Kimi Antonelli Dominates Second Practice at Spanish Grand Prix
Kimi Antonelli laid down an unmistakable marker in Madrid, hustling his Mercedes to the top of the timesheets in second practice for the Spanish Grand Prix and edging Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on a day when the new Madring circuit showed its teeth.
The championship leader clocked a 1m33.662s midway through the hour, a lap that survived a late red flag and a flurry of soft-tyre runs to stand as the benchmark on a hot, hostile 5.4km layout that punished even the slightest lapse in concentration.
Antonelli tames a brutal Madring
From the first laps, it was clear this place is no gentle warm-up. The Madring’s blend of tight, concrete-lined street sections and a fast, flowing purpose-built loop left drivers inching up to the limit rather than attacking it. Run-off is almost non-existent; mistakes carry a price.
Teams tiptoed through FP1, trading lap time for survival as drivers tried to build a mental map of the place. By FP2, the pace sharpened, but nobody looked entirely comfortable.
Antonelli did. He set the early pace on medium tyres with a 1m34.428s, before Max Verstappen briefly moved ahead for Red Bull. The track, though, kept biting back. Cars twitched under braking, snapped on exits, and hunted for clean air through the narrow walls.
Turn 17, a right-hander waiting to spit out anyone too greedy on throttle, became a recurring villain. Several drivers ran wide, collecting track-limits offences as they explored the edge.
Antonelli responded with a 1m33.926s to retake control, with his Mercedes team-mate and FP1 pacesetter George Russell tucked within a tenth. The Mercedes pair looked at ease, but the real shootout came as the field bolted on soft tyres around the halfway mark.
Softs light it up – and then the wall intervenes
Once the red-walled Pirellis appeared, the session erupted. The soft compound delivered grip but demanded constant care; the Madring’s long, loaded corners pounded the tyres and made it hard to keep them in their sweet spot.
Antonelli struck first again, lowering the bar to 1m33.662. Russell couldn’t match him on his opening soft run. Ferrari did.
Lewis Hamilton and Leclerc slotted in behind the Italian, Hamilton going third and Leclerc the closest threat in second, just 0.113s off the Mercedes. Behind them, Arvid Lindblad produced one of the laps of the day, hustling his Racing Bulls RB into a startling fourth place.
Then his session imploded.
Pushing through Turn 13, a medium-speed left-hander, Lindblad lost the rear and slid into the barriers. The impact was enough to wreck his run and scatter TecPro blocks, but he climbed out unharmed. The red flag flew with 25 minutes remaining while marshals rebuilt the barrier and reset the corner.
That stoppage killed the momentum at the front. Track evolution stalled, tyre plans were disrupted, and nobody improved enough to trouble Antonelli’s benchmark once the green flag returned. The order at the top stayed locked in: Antonelli from Leclerc and Hamilton, Lindblad hanging on to an impressive fourth despite the crash.
Russell ended up fifth, Verstappen sixth, the Red Bull driver unable to stitch together a lap to match Mercedes or Ferrari in the key phase of the session.
McLaren’s headache, Racing Bulls’ bright spots
Behind the established heavyweights, Oscar Piastri salvaged something from a bruising day for McLaren. His 1m34.200s put him seventh, but it was hard to ignore the empty garage bay next door.
Lando Norris completed only two laps before a transmission problem halted his running. McLaren had to change the gearbox, effectively wiping out his afternoon and leaving the reigning world champion with a data deficit heading into Saturday.
Racing Bulls, by contrast, left with reasons to be encouraged despite Lindblad’s crash. The rookie’s early speed underlined the car’s potential, and Yuki Tsunoda – making just his third appearance of the season as Isack Hadjar continues to recover from a wrist injury – backed it up with eighth place.
Esteban Ocon steered his Haas into ninth, while Liam Lawson rounded out the top 10 for Red Bull, just ahead of Pierre Gasly’s Alpine.
Audi’s pair, Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto, sat in the thick of the midfield in 12th and 13th, split by less than a tenth. Ollie Bearman followed in 14th for Haas, with Franco Colapinto’s Alpine in 15th.
Home heroes kept waiting
For the home crowd, the day never quite ignited. Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso, the two men the grandstands came to see, finished a muted 16th and 17th.
Sainz’s Williams never looked fully hooked up on the softs, while Alonso’s session started late as Aston Martin worked through a clutch issue. By the time he joined the action, the track had evolved and the programme compressed, leaving little room for headline times.
Behind them, Alex Albon’s Williams, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas in the Cadillac entries, and Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin filled out the order. All four languished more than three seconds off Antonelli’s benchmark, a stark illustration of how punishing the Madring can be if a car is even slightly out of its operating window.
Antonelli, though, looked right at home. On a day when the walls closed in and the tyres screamed, he kept his nerve, kept it clean, and kept everyone else at arm’s length.
If this is how he opens the weekend, what happens when qualifying comes under the lights and the track really starts to bite back?
