2025 Canadian Grand Prix Race Review

Linus O'Howell
2 days ago
4 min read

Russell Wins Superbly as McLaren Teammates Collide

It was a fantastic Sunday for Mr. Consistency as George Russell took a brilliant and well deserved first victory of the season! Max Verstappen gained some points back in the Championship fight with a strong P2 whilst Andrea Kimi Antonelli took his maiden Formula 1 Podium in a Race where the two McLaren’s came to blows!

The Biggest Talking Points

It was a clean start from everyone, with no incidents taking place on the opening lap as George Russell led from Max Verstappen whilst Andrea Kimi Antonelli was able to jump Oscar Piastri for third! The Race then quickly became all about tyre management, with not much overtaking happening as everyone tried to nurse their tyres through! Max was the first driver to jump early, committing to a 2-stop, but that’s ultimately what all the leaders did as George remained in control! Charles Leclerc wasn’t too happy with his strategy though, he wanted to try for a 1-stop, and this pretty much left him in no man’s land as teammate Lewis Hamilton was dealing with damage for the large majority of the Grand Prix! Behind all of this, Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg were having strong Races for Aston Martin and Kick Sauber respectively whilst Esteban Ocon did a fantastic job on his first stint, running super long to jump himself into the points! It wasn’t a good day for Alex Albon, though, as the Williams driver kept getting overtaken by his rivals before he eventually retired, yet another Mercedes engine failing! Lance Stroll also picked up a 10-second time penalty for an incident with Pierre Gasly, and this was honestly really harsh!

Whilst the large majority of the Race was pretty dull, things did get interesting towards the end as the whole of the Top 5 was separated by around 6 seconds! Lando Norris, who was charging back through after starting on the Hard tyre, started to put some pressure on teammate Oscar Piastri who was also trying to catch and overtake Kimi Antonelli for the final spot on the Podium! However, on Lap 65, we finally got a battle between the two Championship Rivals as Norris sent one up the inside of Piastri into the Hairpin, resulting in a side-by-side run down the entire main straight before Oscar pulled off a great late breaking move to retake the position! However, on the run to the start/finish line, Lando got a better run than Oscar and tried to squeeze his way through into 4th, but this is when the two teammates collided, resulting in Norris being out of the Race completely! We’ll go into this more in a little bit, but this was a complete disaster from Lando, and one that Oscar ended up benefiting from (in terms of the Championship)! The Race then ended under the Safety Car, but there was still a little bit of drama to be had as George Russell and Max Verstappen started playing some games late on (I thought it was funny)!

The Standout Drives in the Race

I’ve given out four 10’s for the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix, and the first one is obviously for George Russell! George has been brilliant all season long, he consistently bags strong points, and he’s just been waiting for a weekend where Mercedes have the quickest car, and when that came along, Russell took full advantage to take a great first victory of the season! The second driver I’ve given out maximum points to is the other Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli (I know Fray!), I thought Kimi was superb, his pace was strong throughout, and this was a maiden Podium that he fully deserved! The third driver I’ve given a Perfect 10 to is Fernando Alonso, what a brilliant job Fernando did to come home best of the rest in P7, superb! And the final driver I’ve given out a 10 to is Nico Hulkenberg, I mean, he was so strong today, once again scoring great points for Kick Sauber, and he fully deserves his flowers! I also thought Max Verstappen did the best he could to finish second whilst Esteban Ocon was absolutely superb to score points in Haas’ 200th Grand Prix!

Drivers Who Had a Shocker

I’ve given one 1 for this Race, and it has to be for Lando Norris! Lando was running a decent Race, he had good pace, but he completely misjudged it when trying to overtake his teammate, and he’s the one who’s end up losing out big time! I have the upmost respect for Norris for holding his hands up straight away, that’s really good to see, but at this level of Motorsport, you cannot make those types of mistakes if you want to be seen as the absolute best! Elsewhere, Racing Bulls had a terrible day, with Isack Hadjar coming home 16th whilst Liam Lawson retired, and Lance Stroll had a pretty torrid Home Race, even though I haven’t given him a 1 because he should never have gotten a penalty!