Five Winners, Five Losers: Canadian Grand Prix
- Peter Johnson
- 6 minutes ago
- 9 min read
The Canadian Grand Prix was a modern-day classic with huge implications for this year’s title fight, but who were the big winners and losers?
Winner - Kimi Antonelli
Quick throughout Friday’s practice and sprint qualifying, it was slightly bruising for Kimi Antonelli to be pipped to sprint pole by his teammate and then to drop a further place behind Lando Norris in the sprint.
George Russell snatched pole on Saturday by the same 0.068 second margin that he had beaten the young Italian by the day before, and it looked as though the Brit would be well-placed to reduce his arrears in the championship further on Sunday.
Antonelli jumped Russell at the start, though, and once both had cleared Norris, whose McLaren was lightning quick off the line, a ding-dong battle ensued for the first half of the race.
It wasn’t always high-quality racing, with both Antonelli and Russell making several mistakes each, always allowing the other to remain within close quarters, but once the Brit’s engine failed on Lap 29 and cleared Antonelli’s path for an unchallenged victory, it was clear who was going to have the final laugh.
Now with a 43-point lead in the championship after just five races, and the first man ever to win his first four Grands Prix on the spin, the world is at young Antonelli’s feet.
Winner - Lewis Hamilton
How many times have we been able to say since the start of last season that Lewis Hamilton has truly dominated Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc over a race weekend?
Certainly not many, but last weekend in Montréal was undoubtedly Hamilton’s finest race in red so far — and Leclerc was nowhere to be seen.
Hamilton’s record 104 pole positions against Leclerc’s reputation as the fastest driver over one lap in modern-day F1 has something of an unstoppable force versus immovable object feel to it, with the pair now tied 4-4 across the five Grands Prix and three sprint qualifying sessions of 2026 so far.
However, the seven-time world champion had the Monégasque firmly in his rear view mirrors in Canada, comfortably faster than Leclerc over one lap — and indeed over much greater distances — all weekend.
He was unfortunate to lose a place to his teammate as a consequence of a tight battle with Oscar Piastri during the sprint race, but disappeared into the distance on Sunday.
Hamilton came alive on the medium tyre in the final stint, closing a seven second gap to old foe Max Verstappen before a vintage overtake around the outside of Turn 1 to take second place.
A full 19 years on from his maiden victory in F1 at the same venue, this was one of the best versions of Hamilton that we have seen for a long time.
Winner - Red Bull
A race weekend that started with Verstappen sowing further seeds of doubt that he may soon choose to leave F1 ended with comfortably his best race of the year so far.
While a lowly seventh in sprint qualifying translated directly into a seventh-placed finish, the Dutchman quickly made up places in Sunday’s Grand Prix as both McLarens had to pit early and Russell retired from the race.
Running second for much of the second stint until he was passed by Hamilton, Verstappen claimed his first podium of the season — a much-needed palette cleanser after a tough start to 2026.
Isack Hadjar, meanwhile, impressed once again in the sister car. The young Parisian has had a positive start to life at Red Bull, but had a tough weekend last time out in Miami that he needed to bounce back from.
Even with a mechanical DNF in the sprint and an immature and very reckless defence against Leclerc on Sunday, Hadjar will be proud of his work in Montréal.
The Frenchman was within a 10th of a second of Verstappen in both qualifying sessions, and despite two penalties in the Grand Prix — one of which was for his dangerous move on Leclerc — he was comfortably quick enough to maintain fifth place.
That result ensured Red Bull’s best team performance since the 2024 Miami Grand Prix, when Verstappen and former teammate Sergio Pérez finished second and fourth respectively.
The team from Milton Keynes may have benefitted from McLaren’s poor strategy and Russell’s ill fortune, but they made the correct strategy calls all weekend and showed good reliability, which is more than can be said for others.
Winner - Franco Colapinto
There is a lot to like about this brand new version of Franco Colapinto.
The young Argentine was absolutely nowhere in his first 12 months at Alpine, but has flicked a switch recently, so much so that he is beginning to outperform Pierre Gasly.
The man from Buenos Aires beat his teammate in every competitive session, despite completing just one lap in the weekend’s only practice session.
Colapinto was in form all weekend, trumping his career-best seventh-placed finish in the Miami Grand Prix with another career high in Montréal, crossing the line in P6.
Having scored points in two consecutive races for the first time in F1, and beating Gasly on both occasions too, this is unquestionably the best we have seen of Colapinto. About time too.
Winner - Carlos Sainz
While it is true that Williams have not had the start to 2026 that they would have liked, it is also very much the case that Carlos Sainz is delivering the most from his rather underwhelming machinery.
The Spaniard qualified 10th for the sprint, which was his best qualifying performance of the season, but starting where he finished in the shortened race was not enough to collect any points.
Despite only qualifying down in 15th for the main race, he vaulted up to ninth by the chequered flag to claim his third points finish of the season.
Furthermore, while teammate Alex Albon was desperately unlucky to be taken out of the race by Piastri on Lap 18, there is no doubt who Williams’ stronger driver is at this moment in time.
Loser - George Russell
Without doubt the biggest loser of the Canadian Grand Prix was Russell, who suffered the single most consequential DNF of the season so far.
The Brit chipped two points away from his teammate’s championship lead in the sprint race, made sweeter by the fact that he trounced Antonelli in a wheel-to-wheel battle. He followed that up on Saturday afternoon with pole for the main race, but things soon began to unravel.
A poor start from pole plunged Russell behind Antonelli, but it was not that which ruined his weekend. A phenomenal tussle, which the Brit admitted to having thoroughly enjoyed, could ultimately have gone either way but at worst would have resulted in a seven-point loss to the Italian.
What Russell could not have reckoned with was his engine failure on Lap 29, which eliminated him from proceedings there and then. After more than a decade of engineering excellence in the Mercedes power unit department, it is always a shock on the very rare occasion that one of the Silver Arrows’ drivers sees their race curtailed in such a manner.
It was Russell’s first race retirement since the 2024 British Grand Prix, and it could not have come at a much worse time. A chance for the Brit to halt Antonelli’s momentum went up in smoke, and he already finds himself 43 points down in the championship.
It may be little consolation to Russell right now, but Lando Norris’ engine failure at last year’s Dutch Grand Prix appeared terminal to his championship hopes — and we know how that eventually transpired.
Loser - McLaren
Oh dear, oh dear, McLaren.
The world champions enjoyed a positive sprint, converting a second-row lockout to second- and fourth-placed finishes for Norris and Piastri respectively.
Locking out the second row again for Sunday’s Grand Prix, the papaya car looked second-fastest around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
However, a gamble to fit intermediate tyres for the start of the Grand Prix could not have backfired more spectacularly.
To be fair, after three (!) formation laps, the intermediates on the McLarens had maintained slightly more temperature on the cold track than the slick tyres fitted their rivals, and Norris demonstrated as much with a blistering start to take the lead.
That was where the fun ended, though. Piastri pitted at the end of Lap 1 for slicks, Norris following suit a lap later. From there, both were embroiled in the midfield fight and neither was able to recover.
Lap 18 told the story of Piastri’s race in a nutshell. The Australian locked up at the hairpin, careering into the side of Alex Albon and landing himself a 10-second penalty. He eventually finished two laps down in P11.
Norris, meanwhile, may have been able to nick a couple of points had his gearbox not failed on Lap 38. It was a fitting conclusion to a disastrous Sunday for his team.
McLaren have been playing catch-up since their calamitous performances in Australia and China, and while they now arguably have the second-fastest car, they cannot afford any more point-less weekends.
Loser - Aston Martin
It was the latest in a long line of miserable weekends for Aston Martin in Canada.
In Saturday’s sprint, a pitlane start for Lance Stroll in front of his home crowd was actually a positive outcome given it looked like suspension issues would force him to sit out of the race entirely. He even managed to see the chequered flag, which was more than could be said for Fernando Alonso who retired on Lap 15 with an engine issue.
On Sunday, Alonso made a blistering start to climb nine places and found himself in 10th place. Any hopes of an invaluable point fell away on Lap 23, as the Spaniard again withdrew from the race due to a problem with his seat.
Stroll, once more had to start from the pitlane — this time due to changes to his power unit in parc fermé — was again the only Aston to reach the chequered flag, albeit four laps down.
To make things worse for the Silverstone team, they collected $12,500 in fines for two separate incidents in qualifying. Stroll’s unsafe release incurred a $5000 penalty, while Alonso’s car was judged to have left the garage in an unsafe condition, meriting a further $7500 imposition on the team’s coffers.
Loser - Charles Leclerc
Ferrari’s main man since 2019, Leclerc is making an unfortunate habit of losing out to Hamilton on race day.
Hamilton beat the Monégasque in just three of last season’s 24 Grands Prix, but has matched that tally just five races into 2026.
Leclerc has generally not been as enthused by the new regulations as his teammate, but seemed to be in a whole new world of hurt in Montréal.
Leclerc told engineer Bryan Bozzi that he was going to finish Saturday’s qualifying “in the wall or P8” — the fact that he managed the latter was the preferable outcome, but only just.
Things got little better on Sunday, with the 28 year-old’s only progress through the field coming at the expense of the ill fortune of those around him.
44 seconds off the race winner and 34 seconds behind his teammate, Leclerc’s eventual fourth-placed finish was something of a minor miracle, even if it was the “worst weekend” of his career.
Loser - Esteban Ocon
Esteban Ocon’s weekend in Montréal began with the Frenchman having to dispel rumours of a breakdown in relations with the Haas team hierarchy. Ocon was robust in his dismissal of reports that he and Team Principal Ayao Komatsu had fallen out following the Miami Grand Prix.
On track in Canada, it was not a disastrous weekend for Ocon by any means, but he was entirely anonymous and was once again outperformed by Ollie Bearman on race day.
Ocon has underwhelmed for some time now at Haas, and it is a familiar sight to see him below his young British teammate on the leaderboard.
The pair were nip and tuck throughout Friday and Saturday, but while Bearman advanced from 17th on Sunday’s grid to take the final point in P10, Ocon finished down in 13th.
It is a result that continues an alarming trend for Ocon, with Bearman having now beaten him in 13 of the last 18 Grands Prix; of the five races in which the Frenchman came out on top, three of those were because Bearman didn’t finish.
In possession of a “multi-year” contract signed prior to the 2025 season, it is not yet clear whether Ocon’s future is in immediate danger. However, if relations with his team’s senior figures have in fact deteriorated, he could be on borrowed time already.
Edited by Meghana Sree
