2026 Canadian Grand Prix Sprint Review

Linus O'Howell
22 minutes ago
3 min read

Russell Wins Dramatic Canadian Sprint

It was George Russell who managed to come out in the 2026 Canadian Grand Prix Sprint, with Lando Norris splitting the two Mercedes after sparks flew between Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli!

Russell VS Antonelli

Amazingly, Mercedes actually managed to get off the line well, with both George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli remaining 1-and-2, as Lewis Hamilton was able to jump Oscar Piastri to move up into 4th! Mercedes then seemed to have an insane amount of pace in comparison to the rest of the field, with the top two completely leaving everyone else in the dust, up until that Turn 1 incident on Lap 5! See, Kimi Antonelli attempted to go around the outside of George Russell, but as expected, George wasn’t going to let that happen, squeezing his teammate off and onto the grass! On top of this, later on around the lap, Antonelli again went for a move, outbreaking himself as he bounced his way over the grass, and more importantly, behind Lando Norris! There will be many different views on this incident, depending on who you support, but honestly, I’m just glad to see some aggressive wheel-to-wheel racing again! The action would then continue, with Norris never allowing Russell to breath, whilst we got a great scrap towards the end of the Sprint between Piastri and Hamilton! Oscar eventually came out on top in that battle, and that in-turn cost Lewis a place to his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc! Elsewhere in the field, basically everyone in the backfield decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to practice pit stops, whilst Sergio Perez battled a little too hard against “his old mate” Liam Lawson! Back at the front, Antonelli tried his best to re-pass Norris on the final lap, but he again went off the track! It’s now 3 Sprints out of 3 when it comes to Kimi making unnecessary errors!

The Highs and Lows of the Sprint

I’ve given out three 10’s for today’s Sprint, and the first one is obviously for George Russell! I’m a big fan of aggressive driving, it’s what entertains me, and that’s exactly what George did today in order to win the Sprint! The second driver I’ve given out maximum points to is Lando Norris, and that’s simply because he found a way to split the two Mercedes, a car that is clearly quicker! And the final driver I’ve given a Perfect 10 to is Arvid Lindblad, because like I say with any midfield driver, scoring a point in the Sprint is very impressive! I also want to shout out both Franco Colapinto and Carlos Sainz for another Top 10 finish, whilst we won’t forget Sergio Perez crossing the line in P11 in a Cadillac, even if he was demoted post-Sprint!

On the other end of the spectrum, I haven’t given out a single 1 for the 2026 Canadian Sprint, and this is starting to become a running trend! Honestly, though, if no one’s crashing, it’s hard to say that anyone is performing abhorrently bad, and also, it’s pretty hard to grade drivers who keep pitting!