Kimi Antonelli Dominates Second Practice in Madrid
Kimi Antonelli laid down a serious marker in Madrid, topping second practice for the Spanish Grand Prix and edging Charles Leclerc by just 0.113s on a day when the new Madring circuit showed its teeth.
The Mercedes driver, already leading the championship, looked the most assured of a field still feeling its way around the 5.4km hybrid layout – half concrete canyons, half high-speed sweeps, and almost no room for error.
Antonelli in control
From the moment the afternoon session settled into a rhythm, Antonelli sat near the sharp end. On mediums he fired in a 1m34.428s, only for Max Verstappen to briefly knock him off the top as drivers wrestled their cars through the narrow, wall-lined sections, fighting traffic and nerves in equal measure.
Turn 17 became the early villain. The fast right-hander caught out several drivers, who ran wide and immediately tripped track limits. Nobody looked completely comfortable.
Antonelli did. He responded with a 1m33.926s to reclaim P1, with FP1 pace-setter George Russell snapping at his heels, less than a tenth behind. Mercedes, at that stage, looked properly hooked up.
Then the session flipped.
Soft-tyre shootout
Just after halfway, the field bolted on softs. That was the cue for a qualifying-style burst, but the times didn’t tumble as dramatically as expected. The soft compound, hammered by relentless lateral loads, sat on a knife edge of temperature. Step even slightly over, and grip vanished.
Antonelli nailed it. His 1m33.662 stood as the benchmark, smooth and committed, the kind of lap that suggests there’s more to come when the fuel comes out for real.
Russell couldn’t immediately match him. Instead, Ferrari surged.
Lewis Hamilton, now in red, slotted into second. Leclerc followed close behind, the Ferrari pair briefly forming a scarlet wall behind the Mercedes. Arvid Lindblad then produced one of the laps of the day, hustling his Racing Bulls car to an impressive fourth and underlining his growing confidence at this level.
Lindblad in the wall, session in pieces
That confidence met its limit at Turn 13.
Pushing again, Lindblad slid into the barriers at the medium-speed left-hander, the car snapping away and spearing the TecPro. The impact brought out the red flags with 25 minutes remaining. The rookie climbed out unhurt, his session over, his earlier lap still good enough for fourth.
The stoppage broke the flow. Teams lost a key window for long-run data, and with the track reset and temperatures shifting, no one managed to dislodge Antonelli’s time once the green flag returned.
When the clock hit zero, the order at the top was unchanged: Antonelli ahead of Leclerc and Hamilton, Ferrari’s threat clear but not yet decisive.
Behind Lindblad in fourth, Russell ended up fifth and Verstappen sixth, the Red Bull not quite in the sweet spot and leaving work to do overnight. Oscar Piastri salvaged seventh for McLaren on a bruising day for the reigning world champions.
McLaren hit trouble, Tsunoda impresses
McLaren’s headache arrived early. Lando Norris completed just two laps before a transmission issue parked him in the garage. The team opted for a gearbox change, sacrificing the rest of FP2 and handing their title-contending star a steep learning curve for Saturday.
Piastri at least kept the flag flying with that P7, but McLaren head into qualifying prep blind on race runs and with only half the data they wanted.
Yuki Tsunoda, back in the Racing Bulls seat for a third appearance this season as Isack Hadjar continues to recover from a wrist injury, delivered a tidy performance. He took eighth, ahead of Haas driver Esteban Ocon in ninth and Liam Lawson in the second Red Bull in tenth.
Behind them, Pierre Gasly led the midfield chase for Alpine in 11th, just ahead of the two Audis of Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto. Ollie Bearman, in the Haas, followed in 14th, with Franco Colapinto’s Alpine rounding out the top 15.
Home heroes bide their time
For the home crowd, the timing sheets made for uneasy reading.
Carlos Sainz, now in Williams colours, finished only 16th, over two and a half seconds off Antonelli’s benchmark. Fernando Alonso fared even worse in 17th after Aston Martin spent precious early minutes fixing a clutch issue before he could join the action.
Behind them, Alex Albon’s Williams, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas in the Cadillac entries, and Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin filled out the lower positions. Norris, with just those two early laps, propped up the times.
The raw pace picture remains incomplete. Fuel loads, engine modes, and the newness of the Madring all cloud the true hierarchy. But one thing cut through the noise: when the track gripped up and the softs came out, Kimi Antonelli put his Mercedes at the top and kept it there.
On a circuit that punishes every mistake, he looked the most at ease. Now the question is whether anyone can rattle him when it really counts on Saturday.
