In Canada, the circuit named after Gilles Villeneuve will host the tenth race of the season of Formula 1, which he saw George Russell triumphs. Verstappen and Antonelli complete the podium, while the Ferraris struggle and finish in fifth and sixth position. Lando Norris incredibly hits his teammate and retires a few laps from the end, losing very important points in view of the world championship.
Lights Go Out in Montreal: Russell Remains First, Antonelli Attacks Piastri
Of the top 10, all start the race on yellow tyres except Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc who will start on hard tyres. Everything is ready, the lights go on and finally the Canadian GP can begin.
The traffic lights go out and the start is clean: Russell retains first place, followed by Verstappen. Antonelli takes third place from Oscar Piastri in the first corners. The remaining top 10 remains unchanged with the exception of Hülkenberg who moved up from 11th to ninth. The temperature is very high and in fact after just 10 laps there are already many drivers complaining about the state of their tires.
Early pit stops in Canada: Norris and Leclerc ahead of everyone
Norris easily takes sixth place from Alonso, while Verstappen comes back in on lap 13, fitting white tyres and coming back in ninth, ahead of a large group fighting for tenth place. Russell covers the undercut by changing his own on the following lap, handing the lead to his Italian teammate, who however also stops a few minutes later. In the following laps, the others on the medium tyres also stopped, and now Norris is in the lead of the race, followed by Leclerc just over 3 seconds later.
Some problems for Hamilton who exits the pit stop in the middle of a DRS train and loses several seconds before managing to get rid of the cars in front of him. Leclerc, on the other hand, was overtaken by Russell and called back into the pits, as was Norris: the idea of a single stop did not convince the Ferrari pit wall, despite the Monegasque's desire to extend the stint.
In Canada, on lap 30 of the race, the top 7 have all made their first pit stops; Russell maintains first place with a 2-second advantage, followed a little further back by Antonelli and Piastri. Norris, now on medium tyres, has to recover 7 seconds from Piastri, with Leclerc and Hamilton behind him. The Englishman's Ferrari suffers from serious brake problems.
In the second half of the race, everything happens, but Russell triumphs
On lap 38 Verstappen pits for his second stop, fitting the hard tyre again. Mercedes reacts first with Antonelli, who comes out side by side with the Dutchman, and a few laps later with Russell, who maintains a good margin over the number 1 Red Bull. Piastri and Norris pit, with the Englishman just 4 seconds behind his teammate.
Albon retires on lap 49 after a very difficult race due to a problem with the Power Unit, as did Lawson a few laps later, while Hülkenberg attacks Tsunoda to virtually enter the points zone. Piastri gets dangerously close to Antonelli but fails to overtake, allowing Norris to get closer as well. With 10 laps to go there is a lot of chaos on the track: the first 5, spaced 5 seconds apart, come across a group of backmarkers, making this phase of the race very delicate. Lando Norris takes advantage of the opportunity, dropping to within a second of Piastri.
In Canada the race continues and Russell takes a bit of a lead over Verstappen, just as the Dutchman takes it on Antonelli, who is instead under attack from both McLarens, in fourth and fifth position.
With 3 laps to go, what many fans had been expecting for a long time happened. Norris joins Piastri on the long straight, the Australian stays ahead and on the following straight Norris hits Piastri who had moved completely to the leftRace over for the Englishman, who loses very important points for the world championship and immediately apologizes on the radio, aware of his mistake.
The race ends under the Safety Car regime and Russell triumphs, author of a perfect race, ahead of Verstappen. Kimi Antonelli instead can celebrate his first podium in his career, finishing ahead of Piastri, Leclerc and Hamilton. The top 10 is closed by Alonso, Hülkenberg, still in the points with the one-stop strategy, Ocon and Sainz.
