Kimi Antonelli extended his championship lead with a fourth consecutive victory at the Canadian Grand Prix. The win — his fourth straight from the start of his F1 career — left him 43 points clear after five races, making him the first driver to win his opening four Grands Prix in succession.

The result underlined Mercedes’ strong pace and points advantage in the constructors’ battle but heightened pressure inside the team over intra‑team battles and mechanical reliability, issues that could decide the title fight.

The weekend featured tense wheel‑to‑wheel duels between Antonelli and team‑mate George Russell. Russell had sprint pole and won the Sprint, but Antonelli clipped him in that Sprint, forcing Russell onto the grass. In the Grand Prix the pair swapped the lead repeatedly in a roughly 30‑lap scrap.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff intervened over the radio during the weekend and again in the race, ordering the drivers to “tidy up” and warning the team would step in if intra‑team battles threatened results. Antonelli said maintaining “respect” and handling borderline incidents internally was vital for a title fight and cited the 2016 Hamilton–Rosberg feud as an example he did not want repeated. Russell acknowledged Antonelli’s advantage, saying, “Right now, it’s [Antonelli’s] to lose,” and that he had “nothing to lose.”

The duel ended when Russell stopped on lap 30 with a mechanical failure variously described as a power‑unit, battery or engine problem, removing him as an immediate challenger and clearing the way for Antonelli to run untroubled to the flag. Antonelli finished 10.7 seconds ahead, with Lewis Hamilton second for Ferrari and Max Verstappen third — Verstappen’s first podium of the season.

With 17 race weekends and 449 championship points still available, Mercedes’ pace gives them the upper hand in the constructors’ battle, but mechanical reliability and tight team management will be decisive as the season continues.

Lewis Hamilton delivered a breakthrough performance for Ferrari at the Canadian Grand Prix, finishing second after deliberately avoiding Ferrari’s Maranello simulator and staging a dramatic late outside pass on Max Verstappen at Turn 1. Hamilton started fifth, passed Oscar Piastri at the first corner and was overtaken by Verstappen earlier in the race, but strong pace on the medium tyre and careful use of overtake mode and battery power let him close from about seven seconds back to within a second with 13 laps remaining. He completed the decisive move on Lap 62, held off Verstappen to the chequered flag and described the chase as something he “loved,” calling the overall result “awesome.”

The FIA stewards handed George Russell a suspended €5,000 fine after he threw his car’s headrest onto the track following his retirement from the Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The stewards said Russell breached ISC Article 12.2.1.h, and the fine will remain suspended for 12 months provided he commits no similar breach during that period. Stewards reviewed video evidence, heard from Russell, accepted his apology, noted he was embarrassed and recorded that he offered to apologise publicly.

Russell had been leading the race when a sudden power unit failure forced him to stop around the mid-point, with accounts placing the stoppage on lap 30 and at various locations including Turn 8, Turn 9 and the second chicane on the grass. Witnesses reported Russell angrily threw his headrest and slammed his gloves as he left the cockpit. Mercedes later confirmed the issue was a power unit/module or battery failure, with team principal Toto Wolff citing an electrical/module problem.

Russell had earlier taken the Sprint win at the event and had been engaged in a tight intra-team duel with teammate Kimi Antonelli in the Grand Prix. Antonelli inherited the lead after Russell’s retirement and went on to win the race, extending his championship advantage to 43 points. The stewards also opened procedures over formation-lap concerns involving Liam Lawson and Nico Hülkenberg, considering stop-and-go penalties that they judged disproportionate and suspended under ISC Article 12.4.6, with both drivers starting from their correct grid positions.

McLaren’s decision to start both cars on intermediate tyres at the Canadian Grand Prix backfired when rain eased during the formation laps, undermining the call and prompting early pit stops and complaints from both drivers. Lando Norris briefly led into Turn 1 from his starting position but pitted for slicks on Lap 2 after the formation-lap rain eased, while Oscar Piastri pitted at the end of Lap 1. Piastri later locked up and collided with Alex Albon, ending Albon’s race and damaging Piastri’s front wing; he was handed a 10-second penalty and was classified 11th. Norris stopped on Lap 40 with an apparent gearbox failure after an earlier pit stop on Lap 15 for a suspected reliability issue. Both McLaren cars finished out of the points, leaving the team scoreless in Montreal.

McLaren made a late decision to revert to its previous-spec front wing for sprint qualifying at the Canadian Grand Prix after the updated front-wing design failed to deliver the expected gains in practice. Technical director Neil Houldey said the new wing “wasn’t quite delivering,” and that switching back to the prior wing restored driver confidence and unlocked better performance. Team principal Andrea Stella described the U-turn as a conservative, data-driven choice to avoid introducing an unproven element mid-weekend and said the team needed more time to evaluate the wing’s behavior, adding that McLaren remained “three tenths off” pole while Mercedes had brought meaningful upgrades.

Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri had tested the new front wing in Free Practice 1, with Norris running it early and Piastri trying it later, but Friday running was limited after both drivers had excursions onto the grass under braking and posted P6 and P7 in FP1 respectively. McLaren elected to run the older front-wing specification for the sprint session to keep the car predictable for the short-format event; Norris qualified third in the sprint ahead of Piastri in fourth, behind sprint pole-sitter George Russell. Norris described the new front wing as “a bit more questionable,” and warned Miami-derived parts might be track-specific, while Piastri said more work was needed to match Mercedes, who remained the benchmark.

The reverted wing formed part of a broader second-phase upgrade programme that began in Miami, with McLaren bringing a seven-part package to Montreal that included a new front wing, a reprofiled engine cover with different cooling exits, a new halo fairing, revised suspension fairing and rear wing endplates, and tweaks to the floor-edge wing. McLaren framed the changes as an iterative technical progression intended to build on Miami momentum rather than a one-off tweak, and said some elements of the new wing might be reintroduced either next weekend or at the Barcelona round after further assessment and more running.