Verstappen beats Norris to Spanish GP win; Hamilton third

BARCELONA, Spain - Max Verstappen passed George Russell on the third lap of the race on route to a comfortable win at the Spanish Grand Prix, his seventh of the season.

Verstappen passed pole sitter Lando Norris into Turn One but watched Mercedes driver Russell sweep around the outside of both of them.

Any doubts about Red Bull's race pace at the Circuit de Catalunya quickly disappeared as Verstappen reeled in Russell and moved into the lead with a tidy overtake of his own.

Russell would eventually drop down the order, with Norris spending most of the race tantalisingly close to making it a straight fight for victory with Verstappen.

Verstappen said afterwards: "I think what made the race was the beginning. I took the lead on lap two and that's where I had my buffer in the first stint and we eked out the gap a little bit because after that we had to drive a defensive race.

"Lando and McLaren were very quick today. Especially on degradation, on the last few laps of the stint they were very fast but I think we did everything well, we drove an aggressive strategy and luckily it played out until the end -- where it was quite close -- but I'm very happy to win here."

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The McLaren driver appeared to be the fastest man on track for much of the race but his slow start, the early laps he spent behind Russell's Mercedes and a sluggish final pit stop all combined to dent his chances of winning the race.

"Should have won," Norris said on the radio after the race. "I f----- the start. Deserved more".

He would finish the race 2.2 seconds seconds behind Verstappen, who's win opened up his championship lead to 69 points, but Norris's result sees him move to second in the championship.

"We definitely weren't the quickest out there today, but we did what we had to," Verstappen said on the radio after finishing.

Norris, who had claimed his second career pole position on Saturday, appeared focused solely on adding to his Miami Grand Prix victory from the start of May.

The Englishman resisted McLaren's more conservative strategy suggestions about covering off the threat of the Mercedes drivers behind him.

"I think we need to go get Max," he said over the radio at one point, before asking "depends if we want to finish third or first" in response to a question about whether he could repass Lewis Hamilton on track if needed to.

As it turned out, Verstappen was too far down the road, but Norris and McLaren can at least take comfort from how competitive a package they have once again.

Norris reiterated his disappointment afterwards: "I got a bad start, it's as simple as that.

"The car was incredible today, I think we were for sure the quickest, I just lost it in the beginning, so yeah disappointed but a lot of positives and one negative which ruined everything.

"I know that I can just work on it for next time, but apart from that we [scored] a good amount of points and a big thanks to the team as the car was amazing."

As had been the case in qualifying, Hamilton finished third, his first podium finish of what has been a frustrating season for F1's most accomplished driver.

Having dropped to fourth at the start Hamilton had to patiently wait for the race to come back to him.

Hamilton executed a great move at one stage to pass Carlos Sainz, who he will replace at Ferrari next year.

Sainz felt Hamilton had forced him off the track at Turn One during the move but the stewards deemed the incident not worth investigating further, much to his annoyance.

Hamilton, put on to an alternate strategy to Russell late on, was able to comfortably catch his teammate for third place with 14 laps to go.

Hamilton said: "It's been a good day and a solid weekend."

"I have to say a big thank you to the team. They've been training so hard in these pitstops and the strategy, the pitstops were really on point. Like Lando, I got a really bad start and obviously lost ground to the Ferraris so it was a bit of a battle to get back to where I am now [in third].

"I don't know if we could've held on to the guys ahead but I don't think we'd have been as far behind as we have been today."

Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Sainz had to settle for fifth and sixth in what has been an underwhelming weekend for the Italian team.

Oscar Piastri has struggled all weekend and had to settle for seventh, ahead of the lacklustre Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull.

Perez caught and passed Alpine's Pierre Gasly on the final lap of the race.

Perez, who recently signed a contract extension for at least 2025 with the world champions, has shown alarming signs of repeating the downward spiral of form he experienced for much of 2023.

Regardless of losing a place to Perez on the final lap, Gasly turned in a great performance for Alpine in ninth ahead of teammate Esteban Ocon in the final points paying position.

The result leaves Alpine with three points on a weekend it welcomed Flavio Briatore back into the fold -- it only had two to its name ahead of the race.