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Having told Norris earlier that Verstappen was three-stopping, McLaren are now advising him that he is in a race with the Red Bull driver. Verstappen passes Leclerc with DRS for third place.
L29 Verstappen makes his second pit stop with 37 laps still to go, this is looking like a three-stopper for him unless he can really stretch a stint on the mediums.
Albon pits but he’s stopped to serve a time penalty, he’ll now do another lap and presumably retire after that.
Williams tell Albon to pit to retire his car.
Albon has more front wing damage, having already pitted for a replacement once. The stewards are investigating him for a collision with Lawson. The pair had a couple of clashes at turn one.
A problem for Verstappen may be that his lap times are slower than Leclerc’s at the moment, and he may find himself stuck behind the Ferrari when he pits.
Norris and Piastri pit on consecutive laps which puts Verstappen comfortably into the lead. But he still needs to run a medium compound tyre, while McLaren will hope to use a soft at the end, or make three pit stops, which seems unlikely.
L21 Russell pits, Norris is coming in.
The tyres are degrading so sharply we’re seeing passes in some unusual places. Vertappen takes Russell at turn seven and Alonso passes Colapinto going into turn three.
Verstappen passes Antonelli on the outside of turn 12 and is now up to fifth.
L18 Piastri leads by 4.5 seconds, Norris making no impression on his lead.
L17 Hamilton pits but he’s concerned about how long his later stints will be. “That’s a long way to go,” he says. Race engineer Ricardo Adami tells him it’s in order to “protect the undercut.”
Verstappen passes Hadjar with no difficulty at turn 10.
L14 Verstappen pits, he rejoins eighth between the Racing Bulls.
Costly mistake for Alonso who locks up and goes through the gravel at turn five.
L13 Verstappen doesn’t bother trying to defend as Norris cruises past him with DRS.
L12 Norris pushing Verstappen harder. Gasly pitted and came out just ahead of Hulkenberg, who came in earlier. Both mow on mediums.
L11 Norris now within DRS range of Verstappen.
L10 Williams are having a dreadful weekend, Sainz loses a lot of time with his pit stop.
L9 Leclerc attacked Hamilton who defends his position at turn one. Red Bull have pitted Tsunoda for a set of softs, Bearman in too.
L7 Joseph tells Norris to push to attack Verstappen. The Red Bull driver is now 2.9s behind Piastri and 1.2s ahead of Norris.
Albon pits to replace his damaged front wing.
L6 Leclerc is all over Hamilton now, surely Ferrari are about to swap them?
L4 Verstappen has dropped back out of DRS range. Leclerc is within range of Hamilton now though.
L3 Piastri is under threat from Verstappen. Norris has fallen two seconds behind.
L2 Alonso has dropped out of the top 10 after being passed by Hulkenberg. The Aston Martin driver attacks him back but Hulkenberg is making his Sauber very wide.
The 2025 Spanish Grand Prix is go! Verstappen sweeps around Norris and into the second place. Antonelli is off and Hamilton up to fourth.
The drivers are on their formation lap ready for the start.
The tyre selections for the start of the race are as follows: Everyone is on softs apart from Tsunoda on mediums. Tsunoda starting on mediums should give Red Bull some useful data for Verstappen on how that tyre performs.
The drivers have formed up on the grid. Half an hour to race start.
The drivers are conducting their reconnaissance laps and heading to the grid.
George Russell says Mercedes will have to work out quickly which cars they are racing against after the start. “We’re definitely in the mix for the podium,” he said. “I think the pace of the Red Bull in the race has been very strong recently but then on the hard compounds in Bahrain they struggled a bit and we were strong so we’re hoping it’s more like Bahrain than what we saw in Imola as an example. So it’s going to be intriguing but we need to recognise quickly who we are fighting because in Imola I tried to fight with Piastri and Verstappen and I ended up losing more positions than laps I gained so the first 10 laps will be interesting.”
As always we’ve assembled all the key strategy data for the race on a single page which you can find here.
The race is likely to be dominated by tyre strategy. McLaren appear to hold all the cards starting from the front row, but Max Verstappen and George Russell immediately behind them will be on the attack. Then there’s the curious matter of Charles Leclerc’s strategy, as Ferrari are clearly planning an alternative approach for him.
Meanwhile Red Bull have taken Yuki Tsunoda’s car out of parc ferme so they could make some fairly major set-up changes to it after he qualified last. He will therefore start from the pit lane, leaving just 18 cars to take the standing start on the grid.
The biggest story after qualifying yesterday was the unexpected withdrawal of Lance Stroll due to pain in the wrist he injured two years ago. Full details here.
We’re one hour away from the start of the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix.
2025 Spanish Grand Prix
- Live: 2025 Spanish Grand Prix
- Red Bull make major set-up changes after Tsunoda goes slowest in qualifying
- Stroll needed “urgent medical attention” for pain after qualifying – FIA
- McLaren believe keeping the lead at the start “will not be decisive” in Spanish GP
- 2025 Spanish Grand Prix strategy briefing: All the data to follow the race with
