Montreal Madness: Antonelli Claims Victory As Russell Forced To Retire!

Kimi Antonelli claimed his fourth consecutive victory in Montreal ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, as George Russell expressed frustration over an unfortunate race retirement. Here is your Canadian Grand Prix round-up.

Feature image credit: Mercedes F1

McLaren’s Strategy Disaster

Amongst this slight delay, where we saw an extra two formation laps, questions were raised surrounding McLaren’s choice of tyres. While the rest of the top 10 sat comfortably on their slicks, both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had the green-banded intermediate tyres on. With no rain in the air and a dry race track, surely this was the wrong choice for the papaya boys.

Despite the pole sitter, Russell, struggling to get off the starting line, allowing Norris to fly by into the lead on his inters, the intermediate tyres were not the way forward, as both Piastri and Norris boxed straight away for a fresh set of slicks.

While at the rear end of the pack, points were still possible. However, a bold move by Piastri on Williams driver Alex Albon ended in contact between the two, with Albon forced to retire and Piastri receiving a 10-second time penalty.

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Reliability Issues for Russell

After putting on a show for the fans during the Sprint race, the Mercedes drivers played cat and mouse once again during Sunday’s Grand Prix, switching the lead back and forth. While the championship fight was heating up between the two, it was soon cut short as Russell was forced to retire due to power unit issues, as he threw his headrest out of the car in frustration.

With Russel no longer in the fight for the win, Antonelli breezed his way to the finish line and claimed his fourth victory to make history once more, becoming the first driver to achieve his first four race wins consecutively. Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton take their fight for second place all the way to the chequered flag, with Hamilton coming out on top on this occasion.

Russell frustrated after title blow in Montreal

The Midfield

After correcting a slide, Charles Leclerc finished in a lonely fourth place 44.151 seconds off the lead. Despite being hit with a 10-second time penalty and a stop-and-go penalty, nothing was stopping Hadjar from achieving his best race finish so far for the Red Bull team, crossing the line in fifth.

Franco Colapinto achieved his best career finish so far in sixth for Alpine, even after brushing the wall on the pit exit. Liam Lawson made his Racing Bull as wide as possible to keep Alpine’s Pierre Gasly from taking seventh. Carlos Sainz and Ollie Bearman round out the top 10, picking up the remaining points for their teams.

After reaching Q3 in both qualifying sessions and clinching the final point during Saturday’s Sprint race for Arvid Lindblad, it was an early end to Grand Prix racing for him due to clutch issues, resulting in the young Brit unable to get his Racing Bull off the starting line.

Up Next

The Full Race Classification

Millie Clark

Millie Clark