Red Bull take podium and double top-6 finish at Spanish Grand Prix

Red Bull saw Max Verstappen take a podium at the Spanish Grand Prix and Liam Lawson make it a double top-6 finish for the team.

In the first race at a new circuit in the suburbs of Madrid, Verstappen managed to bag second place, with the Dutchman making it back-to-back podiums. Lawson meanwhile managed a solid race to take his highest finish while driving for Red Bull.

In the Driver’s Championship, Verstappen is up to 145 points and sits 6th in the championship. He is 22 points behind 5th placed Charles Leclerc and 25 points ahead of 7th place Oscar Piastri, though he is still yet to take his first win in 2026. Meanwhile, Lawson sits 9th in the championship. He is 12 points behind the currently injured Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar and 18 clear of 10th place Pierre Gasly.

As for the Constructor’s Championship, the Milton Keynes-based Red Bull Racing remain 4th in the championship. They are 76 points behind 3rd place McLaren and 153 ahead of their sister team Racing Bulls in 5th.

F1s first visit to the Madring circuit in the suburbs of the Spanish capital bought an end to the European leg of the F1 season, and with it saw Red Bull still chasing their first victory of 2026.

Verstappen started proceedings from third on the grid and was involved in perhaps the most eventful part of a largely processional race in the early stages. The Dutchman had made a bright start when he had to cross over the turn 1 chicane to avoid a collision with Lewis Hamilton after the Ferrari attempted a divebomb.

Having got through that, Verstappen initially managed to rise up to second by passing Andrea Kimi Antonelli. However, he was instructed to let Antonelli and Hamilton through to avoid getting a penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Having only just done so, however, Verstappen was back past Hamilton as the British driver’s Ferrari suffered a technical failure that put him out of the race.

The race would see Verstappen pit on lap 14, which coincided with a virtual safety car after Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin broke down. After that, the Dutchman was largely in a processional flow between Antonelli and Lando Norris, who lost time after McLaren made errors with the timing and execution of his pit stop.

Both Verstappen and Norris cut the chicane at turns 5 and 6 at various points, but the status quo persevered as the duo remained second and third, finishing a few seconds behind championship leader and race winner Antonelli.

As for Lawson, he initially lost a place to Franco Colapinto before making a sharp move to get back past the Alpine. The New Zealander would go long after starting on hard tyres, with the Red Bull opting to pit just after he had been passed by the two-stopping George Russell.

Lawson was able to time his stop to avoid getting stuck in a battle between Gabriel Bortoleto, Colapinto and Oscar Piastri, with the Red Bull returning to the field in 7th. This duly became 6th when Pierre Gasly made a stop on the last lap after leaving it to the end in a doomed attempt to try and coincide with another safety car.

F1 returns in two weeks time when the grid heads to Baku for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, in the first of a triple header that will also see races in Malaysia and Singapore.