The preview asked whether the Mercedes was genuinely the fastest car or simply the best driven one. Barcelona answered by handing the race to a Ferrari, and gave Lewis Hamilton the win he had been chasing since he put on red overalls.
It is his first victory for Ferrari, his first Grand Prix win since Belgium in 2024, and the 106th of his career. At 41 he becomes the oldest driver to win a Formula 1 race since Jack Brabham in 1970 and the first over the age of 40 since Nigel Mansell in 1994. The podium behind him - George Russell second, Lando Norris third - was the first all-British rostrum since the 1968 United States Grand Prix, and the first podium of any single nationality since San Marino in 1983.
The race
George Russell had pole at 1:14.679, Mercedes’ seventh in a row, and led the opening stint. The race was decided in the Ferrari pit wall’s spreadsheet rather than on the road.
On lap 28 Ferrari brought Lewis Hamilton in for a second stop and fitted mediums, committing him to a three-stop in a race the Mercedes drivers were running in two. The pace advantage was immediate. It still needed the timing to fall right, and on lap 41 it did: Fernando Alonso stopped on track with a battery failure, the virtual safety car came out, and Ferrari called Hamilton in for hard tyres at exactly the moment a pit stop cost almost nothing. He rejoined ahead of Russell and stayed there, winning by 19.561s. It is the largest winning margin of the 2026 season so far.
Track temperatures were above 50 °C before the formation lap and degradation was severe all afternoon, which is how a race with two virtual safety cars and no full safety car still ended with everyone from sixth place back at least a lap down.
Antonelli’s first blank Sunday
Andrea Kimi Antonelli was running second with five laps to go when he attacked George Russell for the place, went wheel to wheel with his team-mate, and came out ahead. He also came out with a damaged front wing. He slowed shortly afterwards and stopped with a mechanical problem on lap 61, classified sixteenth. He had already picked up a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits. Six rounds of scoring at every one, and the run ended with a move on his own team-mate that neither Mercedes needed.
Almost simultaneously, on lap 62, Charles Leclerc stopped with a power steering failure, triggering the second virtual safety car. His weekend had gone wrong a day earlier: he lost the Ferrari at Turn 4 in Q3, ran through the gravel and hit the barriers, set no time in the session and started tenth.
The oddest retirement of the day belonged to Nico Hülkenberg , who was running strongly from ninth on the grid when a stray rock, kicked up by Liam Lawson ‘s Racing Bulls, struck the safety switch on the Audi and shut the electronics down on lap 29.
The DNFs
- Lance Stroll - lap 5, gearbox, Aston Martin
- Valtteri Bottas - lap 15, overheating, Cadillac
- Nico Hülkenberg - lap 29, electronics shutdown, Audi
- Fernando Alonso - lap 37, battery failure, Aston Martin
- Alexander Albon - lap 55, Williams
- Oliver Bearman - lap 60, electrical, Haas
- Andrea Kimi Antonelli - lap 61, front wing damage and mechanical failure, Mercedes
- Charles Leclerc - lap 62, power steering, Ferrari
The championship
The leader’s total did not move. Everyone else’s did. Andrea Kimi Antonelli stays on 156 and watches a 66-point cushion become 41 in a single afternoon, the first time all season the gap has closed. Lewis Hamilton is second on 115 and has now outscored his former team-mate in consecutive rounds, with George Russell third on 106.
Ferrari’s 25 points against Mercedes’ 18 barely dents a constructors’ lead that still reads 72. But the number that matters is the one at the top of the drivers’ table, and for the first time in 2026 it is going in the wrong direction. Austria is next.