FP2 Results 2026 Spanish GP: Antonelli Fastest as Lindblad Crashes at Madring

One session in and Madring has already done what every new street circuit does best: humble people. Kimi Antonelli topped FP2 for the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday, but the story of the session belongs just as much to Arvid Lindblad, who gave this new track its first proper accident, and Lando Norris, whose gearbox decided two laps was plenty.

FP1 had already produced a Mercedes 1-2, with drivers complaining about traffic on the tight, run-off-free layout. FP2 offered no reassurance that Madrid’s street debut will be a smooth one.

Antonelli Sets the Pace, Twice

Kimi Antonelli spent the session doing what championship leaders are supposed to do: setting the benchmark, losing it briefly, then taking it straight back. His first meaningful lap on mediums went a second quicker than the early Ferrari pace, and once the soft tyres came out he simply repeated the trick, eventually stopping the clock at 1m33.662s.

That final lap left him 0.113s clear of Charles Leclerc, with Lewis Hamilton a further 0.036s back in third. It is a scrap that suits nobody’s narrative neatly: Ferrari close enough to matter, Mercedes comfortable enough not to worry. Along the way, Antonelli found time for a bit of theatre on team radio, grumbling that Sergio Pérez’s Cadillac was blocking him, insisting it is “always” the same driver in the way. Six-time race winner or not, being cursed at by the man leading the championship by 66 points from his own team-mate is not exactly a ringing endorsement of anyone’s midfield pace.

Verstappen briefly grabbed top spot before the soft-tyre runs began, only to have the lap deleted for track limits, a fate that befell several drivers at Turn 17’s unforgiving right-hander. It set the tone for a track that is punishing the smallest error with the harshest possible consequence: a laptime chalked off, or worse.

Lindblad Gives Madring Its First Crash

Which brings us to Arvid Lindblad, who had been having rather a good afternoon before it all went wrong. The Racing Bulls rookie was up in fourth, mixing it with the frontrunners, when he lost the rear of his car at Turn 13, a medium-speed left-hander, and slid into the barrier hard enough to bring out session’s first red flag. He radioed an apology, saying he had “lost it super early”, and walked away unhurt, but the marshals needed the best part of the stoppage to put the TecPro barrier back together.

The timing could not have been worse for anyone hoping for clean data. With 25 minutes still on the clock, the red flag wiped out most of the field’s soft-tyre qualifying simulations, meaning the final order carries an asterisk. Russell, for instance, never even completed a flying lap on softs after aborting his effort before the flag came out, leaving him fifth, a tenth and a third off his team-mate.

None of that changes the basic fact that Madring, on its very first Friday of Formula 1 duty, has already claimed a car. On a 5.4km track blending street sections with a purpose-built loop and offering essentially no runoff, that was always more a question of when than if.

Norris’s Afternoon Ends After Two Laps

If Lindblad’s crash was dramatic, Lando Norris’s session was simply deflating. The reigning world champion managed two laps before returning to the garage reporting a gearbox stuck in false neutral. “Something’s not right. It’s gone,” he told his team, and he was not wrong: McLaren confirmed a full gearbox change was required, and Norris did not return before the chequered flag.

On a circuit where every driver is still building the muscle memory needed to survive its concrete-lined corners, missing the best part of FP2 is not a minor inconvenience. It is track time McLaren simply cannot get back before qualifying, and it leaves Norris, who arrived in Madrid off the back of back-to-back wins in Hungary and the Netherlands, playing catch-up on a layout where confidence is currency.

Session Result

Qualifying gets underway at 14:00 UTC on Saturday, check the calendar for your local time, and on this evidence nobody should expect a clean, drama-free hour. FP3 still has to run first, and given how little grip and how much concrete this track offers, the smart money says Madring finds a way to bite someone else before the weekend is done.