry of Turn 5, Car 1 suddenly accelerated and collided with Car 63. The collision was undoubtedly caused by the actions of Car 1. We therefore imposed a 10-second time penalty on Car 1."
Unruffled Piastri takes another important win
While the race ended up badly for F1's reigning champion, the current bookmaker's favourite for this year's crown was barely troubled once a textbook start from pole had established his latest race lead.
The only time Piastri was headed up front across the 66 laps was after his first pit stop when Verstappen had effectively undercut the McLarens on his out-of-sync three-stopper.
Although Norris briefly threatened to rally in the middle stint, closing down his team-mate's lead back to just a couple of seconds, the leading McLaren appeared to have held sufficient pace in hand and had re-increased his advantage by the time of their second scheduled stops.
Even the late appearance of the Safety Car that created such mayhem behind the McLarens could not ruffle the Australian's composure.
"The pace was really good, we can turn it on when we needed to," said Piastri, who became the third McLaren driver after Ayrton Senna and Hamilton to record eight successive podium appearances.
"Just very proud of the work we did this weekend.
"It's a nice way to bounce back from Monaco. A superb weekend."
Norris came home 2.5s behind and admitted: "Oscar drove a very good race today.
"I didn't quite have the pace to match him but we gave it our best shot.
"It was a good fun race and to finish one-two is even better!"
The 2025 Formula 1 season pauses for breath after the European triple-header before resuming live on Sky Sports F1 with the Canadian Grand Prix from June 13-15. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime.
