Five Winners, Five Losers: Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix
- Peter Johnson
- Jun 16
- 9 min read
With plenty of late drama and a first all-British podium since 1968, the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix provided a range of emotions up and down the grid. Here are DIVEBOMB’s five winners and five losers from a historic weekend in motorsport.
Winner — Lewis Hamilton
If you had asked Lewis Hamilton to script a perfect weekend, he would have done well to write something better than this.
A few races in the making, the seven-time world champion finally recorded his first victory for Ferrari and it was thoroughly deserved. His performance across the weekend was all the more impressive given he gave up his seat to Dino Beganovic during FP1 and admitted he was playing catch-up across Friday and Saturday.
Hamilton’s annus horribilis in 2025 has been well-documented, with one of his lowest moments coming at last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix when he suggested his team may need to “change the driver”.
The driver who uttered those words has changed alright, with the Brit showing his best form since the end of 2021. Back-to-back second places in Canada and Monaco suggested a win may be around the corner, and Hamilton truly delivered with arguably his best drive in five years.
So much of Hamilton’s success over the years has been down to his mastery of tyres, managing to extract maximum performance over an extended stint. He owed his success in Barcelona to the opposite, though, with his aggressive three-stop strategy allowing him to push more than his rivals and leaving him often over two seconds a lap quicker than the Mercedes pair.
The Virtual Safety Car (VSC) precipitated by Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin which gave Hamilton a free third pit stop was fortuitous, yes, but could quite easily have worked against the Ferrari man had it occurred at almost any other stage of the race. Given his 19-second winning margin, it is also unlikely to have affected the final outcome.
Key to Hamilton’s transformation in 2026 has been a rediscovery of his self-confidence, with the prophetic call from one fan to “remember who you are” ringing true in Barcelona. Further details have also emerged of his influence within the team, such as his insistence on a switch to Carbone Industrie brakes which his teammate Charles Leclerc has now followed.
Under these new regulations, the seven-time world champion absolutely has the measure of the Monégasque too, and is now genuinely in a title fight following Kimi Antonelli’s late retirement. He is now also the only driver to score at every race this season, which shows a level of consistency that could yet be crucial.
F1’s greatest driver and F1’s greatest team have finally found a winning formula, and the rest of the field had better watch out.
Winner — George Russell
While George Russell may have appeared the favourite for victory for most of the weekend, his second place on Sunday still reflects a job well done.
The Brit had failed to score in either of the last two races, with bad luck having plagued him since his season-opening victory in Melbourne. It could be argued it struck again, with Hamilton vaulting into the lead with a cheap final pit stop, although it looked likely he would have eventually taken the victory anyway.
68 points down in the championship, Russell drove like a man without any pressure in Barcelona. His new philosophy appeared to give him a small edge, putting three tenths of a second on championship leader and teammate Antonelli in qualifying.
The young Italian did eventually pass Russell for second on Lap 61, which must have been a gut punch for the duration of the lap he then spent in third.
By Lap 62, however, Antonelli had suffered a fate similar to that of Russell in Canada, meaning that at least one piece of bad luck has now been cancelled out.
The revitalised Brit clawed back 18 points to bring himself back into the title conversation, but like his young teammate, he too must now watch out for a resurgent Hamilton.
Winner — Lando Norris
The reigning world champion has had a tough start to the year with McLaren, reaching the chequered flag for just the fourth time this season in Barcelona.
However, two of those finishes, including this one, landed him on the podium, which demonstrates that there is some performance in the McLaren when everything is working.
Granted, Norris inherited this podium four laps from home following Antonelli’s retirement, but his pace was on a par with Hamilton and the Mercedes pair for most of the race. During the middle stint he found himself a steady six seconds off the race lead, and despite his warnings to engineer Will Joseph, remained in the ballpark of the Silver Arrows to the very end.
A strong double points finish aided by Oscar Piastri’s fifth place also keeps the team in touch with Ferrari in the Constructors’ standings despite Hamilton’s race victory.
Winner — Racing Bulls
Barcelona saw a second successive double points finish for Racing Bulls, with Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad, who finished eighth and ninth respectively, once again proving an effective combination.
The pair also qualified eighth and 11th, adding further proof that the team is nip and tuck with Alpine for having the fifth-fastest car on the grid.
Lawson almost lost out under the VSC triggered by Alonso, but always stayed towards the sharp end, meaning a welcome leap up the order following Antonelli and Leclerc’s late retirements, as well as Franco Colapinto’s post-race penalty.
The Kiwi has now scored in five of seven races in 2026, while Lindblad continues to impress in his rookie season with a third foray into the top 10.
Winner — Alpine
It is shaping up to be quite the battle at the front of the midfield, with Alpine likewise enjoying a double points finish in Barcelona.
Following his controversially reinstated podium in Monaco, Pierre Gasly was once again on hand to deliver a healthy chunk of points for the Enstone-based team.
The Frenchman was not quite able to mix it with the front runners as he did in the Principality, but was the highest-placed driver outside of the top four teams for the third time this season.
For his part, Franco Colapinto added another points-scoring finish to his repertoire, although it could, and should, have been more. The Argentine begrudgingly played the team game in letting Gasly through for a run at Nico Hülkenberg early in the race but continued to be an effective rear gunner, crossing the line one position behind in eighth.
However, he was hit with a thoroughly avoidable 10-second penalty for speeding under yellow flags, which dropped him behind both Racing Bulls in the final classification. He can’t be gifting such points to Alpine’s closest rivals going forward.
Loser — Kimi Antonelli
The shoe was very much on the other foot this weekend for Antonelli, who suffered his first real dose of bad luck this season.
Coming into this weekend off the back of five consecutive victories and with a commanding 66-point lead in the championship, it was perhaps a weekend in which he could afford not to score — but it does not make his loss of points to Hamilton any more ideal.
Antonelli had looked slightly off the pace of Russell across Friday and Saturday, finishing three tenths down in qualifying which consigned him to the second row for the first time this season.
He was there or thereabouts throughout the race, though, and went wheel-to-wheel multiple times with his teammate before he passed him for second place on Lap 61.
Had Antonelli taken his P2 to the chequered flag, it would have been a dagger to the heart of Russell who had appeared to have him at arm’s length for most of the weekend.
As it transpired, the Italian suffered an engine failure on Lap 62 to bring about a first podium-less weekend of 2026.
It is his first real misfortune of the year and leaves him still 41 points clear, but Antonelli has now used his free hit.
Loser — Charles Leclerc
It has been a nightmare couple of weeks for Ferrari’s golden boy since he signed a contract extension with the team prior to the Monaco Grand Prix.
Crashes in both qualifying and the race meant a miserable home weekend in the Principality, and Leclerc made the key decision to abandon his Brembo brakes for the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.
He could attribute no blame to his brakes for either of his misfortunes in Spain, though, with the driver himself squarely at fault for his crash in qualifying, just as was the case seven days prior.
Making up three places on the opening lap and passing a rather pedestrian Piastri during the first stint, Leclerc had Max Verstappen and the top five in his sights. His charge had halted by the time his power steering failed on Lap 62, though, seven seconds down on the Red Bull at the time of the incident.
However, Leclerc’s problems are now bigger than any one bad result. He has been outscored by Hamilton at the last four Grands Prix, with his teammate having soundly outperformed him throughout that time.
Two other drivers have now picked up victories for Ferrari since Leclerc last did so, with Hamilton’s triumph in Barcelona and Carlos Sainz’s win in Mexico in late 2024 coming more recently than the Monégasque’s last victory almost two years ago.
Even just this year, though, Leclerc does not appear at home in his car. Perhaps it is because he simply does not enjoy the new regulations, or maybe it is an effect of Ferrari pandering to Hamilton’s suggested changes.
Either way, Leclerc is losing control in the team he was until recently the shining star of.
Loser — Nico Hülkenberg
Still without a point in 2026, the tide seemed to be turning for Hülkenberg as he guided his Audi to a first top-10 start of the year.
Very much in the fight with the Racing Bulls and Alpines, the German was running in 10th until his desperately unfortunate race-ending incident on Lap 29.
Running behind Lawson, he got a face full of gravel as the Kiwi ran wide up head. Incredibly, one small stone infiltrated a tiny gap in his Audi’s engine cover to hit the kill switch on the power unit.
As a result, Audi remains ninth in the Constructors’ Championship with just two points, which were both scored by Gabriel Bortoleto at the opening race in Australia. The team has gone six rounds without a point, which does not feel as though it reflects the car’s performance at times this year.
Loser — Fernando Alonso
The “will he, won’t he” surrounding Alonso’s potentially imminent retirement continued this weekend, as the Spaniard suggested this would be his last race in Barcelona.
It was a round to forget for Alonso, though, whose Aston Martin team endured yet another miserable couple of days.
On Saturday, Alonso and teammate Lance Stroll were the two slowest cars in the field, but for the first time in 42 races it was Stroll who outqualified his veteran counterpart.
Following his new low in qualifying, Aston Martin opted to make changes to Alonso’s car in parc fermé which consigned him to a pitlane start.
Largely down to retirements in front of him, including Stroll’s gearbox failure on Lap 5, Alonso clawed his way back to a lowly P17 prior to his own battery failure on Lap 37.
If it is to be his final race in Barcelona, it was a sad end for Alonso, and a stark contrast to his victories in 2006 and 2013, the latter of which remains his most recent race win.
Loser — Valtteri Bottas
It would seem that the writing is already on the wall in terms of Valtteri Bottas’ future at Cadillac.
The Finn has been soundly outperformed by teammate Sergio Pérez so far this season, now trailing the Mexican 7-3 in qualifying and race head-to-heads (sprints included).
He may have had to retire from the race in Barcelona due to overheating rather than through any fault of his own, but Colton Herta’s Cadillac debut during FP1 on Friday felt slightly ominous.
The former IndyCar runner-up is clearly being primed for a future seat at the team, and as it stands, Bottas is the obvious casualty.
Edited by Meghana Sree
This race review does a great job highlighting the biggest winners and disappointments from an action-packed Grand Prix while explaining what shaped the final results. After reading exciting motorsport stories like this, I usually play Subway Surfers PC which is an endless runner game that keeps the adrenaline going with fast-paced challenges.