Category: Motor Sports

There was no justification for the driver’s rash and futile act of retribution at the Spanish Grand Prix

There was no justification for Max Verstappen’s rash and futile act of retribution at the Spanish Grand Prix, when he deliberately drove into the side of George Russell’s car. The world champion knows it and on Monday he admitted as much with something of a mea culpa on social media. Yet it also must be considered that it is part and parcel of what makes Verstappen so competitive, albeit in this case in an entirely unedifying and self‑defeating fashion.

Angry and frustrated at a sequence of events in Barcelona, including having to cede a place to Russell, Verstappen surrendered to his baser instincts. Having pulled over to give the place to Russell, he clearly then felt a point had to be made and accelerated back up the inside to collide with the Mercedes.

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• Four-time champion posts message on social media

• Driver hit with penalty for Spanish Grand Prix collision

Max Verstappen has issued a veiled apology for his crash with George Russell by admitting it “was not right and should have not happened”. The four-time world champion was hit with a 10-second penalty by the stewards for causing a collision with Russell with two laps remaining of Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.

Russell said he felt Verstappen’s move was deliberate and accused the Red Bull driver of letting himself down. He also suggested that Verstappen should have been disqualified. After the race, Verstappen refused to accept blame for the coming together and even sarcastically offered Russell a tissue after he was informed of his rival’s comments.

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• World champion given 10sec penalty for collision

• Russell: ‘It felt very deliberate … it felt strange’

George Russell has insisted that Max Verstappen should have faced disqualification after he crashed into the British driver at the Spanish Grand Prix, claiming he felt the world champion had done so deliberately and that he was setting a bad example for young drivers.

Verstappen, who was bullish after a race where he received a 10‑second penalty that dropped him from fifth at the flag to 10th, dismissed Russell’s comments, maintaining he had no regrets and mocking the British driver’s reactions with the comment: “Well, I’ll bring some tissues next time.”

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• Piastri leads Norris by 10 points in drivers’ standings

• Verstappen drops to 10th after penalty for late collision

Max Verstappen has worked hard to throw off a reputation for being reckless and indeed dangerous at times on track. Efforts that were left sorely damaged after he displayed a moment of anger at the Spanish Grand Prix that tarnished his standing as both a four-time champion and an enormously accomplished driver, quite apart from potentially costing him the world championship.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri won at the Circuit de Barcelona‑Catalunya with an accomplished drive from pole, beating his teammate Lando Norris into second place and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc into third. Yet it was Verstappen’s moment of ill-judged anger for which the race will be remembered and which will not be forgotten when the Dutchman’s legacy comes to be considered.

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McLaren’s Oscar Piastri started on pole and finished first on a tough day for Max Verstappen

Harry Kane is at his first grand prix. He loves Lando Norris, so that’s nice.

As I said before, today is going to all about the tyres on this hot track. Who can manage the situation the best?

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• McLaren teammate Lando Norris locks in second

• Lewis Hamilton finds form to secure fifth for Ferrari

Oscar Piastri barely broke a sweat under the blazing Catalan sun, demonstrating a fearsome control to claim pole for the Spanish Grand Prix. Indeed, such has been the dominance and the nonchalance with which he claimed this pole and his wins this season, it was put to him that he was taking on Kimi Räikkönen’s mantle as the Ice Man, albeit in the somewhat less flattering form for the 24-year-old of Ice Boy.

Piastri’s pole was imperious at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, beating his teammate Lando Norris into second by a huge two-tenths of a second, the biggest margin of the season, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in third, three-tenths down.

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Team principal has turned Williams around in a short space of time and is looking to 2026 for a serious title charge

Finding themselves fighting off Ferrari and mauling the midfield, these are heady times for a resurgent Williams. The team principal James Vowles has engineered an extraordinary comeback but this year’s progress is likely to be just the start for a team determined to return to the heights of Formula One, which they once dominated.

That Williams’ form has changed drastically could not have been clearer than at the Miami GP. Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz were in a fight with the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, the Scuderia finding themselves at one point trying to catch Albon, who took fifth place and at the same time fending off a charging Sainz.

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• Rules intended to close gap between the best drivers

• McLaren’s Oscar Piastri is fastest in second practice

All the talk in Spain this week has been about the potential impact of the FIA’s clampdown on the flexing of front wings and the governing body’s hope this might close up the pecking order on the grid. Certainly those chasing the dominant McLaren were optimistic that might be the case.

The technical regulation was imposed as teams look to push the boundaries of the rules, with a flex in the wing under load affording the maximum downforce in corners. In order to maintain a level playing field, the wings must now pass a deflection test measuring the leeway of their flex. This has been reduced from 15mm to 10mm.

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• Driver backs Riccardo Adami despite terse exchanges

• ‘There’s a lot of speculation, most of it is BS’

Lewis Hamilton has dismissed speculation about what has been interpreted as a fractious relationship with Riccardo Adami, his race engineer at Ferrari, describing it as “BS” and insisting the pair enjoy a healthy working relationship.

The issue has previously been raised several times this season as Hamilton develops his dynamic with Adami and came to the fore once more because of some testy exchanges at the last round in Monaco, including when Hamilton asked his engineer at the end of the race: “Are you upset with me or something?” To which he appeared to receive no reply.

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Lando Norris closed on his teammate Oscar Piastri in the season standings after an experimental race at the storied Monte Carlo circuit

Oliver Bearman of Haas, who has already taken a 10-place grid penalty, had a cooling contraption still attached to his car when he went to leave the pits just then. A member of the crew came and grabbed it, but Haas may face another penalty.

Grid positions on the official F1 site don’t seem to be updated with Hamilton’s penalty, but anyway, I believe this is how the cars will line up on the grid in about 40 minutes:

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New book shines a light on the women who stole headlines on an F1 support bill 50 years ago, with Beckers going on to star at Le Mans and hold the Guinness World Record

Monaco’s place in Formula One history has long since been established but two little-known races from the principality 51 years ago remain etched in the memory of those who took part, when women blazing a trail in the male-dominated motor racing world took to the track in Monte Carlo.

Christine Beckers competed in the first Grand Prix Monte-Carlo Féminin on 26 May 1974 and now, at 81 is as irrepressibly enthused about racing as she was when she fell in love with the sport as a teenager.

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McLaren’s Lando Norris pipped Charles Leclerc to pole in Monaco. Join John Brewin for reaction

Norris takes it at 1.11 536. Seems like a huge lap already. The bottom five are Gasly, Stroll, Colopinto, Hulkenberg, Hadjar and Lawson.

Stroll has caused am issue with Gasly, cutting across the chicane.

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The big names are getting younger at the same time the infantilisation of sport grows apace

A 14-year-old has been taking the Indian Premier League by storm. A 17-year-old may win this year’s Ballon d’Or. Last month another 17-year-old became the youngest winner of a Formula Two race. In darts the last world champion was 17, a 14-year-old just became the youngest winner of a World Darts Federation event and this week the promoter Barry Hearn described watching a prodigy who “had a 106 average and checked out 140 and 154”. He was only 10. The 14‑year‑old Polish snooker player Michal Szubarczyk is about to become the sport’s youngest ever professional. In this context it is a little hard to complain about the infantilisation of sport. And yet.

For all its recent Netflix-promoted virality, motor racing has always seemed an unusually grown-up pastime. For 75 years Formula One has given us strength, skill, drama and occasional scandal, heroes and villains, bravery and tragedy. A global survey in 2021 found the average age of the sport’s fanbase was 32, but in 2022 84% of the people who watched the British Grand Prix on Channel 4 (and 68% of those watching on Sky) were aged 35 or over. Which made it only more jarring when its administrators started to obsess over schoolyard distractions such as swearing and underpants.

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