Kimi Antonelli connected for his fourth consecutive victory of the season, and of his career, at the Canadian Grand Prix.
The 19-year-old Italian driver cruised to the checkered flag Sunday in Montreal after Mercedes teammate George Russell experienced an untimely engine issue just before the midway mark that forced him to bow out of the race.
That took the gusty winds out of the sail of what was an exciting cat-and-mouse chase between the two for the lead.
Starting side-by-side on the front row, Antonelli edged Russell heading to the first turn and inherited the lead when Lando Norris dove into the pits at the end of the second lap (more on the McLaren in a little bit).
Russell swooped ahead on the seventh lap as Antonelli locked up his tires under pressure and nearly collided with his teammate. The pair continued to slingshot back and forth, a tad too close for comfort on the Mercedes pit wall, leading to a radio call to Antonelli to tidy it up. Team boss Toto Wolff was probably having flashbacks to Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg circa 2016, especially since Antonelli and Russell had already tangled during Saturday’s sprint.
Alas, Russell suddenly lost power on the 30th of the 68-lap race. His car came to a halt, handing the win on a silver platter to his fellow Silver Arrows teammate as Antonelli breezed off into the distance.
A frustrated Russell tossed his headrest onto the track and banged his fists as he exited his car. Who could blame him? Everything had been going his way up until that point. After winning Saturday’s sprint from pole position, Russell qualified P1 for the third straight year for the race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The 28-year-old British driver needed the win too after falling behind his teammate in the championship following Antonelli’s string of victories in China, Japan and Miami.
What should have been a thrilling and entertaining battle to the finish was denied, but that’s the unpredictable nature of auto racing as Russell sustained his first DNF in almost two years, a rare misfire for the normally reliable Mercedes.
Credit to Antonelli as he kept it clean from there, crossing the finish line with a 10-second advantage over runner-up Hamilton, whose Ferrari fended off the Red Bull of Max Verstappen in third.
Just when it looked like the gap was tightening in the championship, Antonelli extended his lead over Russell from 18 to 43 points.
Fortunately for Russell, who won the season opener in Australia, we’re only five races down in a long season. Business is about to pick up big time, too, with six races in the following nine weeks heading into the summer break.
McLaren’s tire troubles turn into colossal mistake
When it rains, it pours — metaphorically speaking, of course. If it had been raining, McLaren probably wouldn’t have had such a horrendous day.
Reigning world champ Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri locked out the second row in qualifying, lining up third and fourth, respectively, on the grid behind the two Mercedes cars.
While Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull all started their cars on the soft compound tires, McLaren opted for a different strategy and went with the intermediates, thinking they would benefit from a wet track with more rain expected in the forecast.
A bold move that not only didn’t pay off, but turned out to be a huge mistake. The track was already drying off during the formation laps, plus the predicted downpour never materialized.
Norris lunged ahead of both Mercedes cars at the start, but his lead was short-lived, pitting at the end of the second lap to dump the intermediates, with Piastri following suit. The next time Norris saw Antonelli and Russell in his rearview mirrors was when they were lapping him.
Norris soared into eighth until he locked up and cut through the grass on lap four, saving his car from hitting the wall but collecting enough clippings from the field that required yet another unexpected pit stop to clear them from his car's cooling duct. Down in 14th again, Norris manoeuvred through the field once more and worked his way up into a points position.
Clearly, it wasn't meant to be. Norris retired due to a gearbox issue as his car called it quits.
Misery loves company, right? Piastri received a 10-second time penalty when he locked up and rammed right into the side of Williams driver Alex Albon. Although Piastri managed to make it to the end of the race, he finished in unlucky 11th, one spot outside of the points.
Right when the double defending constructors’ champion looked like it was on the upswing with a double podium finish in Miami, McLaren threw it all away with one critical strategic misfire.
Ferrari, Red Bull capitalize
Hamilton and Verstappen were the main benefactors of Russell’s DNF and McLaren’s misery, picking up podium positions.
It was the record-extending 204th career podium for Hamilton and his 11th at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Apparently, there is still a first time for everything for Hamilton as the 41-year-old finished second in the Canadian GP for the first time.
Although Hamilton had power deployment issues and fell behind Verstappen early in the race, the seven-time world champ erased a five-second deficit and pulled off a gutsy late-braking manoeuvre heading into the first turn to overtake his rival during the final stages.
Verstappen picked up his first podium of the year in what has been an uncharacteristic season for the Dutch driver, sitting seventh in the standings.
Hamilton, who is fourth overall, is now three points back of Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, who crossed the line fourth despite nearly losing it on a late spin, coming oh-so-close to crashing into the “wall of champions.”
Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar also had his best finish of the season, coming home in fifth place. The curse of the second Red Bull seat remains strong, though. Hadjar not only received a 20-second time penalty for moving under braking while trying to block Leclerc, but he was also handed a stop-and-go penalty for failing to slow down in time during a yellow flag.
Good news, bad news for Stroll
What to make of Lance Stroll's race? Well, there was good and bad.
The Montreal native and lone Canadian driver on the grid had a season-best result at his home race, improving seven places after starting at the back of the pack from the pit lane. That's good.
Stroll was four laps down in 15th and second-last among the cars that actually made it to the finish. That's bad.
The plethora of DNFs (plus a DNS for Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad) inflated Stroll's final position, but at least the Aston Martin driver is making it to the finish of the race after how dire things were to start the season.
