Piastri reigns as Verstappen gets pain in Spain

FORMULA One championship leader Oscar Piastri won the Spanish Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday, leading a McLaren 1-2 with Lando Norris, while Max Verstappen was demoted from fifth to 10th after a late collision with George Russell's Mercedes.

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Piastri beat his team-mate and title rival Norris by 2.471 seconds for his fifth win in nine races this season — and McLaren's seventh — extending his lead in the Drivers' Championship to 10 points.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc completed the podium after passing Verstappen's Red Bull with six laps remaining in a race that kept the drama for the closing stages. "It's a nice way to bounce back from Monaco. A superb weekend," said Piastri, who had finished third last weekend in a race won from pole by Norris. Verstappen, who made four pit stops and ended up on the slower hard tyres, was left battling rivals on softs. He clashed first with Leclerc and then twice with Russell following a Safety Car restart with six laps to go.

"I've seen those sorts of manoeuvres before in simulator games and karting, but never in F1," said Russell, who has had run-ins with the four-time world champion before. "I don't really know what was going through his mind."

Nico Rosberg, the 2016 world champion and now a Sky Sports pundit, said Verstappen should have been shown the black flag for what he viewed as intentional retaliation after earlier contact.