Norris Incredibly Unlucky With Red Flag During Qualifying — Full Round-Up

Welcome to Sunday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.

Comment of the day

George Russell’s explanation that he’s been relying too heavily on his teammate’s setup approach has drawn criticism from @RBAlonso:

It’s an embarrassing admission that he felt copying a setup in his ‘championship year’ is good enough. He has to have belief in his own vision. What did his engineers think? That this is the best way the car works and Kimi is just an alien? Is that the sort of support you expect to lead you to a title – the belief the other guy is just some generational talent so that’s that?

It was clear to everyone from the outset of these regulations that drivers who like the car to move around were going to make a step forward from last year. It’s been the case for Lewis as well as Kimi. But Mercedes know Russell’s style inside out; he’s at 100 races for them and has been involved for a decade. Under no circumstances should he have deferred to his junior team-mate’s setup. There’s no harm in trying it, and other champions have benefited from team-mates’ setups to get them in the ballpark – but when driving styles are so different and they’ve had a seven-week break, it’s remarkable a driver as committed as Russell hasn’t found a clear direction.

Either that or he just thinks it sounds plausible – in which case I’d advise winning a couple of races before announcing that he’s back given his team-mate is just a row back, on a weekend he lost Friday morning.
@RBAlonso

Social media and links

Qualifying report (McLaren)

“Today was a bit of a missed opportunity, primarily because Lando was incredibly unlucky with the red flag. He was on a very strong first lap just 250 meters from the finish line, which forced him to be cautious on his final attempt to ensure we got a time on the board.”

Report: Work to do after tough Saturday in Barcelona (Williams)

“We haven’t been good in Barcelona for the last few years, and despite large changes to the regulations that remains the case, so we need to dig deeper to understand the issues. We know the car is still not on the weight limit, and in these very warm temperatures that has an extraordinarily large impact on the performance, but that’s not all of it and over the next few weeks and months we need to find all of it because it will impact us at other circuits.”

Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix: Qualifying recap (Haas)

“We shouldn’t be having deployment issues on Saturday, we can have it in FP1 but by the end of FP2 everything should’ve been sorted. That’s why in his second run in Q1 Esteban had no reference time.”

Maini takes commanding Barcelona win (Formula 2)

Kush Maini claimed his first victory of the 2026 FIA Formula 2 campaign, seizing the lead at the start and pulling away. MP Motorsport’s Gabriele Mini finished second after battling early title rival Nikola Tsolov, with the Campos driver completing the podium.

Multiple drivers penalised, Badoer penalty rescinded following Barcelona sprint race (Formula 3)

Brando Badoer’s in-race time penalty was rescinded after stewards reviewed new evidence. Rodin Motorsport’s driver had been given a 10-second penalty for an incident with Ernesto Rivera at turn 14, but a subsequent review found Rivera had suffered a technical issue that caused a loss of power. The stewards concluded Badoer took avoiding action and was not predominantly responsible for the collision, so the penalty was removed.

First hour highlights – 24 Hours of Le Mans 2026 (WEC)

I used to love Le Mans and watched as much of it as I could live. But since they introduced Balance of Performance for the top class I’ve lost interest and don’t bother any more. There’s no point if you don’t know who’s built a great car and who just got help from the rule makers. #WEC #LeMans24

— Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine.bsky.social) 2026-06-13T10:41:34.253Z

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On this day in motorsport

  • 40 years ago today Nigel Mansell beat Ayrton Senna to pole position for the Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve by seven hundredths of a second

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