Kimi Antonelli Tops Practice at Madrid's Madring
Kimi Antonelli laid down an early marker in Madrid, topping Friday practice at Formula 1’s newest venue and underlining exactly why he leads the championship.
On a tight, twisting Madring circuit still finding its place on the calendar, the Mercedes rookie looked anything but uncertain. Second in the opening session behind teammate and title rival George Russell, he came back in the afternoon and took control.
His best lap – a 1:33.662 – set the standard. Charles Leclerc pushed hard for Ferrari and came within 0.113 seconds. Lewis Hamilton, hunting rhythm and relevance at a new track, was just 0.149 adrift in third. The margins were tiny. The intent from Antonelli was not.
Antonelli on top, drama for Lindblad
The second session, though, will be remembered for another rookie. Arvid Lindblad became the first F1 driver to crash at the Madring, losing the rear of his Racing Bulls car and slamming sideways into the barriers at Turn 13. Red flags flew, the track fell silent, and the 19-year-old’s promising afternoon was over with 24 minutes left.
He apologised over the radio, but the stopwatch told a different story about his raw speed. Despite the crash, Lindblad still ended the session fourth, behind Antonelli, Leclerc and Hamilton.
Russell, who had laid down an early benchmark in first practice with a 1:34.077, slipped to fifth in the later running. The intra-Mercedes battle already has an edge: Russell with the early session, Antonelli with the late statement.
Behind them, Max Verstappen had a relatively muted day by his standards. The four-time world champion was sixth for Red Bull, ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in seventh. Racing Bulls stand-in Yuki Tsunoda took eighth, with Esteban Ocon ninth for Haas.
Liam Lawson, still deputising for the injured Isack Hadjar for a third straight weekend, delivered solidly for Red Bull. Tenth in the first session, tenth again in the second – consistent, tidy, and exactly what the team needed.
New track, new tension
The Madring snakes around the IFEMA exhibition centre near Barajas airport, a bright, high-grip ribbon of asphalt with walls never far away. Under the clear Spanish sky, the track showed its teeth without full-on chaos.
Earlier in the day, F2 practice had been stopped by a fiery crash, but the opening F1 session passed without interruptions or major incident. The second session’s Lindblad crash broke that calm and hinted at how punishing this layout can be when drivers overstep.
McLaren’s world champion Lando Norris barely featured in the afternoon. The team parked his car as they changed the gearbox, leaving him to watch while rivals learned every bump and braking point on a brand-new circuit.
Frustration for the home favourites
For the home crowd, it was a quieter day than they had hoped.
Fernando Alonso brushed the wall in his Aston Martin, flirting with disaster but escaping serious damage. The timesheets, though, did him no favours: 15th in one session, 17th in the other. Carlos Sainz fared no better in his Williams, finishing 17th and 16th in front of his home fans in Madrid.
On a narrow, busy track, tempers flared as quickly as the tyres heated up. Several drivers complained over team radio about traffic and blocking, the sort of early-weekend friction that often foreshadows qualifying chaos.
At one point, Nico Hülkenberg snapped after Hamilton failed to yield at the final corner, spitting, “That’s just nasty,” over the radio. Lindblad, already in the spotlight for his crash, added more fuel by branding both Hamilton and Antonelli “stupid” for what he saw as obstruction at the spectacular, steeply banked Turn 12 – the circuit’s showpiece, dubbed ‘La Monumental’.
Early signs, clear intent
Two sessions in, the picture is far from complete, but the tone is set.
Mercedes look sharp. Antonelli, in particular, looks fearless. Ferrari and Hamilton are right there on pace. Verstappen is lurking, as he so often does on Fridays before striking when it counts.
The Madring has already claimed its first victim and provoked its first arguments. Qualifying will ask a harsher question: who can thread this new Spanish needle at full speed without becoming the next name on that list?
