2026 Spanish Grand Prix Qualifying Review

Linus O'Howell

3 minutes ago

2 min read

Chaos was expected ahead of the first-ever Qualifying session around the Madring!

Q1

In Qualifying 1, Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, Sergio Perez, Valtteri Bottas, Oliver Bearman, and Lance Stroll were the six slowest drivers! Carlos Sainz will be gutted to have missed out on Q2 by just 5 thousandths of a second, whilst Fernando Alonso confirmed a double Spanish exit! Cadillac locked out the 10th row of the grid, with Sergio Perez over 2 seconds clear of Valtteri Bottas (I have no idea what happened there), whilst neither Oliver Bearman nor Lance Stroll were able to get a lap on the board: Ollie because he crashed in FP3, whilst Lance had a mechanical issue! It was a Mercedes 1-2 in Q1, with George Russell half a tenth clear of Andrea Kimi Antonelli!

Q2

In Qualifying 2, Nico Hulkenberg, Gabriel Bortoleto, Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly, Yuki Tsunoda, and Alex Albon all failed to make it into the Top 10 shootout! As always, Audi found themselves just outside the Top 10 with Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto P11 and P12 respectively, whilst Esteban Ocon did a good job to qualify 13th for Haas! A horrible final sector saw Pierre Gasly end up only 14th, ahead of another disappointed driver in Yuki Tsunoda (both drivers were miles off their teammates), whilst Alex Albon ended up slowest in Q2 after doing well to get out of the first part of Qualifying! Max Verstappen managed to top Q2 for Red Bull, with Antonelli again in second!

Q3

In Qualifying 3, a superb 1:31.824 was enough for Lando Norris to take Pole from absolutely nowhere! McLaren looked nowhere for a lot of today, so for Lando to end up P1 is incredibly impressive! Andrea Kimi Antonelli had to settle for second, despite being just 11 thousandths off Pole, whilst Max Verstappen managed to put his Red Bull into third! Ferrari will start from 4th and 5th, with Lewis Hamilton pipping Charles Leclerc by just 6 thousandths of a second, whilst a mistake in the final corner doomed George Russell to a lowly P6! Oscar Piastri could only manage P7, ahead of the other Red Bull of Liam Lawson, whilst Franco Colapinto managed to beat Arvid Lindblad in the battle for best of the rest!