EP87_Away We Go_Kimi Antonelli won the Spanish Grand Prix – and then apologised for it

The 2026 Spanish Grand Prix might have been one of the dullest races of the season, but somehow it still gave us plenty to talk about.

So yes, the racing itself might not have been particularly thrilling. The aftermath? Much more interesting.

McLaren let the Spanish Grand Prix get away from Lando Norris

After qualifying, this really looked like Lando Norris’s race to lose.

He’d put the McLaren on pole with a lap he described as one of the best of his career, on a circuit where overtaking had already proved extremely difficult across the weekend.

Which, unfortunately, was exactly why McLaren’s strategy call during the race became so costly.

When Lance Stroll stopped on track on lap 12, triggering a Virtual Safety Car, Mercedes reacted almost immediately. Antonelli slowed down in anticipation of the VSC and the team got him into the pits while the reduced-speed conditions were still in place.

McLaren didn’t do the same with Lando.

By the time they called him in, the VSC had ended. Instead of getting the significantly cheaper pit stop that comes under a Virtual Safety Car, Lando effectively made a normal stop and lost the track position that mattered so much around this circuit.

And that’s where I think McLaren were simply too conservative.

Lando had pace. He had a decent gap behind him. There was an argument for leaving him out, trusting the speed of the car and trying to build enough of an advantage to create a free pit stop later.

Instead they pitted him after the opportunity presented by the VSC had already disappeared.

Then, just to make matters worse, McLaren later delivered a pit stop of around seven seconds.

At that point you can call it bad luck, but you also have to give Mercedes credit. They saw the opportunity, made the decision quickly and executed it.

That’s racing.

Kimi Antonelli didn’t steal Lando’s win

What was interesting was Antonelli’s reaction afterwards.

Rather than simply celebrating the win, Kimi seemed almost apologetic about it. He said he felt for Lando and suggested that, really, it probably should have been his race.

It was a very Kimi response: humble, slightly disbelieving and perhaps still not entirely comfortable with the fact that he’s now a driver capable of winning Formula 1 races.

And look, it was sweet.

But I also think he was being too hard on himself.

He didn’t steal the race. Mercedes made the better decision.

Kimi and the team recognised what was happening when Stroll stopped. They anticipated the VSC. They reacted quickly. They got the pit stop right.

McLaren didn’t.

There will be races during Antonelli’s career where a Safety Car, Virtual Safety Car or badly timed pit stop works against him. On this occasion, it worked for him. He was there to take advantage of it.

He deserved to celebrate.

Maybe that slightly overwhelmed quality is part of why fans have taken to Kimi so much. He still seems genuinely amazed by where he is. When he was asked about the championship after the race, he didn’t want to go anywhere near the conversation.

That probably won’t last forever. Confidence changes drivers. Winning changes drivers.

Which brings us quite neatly to Lando.

Are we seeing a different Lando Norris?

There were a few little post-race moments that caught our attention.

One was Lando sitting in the middle of the cooldown room rather than Kimi, despite Kimi being the race winner. Then there were the feet on the table.

And, perhaps most entertainingly, there was the non-sponsored drink.

Someone appeared to tell Lando that he shouldn’t be drinking it on camera and Lando, fresh out of a 57-lap Grand Prix, was having absolutely none of it.

That part I actually loved.

But there is something different about Lando now.

Some of it is probably exactly what you want to see from a champion: more confidence, more ownership and a little less concern about what everybody thinks of him.

Every now and then, though, it tips over into something that feels a little more like cockiness.

That came through again in comments he made after the race questioning the rules around what had happened with the VSC and suggesting races should ultimately be decided by the best driver taking the most risk.

But surely that criticism belongs closer to home?

McLaren had the opportunity to take a risk. They chose the conservative option.

And Lando has benefited from Safety Cars, Virtual Safety Cars and other teams getting strategy calls wrong plenty of times before. You can’t really decide the rule is unfair when, this time, you happen to be the driver who lost out.

A horrible end to Lewis Hamilton’s incredible finishing streak

Ferrari’s race barely had a chance to get going.

Lewis Hamilton retired on lap six after reporting problems with his brakes — a terrifying issue to have on any circuit, never mind one with blind corners and walls waiting for you.

It was also his first DNF of the season.

Until Spain, Lewis had completed every lap of every Grand Prix and Sprint in 2026, which makes the retirement even more frustrating.

Ferrari had actually started with an interesting strategic split, with Lewis and Charles Leclerc on different tyres. It felt like there was at least the potential for them to do something interesting with it.

Instead Lewis was out almost immediately and Charles was left to bring the car home in fourth.

One of those weekends where Ferrari fans barely had time to get their hopes up before something went wrong.

Should the FIA president really be saying he wants Fernando Alonso to win?

Then there were Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s comments about Fernando Alonso.

The FIA president has spoken about wanting to see Alonso win again before he retires, arguing that a driver of his stature shouldn’t end his Formula 1 career struggling near the back of the grid.

On one level, I understand the sentiment completely.

I’d love to see Fernando fighting at the front again. I’d love to see him on another podium. Watching a driver with that amount of experience and talent wrestling with an uncompetitive car isn’t particularly satisfying.

But there’s a pretty significant difference between us saying that on a podcast and the president of the FIA saying it publicly.

The person heading the sport’s governing body probably shouldn’t be openly expressing a preference for which driver he would like to see winning races.

And it raises an obvious question: would the same thing be said about every driver on the grid?

Probably not.

A home race to forget for Alonso and Carlos Sainz

Unfortunately for the Spanish fans, neither Fernando Alonso nor Carlos Sainz gave them much to celebrate.

Alonso finished near the back while Sainz eventually retired the Williams on lap 43 after another difficult afternoon.

Sainz has had a strange season.

After a much stronger second half of 2025, he looked like he had settled into Williams and worked out how to maximise what the car could give him.

In 2026, some of that frustration seems to have returned.

The Williams clearly isn’t where either driver wants it to be, but Sainz has also found himself involved in incidents again and at times seems to be trying to force results that simply aren’t available from the car.

Maybe that’s frustration. Maybe it’s the difficulty of adjusting your expectations when you know what it feels like to race at the front.

Either way, I suspect there are quite a few drivers on this grid who are already thinking about 2027.

Somehow, we found plenty to talk about

So was the Spanish Grand Prix a classic?

Absolutely not.

For long stretches, very little happened. Overtaking was difficult, strategy was limited and after the chaos and excitement of Monza, it all felt particularly flat.

But Formula 1 is rarely only about what happens on track.

Sometimes the interesting part is a three-second decision from the pit wall. Sometimes it’s the race winner apologising for winning. Sometimes it’s a driver putting his feet on the table and refusing to surrender his Coke.

And sometimes it’s the president of the governing body casually announcing who he’d quite like to see win.

We get into all of that — plus Oscar Piastri’s recent struggles, Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, the remaining 2026 calendar and what happens next — in Episode 87 of Away We Go: The Win Kimi Apologised For.

Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen to Away We Go wherever you get your podcasts.