Montreal Grand Prix recap

This weekend was also a sprint weekend, meaning more points were available for grabs.

Sprint Quali + Race

George Russell managed to secure P1 during qualifying with Kimi Antonelli not too far off from Russell’s time, being 0.068s behind, starting P2 on Saturday.

What was shocking was P5 and P6 from both Ferraris, even though they have been competing for front row since the season begun. The Sprint showed that the Ferrari is still the best car with the starting procedure, although the other teams are catching up, shown through Russell’s clean getaway. However, Antonelli made his attack against Russell, which led him to being pushed off the track, reporting the issue but nothing was done. The replay does show Russell pushing Antonelli off, but it seems it was discussed within. This opened the doors for Lando Norris, who was previously third, to move up to second.

Coming back to the Ferrari, Hamilton dropped a few places from 4th due to his tyres degrading, which led him to finishing 6th, behind teammate, Charles Leclerc, in 5th.

With RedBull, they seem to be struggling this weekend, with Isack Hadjar had a failed engine during the starting laps of the sprint, and Verstappen has been complaining over the radio about his car, describing it as ‘driving on ice’. Verstappen finished 7th and Hadjar 21st.

During the sprint race and after, Kimi Antonelli was heard over the radio in an annoyed tone. Expressing his frustration did not get through however, with ToTo Wolff himself silencing Antonelli on the radio. This might be the beginning of a rivalry between Russell and Antonelli that does not seem wholly PR trained.

Grand Prix

The race started with a DNS for Arvid Lindblad, which was unfortunate, knowing he qualified in the top 10. Because Lindblad’s car was stuck on the starting grid, they had 2 extra formation laps, which meant their were only 68 laps of actual racing. While the formation laps were happening, it was clear that Mclaren made the wrong tire decisions, being on interns while the rest of the grid where on dry tires. This cost them places as Piastri was immediately overtaken by Lewis Hamilton and needed to change his tire, crashing into Albon while he was making his way through traffi. That crash costed Albon his race and Piastri was given a 10 second penalty, effectively ending his race too. This was all happening while Antonelli and Russell continiously battled for first.

On lap 30, Russell started experiencing power unit failure, which meant he could not finish his race and pole position was given to Kimi Antonelli, who kept the lead without much competition from 2nd and 3rd place.

Further down the track, Hadjar and Leclerc were in their own battle for 4th, with Hadjar moving under breaking a few times which gifted him two 10 second penalties, which somehow only led him to dropping to 5th, having an 11 second gap between himself and Colapinto by the end of the race. Speaking of Colapinto, he achieved an amazing 6th place, his best place finish since becoming a Formula One driver.

By the end of the race, Lando Norris, George Russell, Alex Albon, Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso and Arvid Lindblad did not finish the race, which meant there were only 16 drivers on the grid.

The highlight of this race was the return of the Lewis Hamilton, achieving his best result with Ferrari, 2nd. Max Verstappen also achieved his first podium of the year with third and Kimi Antonelli became the first driver to have 4 consecutive wins after his first win in Formula One. Antonelli has so much promise and I am extremely excited to see how this season will play out, especially when it has been declared that the Mercedes engine has been banned, meaning they have to have a new engine for Monaco.