Oscar Piastri took his fourth pole position of the season ahead of team-mate Lando Norris as McLaren locked out the front row of the grid for the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix. Third place on the grid went to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who claimed the front of row tow by virtue of setting exactly the same time as Mercedes’ George Russell ahead of the Mercedes driver. 

At the start of Q1, Piastri took top spot with a lap of 1:12.551 with Norris in second, 0.248s behind his team-mate. Verstappen was the last man on track, however, and the Red Bull driver split the McLaren pair with a lap of 1:12.798, just one thousandth of a second quicker than Norris. 

Piastri and Verstappen elected to stay in the garage for the final runs, but at the bottom of the timesheet, in the other Red Bull, Yuki Tsunoda needed a significant improvement. The Japanese driver had clattered hard over the kerbs in his first run and lay in P19, However, despite feeling that he had done a clean final flyer, the expected gain didn’t materialise, and he exited qualifying in P20. 

Also ruled out at the end of Q1 were 16th placed Hülkenberg, followed by Haas’ Esteban Ocon, Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto who dropped out in P19 after a technical issue caused him to halt at the pit exit as the final flying laps got underway.  

Williams’ Alex Albon set the early pace in Q2 with a lap of 1:13.113 set on used tyres. Verstappen soon powered past that to take top spot with a lap of 1:12.358. The McLaren drivers were finding even more time and Norris moved ahead on 1:12.056, before Piastri posted a lap of 1:11.998 to go 0.058s faster than team-mate and seal top spot. Russell slotted into P4, just under five hundredths of a second behind Verstappen, with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton in fifth. 

None of the top five went for a final run but though the door was left open, it was only Racing Bulls drive Isack Hadjar who made a big jump at the end of the middle segment, with the Frenchman vaulting out of the drop zone to P6, ahead of Leclerc, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Antonelli and last man through Pierre Gasly. 

Outside the top 10, Albon was the first man eliminated, and the Williams driver was followed out of the session by Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto, the second Racing Bull of Liam Lawson, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Haas’ Ollie Bearman. 

In the first runs of the top-10 shootout, Norris took provisional pole on 1:11.819, with Piastri 0.017s behind, Russell and Leclerc took third and fourth, while Verstappen, who had tried a different tyre prep strategy, could only manage a lap three hundredths of a second quicker than his Q2 best and he took fifth. That became sixth when Alonso went out for his sole run of the session on new tyres.

Verstappen delivered in style on his final flyer, climbing from 10th as improvements flooded in to take P3 in the final seconds. Russell set an identical time of 1:11.848 but the front of row two went to the Red Bull driver as he had set the time first. 

There was no matching the pace of the McLarens, though, and Piastri claimed his fourth pole of the season with a lap of 1:11.546, with Norris two tenths off his team-mate. Behind the top four, Hamilton qualified fifth ahead of Antonelli, with Leclerc in seventh ahead of Gasly, the impressive Hadjar and 10th-place Alonso. 

2025 FIA Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix – Qualifying 
1 Oscar Piastri McLaren/Mercedes 1:11.546 - -
2 Lando Norris McLaren/Mercedes 1:11.755 0.209 0.292
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda RBPT 1:11.848 0.302 0.422
4 George Russell Mercedes 1:11.848 0.302 0.422
5 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1:12.045 0.499 0.697
6 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 1:12.111 0.565 0.790
7 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:12.131 0.585 0.818
8 Pierre Gasly Alpine/Renault 1:12.199 0.653 0.913
9 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls/Honda RBPT 1:12.252 0.706 0.987
10 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:12.284 0.738 1.032
11 Alexander Albon Williams/Mercedes 1:12.641 1.095 1.530
12 Gabriel Bortoleto Sauber/Ferrari 1:12.756 1.210 1.691
13 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls/Honda RBPT 1:12.763 1.217 1.701
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin/Mercedes 1:13.058 1.512 2.113
15 Oliver Bearman Haas/Ferrari 1:13.315 1.769 2.473
16 Nico Hülkenberg Sauber/Ferrari 1:13.190 1.644 2.298
17 Esteban Ocon Haas/Ferrari 1:13.201 1.655 2.313
18 Carlos Sainz Williams/Mercedes 1:13.203 1.657 2.316
19 Franco Colapinto Alpine/Renault 1:13.334 1.788 2.499
20 Yuki Tsunoda Red Bull/Honda RBPT 1:13.385 1.839 2.570