Madrid gave Antonelli the win, but Norris was the quickest of the leading group for much of the race. Once fuel correction is applied, the McLaren trend sits ahead of both Mercedes and Red Bull through most of the long Hard stint.
By Lap 10, Norris had already opened a gap of roughly five seconds over Antonelli. Stroll’s stoppage and the Lap 13 VSC then reshuffled the race. Antonelli and Verstappen stopped under neutralisation; Norris came in once the track was green again and also lost time with a stop of around seven seconds. He rejoined P5, about 14 seconds behind Antonelli. From there, the task was no longer just about pace.
On the Hard, Norris moves from about 1:35.5 to 1:36.8, with a fuel-corrected slope of roughly +0.033 s/lap. Antonelli goes from around 1:35.8 to 1:36.9 (+0.027 s/lap), while Verstappen runs from about 1:36.0 to 1:36.8 (+0.020 s/lap).
At Lap 30, the Norris fit is around 0.24 s/lap quicker than Antonelli and 0.36 quicker than Verstappen. At Lap 40, those gaps are still around 0.18 and 0.23 s/lap. Only in the closing phase do the three curves come very close together.
Norris recovered enough to get back into the fight. Around Lap 45, the first four cars were separated by roughly four seconds, with Leclerc still leading on the Hard he had started on. Ferrari left him out until Lap 48, hoping for a neutralisation that never came. Once Leclerc stopped, Antonelli had clear air in front. Norris still had Verstappen to deal with.
Leclerc’s opening stint gives another useful indication of how far the Hard could be stretched. His fit moves from roughly 1:35.9 to 1:37.1, around +0.038 s/lap across almost the whole race. The late Soft immediately brings him back into the mid-1:35s before the pace starts dropping away. That final run is only nine laps long and comes in a completely different fuel and race condition, so its slope cannot be read in the same way as the longer Hard stints.
The team ranking is less straightforward than the order suggests. Mercedes and Ferrari sit almost together around a 1:38.2 median, McLaren near 1:38.5 and Red Bull around 1:38.7. Those distributions mix compounds, tyre ages, traffic and different race phases. Piastri’s first-lap damage and Hamilton’s early retirement also affect the team picture.
Antonelli eventually finished 4.351s ahead of Verstappen, with Norris another 0.738s behind. Despite track temperatures around 54°C, the Hard still allowed very long stints: the leading trio completed more than 40 laps on it, while Leclerc ran 48 laps on his opening set.
The VSC put Antonelli in control. From that point, Mercedes had enough pace and enough tyre life to keep him there. Norris was quicker for much of the race, but the margin was not large enough to recover the strategic loss and clear Verstappen as well.
