George Russell won his and Mercedes‘ first race of the 2025 Formula 1 season with an excellent performance at the Canadian Grand Prix, as Max Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli completing the podium.
“It is amazing to be back on the top step. I felt last year was a victory lost, so to get the victory and see Kimi on the podium too is an amazing day for the team,” Russell said after victory at the Canadian GP. “I think the strength of our car is in the cooler conditions so let’s see in the coming races, but let’s enjoy this for now. Good day, good day!”
From the moment he claimed pole on Saturday, Russell appeared in full control of the weekend. At lights out, he fended off Verstappen’s advances and managed the pace superbly over two stints, always keeping a buffer to the Red Bull through strategic pit timing.
The major flashpoint came at the end of the race as a collision between McLaren drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris saw the latter crash out from P5, with Piastri surviving to take P4. Antonelli became the third-youngest driver to sit on an F1 podium, capping a superb day for Mercedes at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
There were contrasting strategies among the frontrunners at the start of the race, with Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc opting to start on the hards. The bulk of the field started the race on the mediums and Max Verstappen was the first to ditch them on Lap 12.
Once the rest of the leaders had pitted away from the mediums, it left Norris and Leclerc P1 and P2 and hoping for a safety car before the likes of George Russell, Verstappen, Kimi Antonelli and Oscar Piastri reached them.
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By the end of Lap 26 at the Canadian GP, net leader Russell had managed to make his way past Leclerc on fresher tyres and set off after Norris who was three seconds up the road. Leclerc threw in the towel on Lap 29 and moved onto a fresh set of hards, meaning he had committed to a two-stop.
Strategic confusion in Canada
It was still not clear if Norris was planning to go as long as possible on his hards before moving to mediums and completing a one-stop strategy. He pitted on Lap 30 for a set of mediums, but that tyre had grained quicker than expected during the first stint for many drivers so there would be no chance of him going to the end of the race without another stop.
The lap times he started setting showed that the plan was to use all of the available grip and close the gap on those ahead before stopping again later in the race.
By the midway point of the Canadian GP, Russell had a 4.5 second lead over Verstappen, with Antonelli slowly catching the Dutchman and then the two McLaren‘s of Piastri and Norris in P4 and P5 respectively. The two Ferrari‘s were P6 and P7 with Leclerc ahead, whilst Yuki Tsunoda had worked his way from P18 up to P11 without having stopped yet.
Verstappen pitted for another set of hards on Lap 38 to attempt an undercut on Antonelli ahead of him, and it worked perfectly with the Dutchman beating the Italian to the apex of Turn 2 after the Mercedes man had pitted too. They would both have more than 30 laps to do on a set of hards with degradation looking high, so there was still a very real possibility of a three-stop.
Russell was approaching a huge batch of backmarkers and opted to dive into the pits on Lap 42 for another set of hard tyres. The left-rear did not tighten as quickly as it should have and the British driver lost a small amount of time. He emerged in P4, knowing that Piastri, Norris and Leclerc ahead would need to stop again.
It had been a very clean race in all but with 25 minutes to go, Lance Stroll forced Pierre Gasly onto the grass coming into the final chicane and it was quickly noted by the stewards.
The Canadian was swiftly handed a 10-second time penalty for forcing another driver off of the track. In the midst of that, Alex Albon had to retire his Williams and managed to find an escape road. Liam Lawson was forced to retire as well on Lap 56.
Tough conversations at McLaren
Whilst it was clear that the race was Russell‘s to lose, the finishing positions of the top six were not clear at all with many different strategies at play. Leclerc eventually pitted from the lead and emerged in P6, and Russell retook his place out front. Verstappen was just 2.17 seconds behind the Mercedes, with only just over seven seconds separating the top five with 15 laps to go.
Verstappen found some serious pace at this stage and was soon just over a second behind Russell, who had seemed in complete control until this point. The Englishman did start to build his advantage again having manoeuvred his way through some backmarkers.
Slightly further back, Piastri was having a tough time picking through the backmarkers with Norris catching him quickly. It suddenly looked much more likely that Norris would get past Piastri for P4, rather than Piastri getting past Antonelli for P3.
On Lap 67, McLaren‘s worst nightmare took place. Norris had made a move at the hairpin and it led to him and Piastri going side-by-side down the back straight.
Having gotten through the chicane with Piastri still ahead, Norris then collided with his teammate on the start/finish straight and the British driver was out. Norris appeared to go for a gap that wasn’t there and his front wing made contact with Piastri‘s rear wheel and it sent him into the barrier. Norris was quick to apologise and take full blame for the crash on the radio.
A full safety car saw a flurry of activity in the pits, but it seemed likely that the race would end under the safety car. There was a potential flashpoint as Russell seemed to brake sharply and Verstappen temporarily overtook the leader under the safety car. They both blamed one another on the radio.
The top six ended up being rounded out by Leclerc and Hamilton, with Alonso, Hulkenberg, Ocon and Sainz rounding out the top 10.
