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<\/p>\nAndrea Kimi Antonelli wasn\u2019t the fastest driver on track in Spain last weekend, but his fortuitous victory was no less of a hammer blow to his would-be title contenders.<\/p>\n
His teammate, George Russell, consolidated second place but dropped to 81 points adrift of the lead. More than three clear race victories behind a driver in identical machinery, he said what everyone was already thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to say it\u2019s over, but it\u2019s exceptionally unlikely that I\u2019m in this fight,\u201d he said, per ESPN. \u201cI\u2019m not even thinking about being in the fight, because I don\u2019t think I am in the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship\u2122 LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n Lewis Hamilton, who for a time looked like a more likely title challenger in a momentarily resurgent Ferrari, was similarly resigned after retiring from the race and dropping to 101 points behind Antonelli.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no stopping him and Mercedes this year,\u201d he told Sky Sports. \u201cThey\u2019ve done a phenomenal job, and they deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n But hope springs eternal at McLaren.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to try and win it,\u201d a buoyed Zak Brown told Sky Sports after the race, reflecting on Lando Norris missing out on what would have been a richly deserved third win in four grands prix and dropping to 106 points behind Antonelli.<\/p>\n The CEO\u2019s optimism was boosted by Norris\u2019s sensational pole a day earlier, the McLaren driver pipping Antonelli to top spot at a circuit the team hadn\u2019t expected to fully suit its car.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously you have to be realistic, but anything can happen,\u201d Brown told F1 TV. \u201cToday\u2019s F1 at the moment with reliability, the new power units are a little less predictable than the last generation \u2014 anything can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown is as much a marketing man as he a racing enthusiast, and you can\u2019t fault him for keeping his chin up.<\/p>\n But he also knows from experience how massive gaps can be vaporised.<\/p>\n Norris\u2019s 106-point deficit is only one more than Max Verstappen\u2019s peak 105-point margin to Oscar Piastri last year.<\/p>\n Like Verstappen, Norris has nine grands prix \u2014 at least officially, Middle Eastern rounds pending \u2014 to close it.<\/p>\n Verstappen missed the title by two points, but the Dutchman finished ahead of Piastri by 11 points. The turnaround, then, was 116 points.<\/p>\n \u201cAll we can do is go for the wins every weekend and see if we can close the gap.\u201d<\/p>\n But of course it\u2019s not as simple as copying last year\u2019s results and dumping them onto this season.<\/p>\n Verstappen has and does enjoy a position at the very centre of Red Bull Racing. The team exists to support his ambitions.<\/p>\n The same hasn\u2019t been true at McLaren, which said last year that it would rather lose the drivers championship to Verstappen than pick a winner \u2014 something it came within two points of doing.<\/p>\n But if McLaren really believes Norris has a title chance, the question must be whether it can really stick by its equality principle.<\/p>\n After another difficult weekend in Spain, Oscar Piastri is making that decision easier to make.<\/p>\n 2027 Aussie Grand Prix gets sprint race | 01:29<\/p>\n WHERE DID IT GO WRONG FOR PIASTRI?<\/p>\n The Spanish Grand Prix was not an enjoyable weekend for Piastri.<\/p>\n He was comprehensively outqualified by Norris, who blew up what had been a fine-margins difference between the two with that sizzling pole time while Piastri fumbled through a messy session.<\/p>\n The margin was a difficult-to-swallow 0.470s, his second-largest of the year.<\/p>\n His race was similarly anonymous, though circumstances played a role \u2014 first-lap damage cost him places and pace, though he did manage to make one of the only six post-first-lap overtakes nonetheless.<\/p>\n The damage and the tedious circuit meant it was hard to gauge just how much slower Piastri was relative to Norris, but there\u2019s no doubting that he was \u2014 then again, everyone was.<\/p>\n The problem isn\u2019t the scrappy weekend in isolation; the problem is that it exacerbated an already low run of form.<\/p>\n On average this season he\u2019s qualifying only 0.078s behind Norris, but it\u2019s been 0.241s over the last five rounds. He\u2019s running at a 5-9 head-to-head qualifying deficit, but that\u2019s a more brutal 1-4 over the last five grands prix.<\/p>\n It\u2019s much the same in race trim \u2014 he\u2019s 3-6 for the season but 1-4 in the last five grands prix both have finished. While on average he\u2019s finishing 17.8s behind Norris at the flag, that balloons to 24.2s over their last five races.<\/p>\n Piastri has been open about having \u201cnot gelled\u201d with this year\u2019s car<\/a>, though he says describing it as a driving style mismatch is simplistic given the dominance of the heavily hybridised 2026 engine on overall performance.<\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely this year\u2019s been a bit tricky in trying to get through a few things,\u201d he said earlier this month. \u201cWe\u2019ve tried a few different directions, and sometimes you just need time to find the right one.\u201d<\/p>\n It also wouldn\u2019t be right to say Piastri\u2019s been absolutely nowhere. Only a race ago, in Monza, he comfortably outqualified Norris and slipped behind him only on the last lap in a race heavily influenced by the pressing of the battery boost button. <\/p>\n But that hasn\u2019t been enough to arrest the negative trend at what could be a critical inflection in the championship \u2014 but not a championship he\u2019s playing a role in.<\/p>\n CARNAGE as Max takes on 100 drivers | 02:04<\/p>\n WILL McLAREN REALLY MAKE THE CALL?<\/p>\n The last time McLaren contemplated giving Norris title preference was around two years ago, at the end of the European season in 2024.<\/p>\n The team was surging towards the constructors championship, and Norris, as the senior driver, was leading the charge.<\/p>\n Piastri had made great progress in only his second season but was still far from the complete package. Even so, the team struggled to make the decision to favour Norris, memorably being criticised for allowing its drivers to battle in Italy<\/a>.<\/p>\n It was after that race, ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, that McLaren bit the bullet and asked Piastri to support Norris\u2019s title campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n The maths made sense.<\/p>\n Norris was 62 points off the lead with eight remaining, requiring a turnaround of 7.8 points per round. Piastri was another 44 points adrift. Both were mathematically in it, but only Norris\u2019s shot was believable.<\/p>\n