Antonelli victorious in spectacular Canadian Grand Prix
The Canadian Grand Prix was a spectacular affair with drizzle at the start, tense fighting across the fields and a series on unpredictably retirements, but in the end it was again Kimi Antonelli who drew the longest straw to win again. Hamilton and Verstappen were happy to join him on the podium after securing season best results.
Drizzle and a somewhat wet hairpin together with a nearly dry starting line made for a very complicate tyre choice for the start of the race. As the Mercedes duo on the front line opted for softs, the McLarens on the second row took on intermediates. Overall, most drivers chose for wet tyres with a large chunk going for the mediums as well.
Stroll was also on intermediates but he chose to get to the pits after the warm-up lap to switch to dry weather tyres.
When it was time for the start, the red lights stayed on and Antonelli briefly moved before the start was called off as Lindblad had a technical issue. The extra formation lap triggered further doubts for the intermediate tyre selection with Piastri calling for a change to slicks, but he still went for the starting grid.
Meanwhile Lindlad was still being pulled backwards, only just on time away from the grid, but still on the track as 21 cars were ready to start. That required yet another formation lap which the Mercedes duo kicked off violently, eager to get the tyres up to temperature before the start.
This extra formation lap saw more discussion between Piastri and his engineer, with tyre temperature the main argument to keep the inters. Piastri though seemed to steer to a pitlane start on softs, but that was ignored, resulting in a start on intermediates for both McLarens.
So, the red lights went on one by one, and then off to finally start the race. Norris has a great launch and took first place with Antonelli getting second and Russell in third. Hamilton took fourth while Piastri lost out on the outside of Turn 2.
At the end of that lap, Piastri dove into the pitlane to switch to medium tyres, handing 5th place to Verstappen, followed by Leclerc, Hadjar, Colapinto. Alonso meanwhile had a brilliant start and moved up into 12h position.
The next lap Norris was pitted from the lead, immediately triggering an overtake attempt by Russell on race leader Antonelli. It didn't work out but still, the Mercedes were a lot better off than McLaren wit Norris rejoining on medium tyres in 14th position with Piastri 16th.
While nothing changed in front, Norris cut some grass at Turn 8 while Piastri worked his way past Stroll to move within 4 seconds of his teammate.
Then, suddenly, out of nothing, Russell set the fastest lap and passed his teammate at the end of the straight. Antonelli meanwhile seemed surprised and locked the front wheels trying to avoid hitting Russell from behind, immediately making for a 1.5 second gap.
Antonelli though quickly came back to within a second of Russell, leaving Hamilton behind as the latter was fairly busy watching his mirrors for Max Verstappen. At the start of lap 9 Verstappen made a move at Turn 1, triggering Hamilton to shout "I got no power man, come on guys". Hamilton's laptime was ok, but clearly the deployment at the moment of the pass wasn't up to par with what Verstappen managed.
Right when Antonelli briefly got back in the lead before being repassed by Russell at the end of the straight, Piastri misjudged his braking at the hairpin and ended up bumping into Albon. That forced another pitstop for Piastri, a notably slow stop that saw the Australian return to the track only just ahead of the leaders, which he quickly had to let past. Piastri was later handed a 10 second penalty for the incident while Albon was forced to retire from the race.
Interestingly, Norris was soon told to pit too due to a "reliability problem". The stop was faster for Norris, but following what looked like cleaning in the sidepod he got going again, albeit only 16th.
On lap 17 Russell again outbraked himself at the hairpin, giving Antonelli yet another chance to take the lead. The Italian briefly got it but Russell had the inside line for the last corner and maintained the lead across the finish line. For Russell though this wasn't a pleasant situation at all with two big lockups now surely impacting confidence in that braking area while his teammate was really breathing in his neck.
On lap 21 Russell once again was wide on the hairpin. This time he didn't lock the tyres but it was enough for Antonelli to get ahead, this time maintaining it through the final chicane. A single lap later, Antonelli was wide at the hairpin himself, resulting in Russell and Antonelli completing the straight side by side. Antonelli went straight on the chicane to avoid a collision but Mercedes had none of it and told him to give the position, avoiding a potential penalty.
Antonelli disagreed, claiming he was ahead and on the racing line. Still, he handed the position back, so the fight went on. For 3 more laps only though, as a car failure forced Russell into retirement on lap 30. Russell failed to stop his car at Turn 8, went through the grass and parked aside of the race track after rejoining it. The Briton was quickly out of the car, threw the headrest away and his gloves to the floor.
Russell's heartbreak was followed by a Virtual Safety Car period triggering numerous pitstops, including switches from soft to medium tyres for Antonelli, Verstappen, Hamilton and Leclerc.
The race was on again soon, and one lap later we reached lap 34, the halfway point of the race. Antonelli led that time by 4.5 seconds on Verstappen with Hamilton in third an extra 7.5 seconds behind. Hadjar ran in fourth, then Leclerc, then Colapinto, Lawson and Gasly. Norris was 9th with Sainz completing the top 10.
The next laps saw Hamilton steadily closing in on Verstappen thanks to posting several fastest laps. Leclerc also had a good time on the medium tyres in the Ferrari as he got past Hadjar on lap 39 after putting considerable pressure on the Red Bull driver for multiple laps. Hadjar was later also given a 10 second penalty for multiple defensive moves on the main straight.
Moments after that Norris retired after he lost drive. There was an audible failure while accellerating out of Turn 8, following which Norris could only roll and steer into a run-off area. Perez joined the retirements list one lap later after his front right suspension failed just before the pit straight. That's the 6th retirement of the day after Lindblad, Albon, Alonso and Russell had already ceased competition earlier on.
On lap 46 there was yet another Virtual Safety Car and accompanying pitlane closure to enable marshalls to remove some debris from Perez' Cadillac in the final chicane.
As Hamilton reduced the gap to Verstappen to 1.9 seconds another Virtual Safety Car period was triggered. Hadjar and Piastri took the opportunity to serve their penalties and change tyres before the race got going again on lap 54.
Hamilton immediately got on with business, trying to take advantage of Verstappen's struggle to get the tyres warmed up. One lap later the gap between them was down to 0.9 seconds. Another lap later it was 0.4 seconds, requiring a defensive line into the final chicane by Verstappen, followed by a near miss with the wall of champions.
A couple of close chasing laps followed before lap 62 where Hamilton was close on the straight and had a perfect run through the final chicane to get an overtake to stick ahead of Turn 1, much to the joy of Hamilton's mother who was present in the paddock.
5 laps from the end, as Verstappen continued to shadow Hamilton, Hadjar served a 10 second stop-and-go penalty for a yellow flag infringement. Despite the lengthy stoppage this didn't involve a drop in positions for Hadjar as he rejoined the track still 12 seconds ahead of Colapino.
Competition was fierce, not only for second, but also further back between Lawson and Gasly, but positions did not change anymore, enabling Antonelli to take victory, joined on the podium by Hamilton and Verstappen, both scoring their best results of the season so far.
