Major F1 change was 'waste of money' - What we learned at the Spanish GP

Oscar Piastri delivered a masterful performance at the Spanish Grand Prix, securing victory from pole and extending his championship lead while navigating late-race drama and a crucial safety car period.

Meanwhile, Max Verstappen’s controversial clash with George Russell and subsequent penalty underscored a chaotic and costly end to the race for Red Bull, as McLaren’s dominance over the field remained unchallenged.

Here’s what we learned from the ninth round of the season.

Verstappen showed his best, and worst, traits

“I don’t need to say anything about it because it doesn’t matter anyway, you know, and we can’t be critical about anything.”

That was Verstappen’s response to a question about his accident with George Russell, in which the Red Bull driver deliberately rammed into the Mercedes to show his anger after feeling the Briton had pushed him off track at Turn 1 during the restart.

The incident highlighted the worst of Verstappen’s traits on track, and his comments after the race were the usual no-remorse approach the world champion often displays in situations like this.

Verstappen remains probably the best F1 driver on the grid right now, and the incident doesn’t take away anything from his brilliance, particularly during a 2025 season in which the Dutchman has achieved two victories and a further two podium finishes in a car that has often been far from the best.

His driving in the Spanish Grand Prix was, for about 63 laps, another example of how he has kept Red Bull competitive against the might of the McLarens.

Few drivers would have been able to make a three-stop strategy work in Barcelona, but Verstappen almost pulled it off to be a threat until the safety car came out.

Safety cars are rare at the Spanish venue, and it was particularly unfortunate for Verstappen, whose strategy had meant he was out of new tyres other than the hards with which he was sent out.

His frustration and the subsequent accident with Russell were the result of several factors that contributed to make Verstappen furious. Had Kimi Antonelli parked his car elsewhere, Verstappen would have likely finished in third and the world would be talking about something else.

But there was no excuse for what Verstappen did and even he realised, changing his tune and admitting what he was was wrong.

“Our tyre choice to the end and some moves after the safety car restart fuelled my frustration, leading to a move that was not right and shouldn’t have happened,” he said in an Instagram post on Monday morning.

“I always give everything out there for the team and emotions can run high.”

Verstappen left Spain one point away from a race ban and 49 points off the championship lead, although if his accident confirmed anything it’s that the Red Bull driver sees himself as an underdog with very little to lose.

Technical directive was much ado about nothing

After months of speculation about the effect the flexi-wing clampdown would have on the competitive order, the end result was underwhelming, showing once again that you always need to take F1 team bosses’ hyperbolic comments with a pinch of salt.

The technical directive proved to be no “reset” or a “game-changer” as some teams had predicted, and instead appeared to just confirm the pecking order, at least for now.

It remains to be seen if it will have an impact on future races, but given the nature of the Barcelona circuit, it appears unlikely that much will change.

The clampdown did have an effect on how the cars handled, making it harder to find the right balance, but the competitive hierarchy remained stable and any changes were more down to being on a different track than anything else.

Lewis Hamilton called the changes “a waste of money”, while McLaren boss Andrea Stella said the impact was “almost zero” for his team. Seeing the way the team dominated the weekend, his comments were probably right.

Teams had about four months to prepare for the changes, and McLaren didn’t even need to introduce a new wing in Spain.

At least in the short term, the consensus after the Barcelona weekend was that the changes were more evolutionary than revolutionary.

The title battle may be a two-horse race

If that wasn’t clear before the Spanish GP weekend, it looks like almost a certainty that the championship fight is likely to be exclusively between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris unless something dramatic happens.

The technical directive on front wings may have had a small impact on how the cars handle, but it didn’t appear to have an effect on how competitive McLaren is or on its gap to Red Bull.

There are still a lot of races left and anything could happen, but time is running out for teams before they have to fully commit to their 2026 cars, and Red Bull will not want to wait too long before deciding that the gap to McLaren is insurmountable.

Verstappen will probably win again 2025, and 15 grands prix is an awful lot of races to start thinking that the title is already gone, but 49 points is also a very serious gap to close, particularly given how irregular Red Bull’s form has been this season.

Verstappen’s cause also won’t be helped by the fact that McLaren has two competitive drivers instead of just one. That does mean that they can steal points from each other, but also that Verstappen’s chances of beating both of them regularly will be slimmer.

Verstappen is an outsider to the title, and judging by his incident with Russell, he is very aware of it.

Hamilton and Tsunoda need to find something

Hamilton and Yuki Tsunoda are at very different points in their careers, and yet their current form is in need of something very similar: some sort of a miracle.

The Spanish GP was probably the lowest point of their 2025 campaign and inevitably leads to asking how they can come back from it.

Hamilton labelled Barcelona as the “worst race” he has experienced and said he has learned “absolutely nothing” from a triple-header that has raised more questions about his adaptation to Ferrari.

It’s not unusual for Hamilton to be excessively downbeat about bad runs of form, and even the Briton himself is not hiding from the fact that he might be the problem given what Charles Leclerc can do with the same car.

Tsunoda’s situation is similar in that he doesn’t seem to find any answers as to why he’s struggling so badly, although the Japanese doesn’t have the luxury of time before his future at Red Bull is in doubt.

Finishing last in qualifying on merit is almost impossible to justify, and a 13th-place finish in a field of 17 cars is also nothing to celebrate when Verstappen was fighting for victory.

Meanwhile, Isack Hadjar keeps shining and scoring points for Racing Bulls, showing Red Bull might have a good candidate for the second Red Bull seat should Tsunoda fail to find his form.

Alonso got his first points in unlikely fashion

Fernando Alonso is no longer point-less in 2025, even though it looked like the streak was set to continue for a big part of the Barcelona race.

After qualifying in the top 10, the local hero’s race did not start smoothly and he even lost control and ran into the gravel, dropping down the order and falling as low as 16th at one point.

Recovering from that was particularly challenging for the Spaniard as the poor straight-line speed of his Aston Martin meant he didn’t overtake any cars using the DRS on the straight, claiming he had to “invent” passes around the outside of Turn 3.

Despite that, Alonso looked set to miss out on a points finish as he was running 13th before the safety car period.

The Spaniard was one of the drivers who decided not to pit, moving up to 12th.

At the restart, Alonso passed Gabriel Bortoleto to take 11th, and then overtook Liam Lawson with two laps to go to secure 10th, which became ninth when Verstappen was penalised.

“It would be easy to throw in the towel a little bit,” Alonso told Spanish media afterwards.

“But people make sacrifices to come here. People bring their families, their kids and we have to do our best. Today I don’t think it was a race to remember, but at least let everyone know that we gave it our all as always.”