Lewis Hamilton Frustrates Four Rivals as Arvid Lindblad Brands Him ‘Stupid’ in Chaotic Madrid Practice

• Lewis Hamilton was called out by four different drivers for blocking incidents in a chaotic opening practice session at Formula 1’s brand new Madring circuit in Madrid.
• Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad called Hamilton and championship contender Kimi Antonelli “stupid” over team radio after being blocked at the high-speed Turn 12.
• George Russell set the pace in a Mercedes one-two, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc third on his return from a heavy crash at Monza.

Watch every race of the 2026 season live on Apple TV

A rookie says what everyone else was thinking

Lewis Hamilton spent the opening hour of practice at Formula 1’s newest circuit fielding complaints instead of setting competitive lap times. The seven-time world champion was called out by four different drivers across the session at the Madring, with Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad going furthest by branding Hamilton and Mercedes title contender Kimi Antonelli “stupid” for blocking the track at one of the circuit’s most dangerous corners.

The blocking incidents came on a Friday when George Russell set the pace at the tight, twisting Madrid street circuit, finishing 0.286 seconds clear of Mercedes team-mate Antonelli. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, still recovering from blurred vision that followed his heavy crash at Monza last Sunday, worked his way up to third on soft tyres. Hamilton’s best lap, set on the medium compound, was only good enough for fourth.

It was supposed to be a session about learning a brand new lap, not settling scores. The Madring is a hybrid of street circuit and purpose built track laid out around Madrid’s IFEMA exhibition centre, and every driver on the grid was working from a blank sheet of data going into Friday’s opening hour. That blank sheet, combined with a layout that gives almost no margin for error, turned into a headache for Hamilton specifically.

Lindblad leads the complaints at Turn 12

Hamilton’s trouble began at the Madring’s Turn 12, a high-speed banked corner that has quickly become the circuit’s signature feature. Lindblad was first to call Hamilton and Antonelli “stupid” for blocking the track there, before Leclerc, Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg and Williams’ Carlos Sainz all had to abandon flying laps after Hamilton failed to spot them coming. Hamilton was involved in further incidents at Leclerc’s and Hulkenberg’s expense later in the session.

None of it stopped Hamilton logging a lap good enough for fourth, but the volume of complaints, coming from a rookie, a Ferrari team-mate and a Williams veteran among others, made him the story of the session before a single competitive lap time had been set in anger.

Lindblad is a Racing Bulls rookie in his first full season on the grid, and a flying lap compromised by two more experienced drivers ahead of him meant losing rare running time on a circuit nobody on the grid had driven before. He recovered to end the hour seventh, the best result of the session behind only the two Mercedes, the two Ferraris and Verstappen’s Red Bull.

‘It’s always the same, it’s so dangerous’

Sainz was the most vocal of Hamilton’s critics. Speaking on the radio after being let by in the middle of La Monumental, the Madring’s long banked corner named for Madrid’s bullring, the Williams driver said: “Lewis letting by in the middle of Turn 12. It’s always the same, it’s so dangerous! Like it takes zero effort to be two metres more left. Zero effort!”

Sainz has given input into the circuit’s design, and his frustration reflected a wider theme from Friday’s session: a track unlike anything else on the calendar, where one driver failing to spot a rival on a flying lap can compromise several cars at once in the space of a few corners.

La Monumental itself is the longest corner on the current calendar, a sweeping banked turn inspired by the gradient of a traditional Spanish bullring. Drivers arrive there at high speed after a run of tighter, slower corners, which is precisely why a car moving over even a couple of metres too late can turn a quick lap into a wasted one. Sainz’s complaint captured how little room the Madring leaves for that kind of mistake.

A circuit still finding its limits

There were fears of heavy disruption in Madrid after 19 red flags were needed across a two-day Formula 3 test at the Madring last month. All 22 F1 drivers kept their cars out of the barriers in first practice, but track evolution was high throughout the hour as drivers searched for grip on a brand new surface, adding to the traffic problems that caught Hamilton out.

Sky Sports F1’s Anthony Davidson praised how the field adapted to the unfamiliar layout. “I’m really impressed with the way they approached this brand new circuit,” he said. “They made it look easy really, which they often do.”

The Madring’s blend of tight street-circuit sections and fast, purpose-built corners means a driver’s line through one part of the lap can leave almost no room for a rival arriving at speed through another. Turn 12, the banked corner at the centre of Friday’s complaints, is one of the fastest sections of the lap, which is exactly why Lindblad reacted so strongly to finding Hamilton and Antonelli in his way there.

For Leclerc, still recovering from the blurred vision that followed his Monza crash, improving through the hour to finish third on the soft tyre stood out on its own, and it came while several of his rivals were preoccupied with the traffic Hamilton was causing elsewhere on the lap.

Mercedes and Ferrari set an early marker

Behind the Mercedes and Ferrari drivers, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was fifth ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris, with Lindblad recovering from his frustration to impress in seventh for Racing Bulls. Hulkenberg backed up his complaint with ninth place for Audi, with Red Bull’s Liam Lawson 10th and Audi team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto 11th.

Ferrari’s early pace on the medium tyre suggested the fight for the front of the grid in Madrid will run through both Mercedes and the Scuderia. Second practice followed on Friday afternoon, with qualifying set for Saturday at 3pm and the Spanish Grand Prix itself on Sunday, the first time Formula 1 has raced in the Spanish capital in 45 years.

For Hamilton, the challenge now is turning a session defined by other drivers’ complaints into a clean weekend on a circuit that has already proven capable of catching out a seven-time champion. Two more practice sessions remain before qualifying decides the grid, and the Madring has already shown it offers no favours to a driver who loses track of what is happening around them.

The complaints will not show up in the results column, and Hamilton’s fourth-placed time means he heads into the rest of the weekend within half a second of the pace. But the number of drivers who felt the need to raise their voices on the radio in a single hour, at a track everyone was learning together, made clear that Hamilton’s awareness of the cars around him will be watched closely for the remainder of the weekend, starting with second practice later on Friday.

Want more F1Chronicle.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for the best F1 news and analysis on the internet.

More F1 Reading

• Max Verstappen Brands New Madrid Circuit a ‘Car Killer’ as F1 Drivers Brace for Its Unforgiving Walls
• George Russell Insists He Has ‘An Answer’ to Kimi Antonelli’s Pace as He Trails by 66 Points
• Lewis Hamilton Insists His Racing Relationship With Charles Leclerc Survived Ferrari’s Monza Scare
• Pierre Gasly Says Monza Pole Brings New Belief and Motivation to Alpine Ahead of Madrid

Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

More articles by Jack Renn →