Max Verstappen handed huge Spanish GP penalty for driving straight into George Russell

Max Verstappen was handed a dramatic penalty in the dying moments of the . It came after he appeared to ram into in the final few laps in anger amid a bad-tempered duel with the driver.

was already in a bad mood after having his strategy ruined by a late safety car. stopped in the gravel after a power unit failure, giving everyone the chance to pit for new tyres.

But while most of the leaders stopped for soft tyres, Verstappen only had a set of the harder, slower compound available. So he could kiss goodbye any chance he had of challenging the cars ahead and instead had to defend from behind.

immediately moved past while Russell also nearly managed it, but had to pull out when he tapped the wheel of the . That infuriated Verstappen whose mood was not helped by his race engineer advising him to give the place to the Mercedes.

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He did, but not before he seemed to intentionally bang wheels with Russell. "What the f***?" the Brit said over the radio, clearly stunned by Verstappen's actions – and the stewards were not at all pleased with what he had done either.

It wasn't long before it was announced that the four-time F1 champion had been handed a 10-second time penalty. That dropped him all the way down to 10th place in the final classification, scoring just one single point while his McLaren title rivals finished first and second.

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Watching replays of that incident unfold in the cool down room after the race, was the quickest to quip about what Verstappen had done. "I've done that before, in Mario Kart," said the Brit with a smirk.

won from pole, slightly extending his championship lead over team-mate Norris who was second. Leclerc managed to make his way up from seventh on the grid to the podium, while Russell inherited fourth place from Verstappen.

A surprise result saw make it all the way up to fifth place, scoring a huge points haul for which lifted them off the bottom of the constructors' standings. now foot the table, despite also scoring points with finishing eighth.

had hoped to challenge for his first Grand Prix podium as a driver, but struggled for pace throughout and had to settle for sixth place. Isack Hadjar continued his fine start to life in F1 in seventh while finally scored his first points of 2025 in ninth, Verstappen rounding off the top 10.