Canadian Grand Prix winners and losers as Russell heartbreak shakes up Mercedes

Kimi Antonelli left Montreal beaming as the championship leader, but oh dear McLaren… who else features on the PlanetF1.com Winners and Losers list from Canada?

Here is PlanetF1.com’s full list of winners and losers from the 2026 Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

Kimi Antonelli headlines Canadian Grand Prix winners and losers

Winner: Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes

Every time George Russell looked in the mirrors of his Mercedes W17 during the first half of the Canadian Grand Prix, his heart must have sunk a little at seeing just how capable Kimi Antonelli was at keeping up with him.

Granted, the nature of the Montreal circuit and the power of the Overtake Mode meant that the closeness in pace between the two Mercedes drivers meant neither was quite able to break the other, but, no matter what Russell did in the lead, he wasn’t able to pull away from his young teammate.

Antonelli didn’t quite capitalise upon his chance in the lead, making a mistake at the hairpin to allow Russell back through, but it was no worse than the handful of small errors that the far more experienced Russell was making at the same corner to allow Antonelli to keep up – Russell pointed to “threading the needle of how hard you push” with regards to tyre pressure as to why these errors were happening.

While it may not “be the way I wanted to win”, Antonelli’s now 43-point lead has come about courtesy of a four-race streak in which it’s become clear that his rate of progress for this season has been phenomenal from his inconsistent 2025.

Russell is a proven quantity in Montreal; despite this, Antonelli was always on par or immediately behind – might he have started to pull away without that hairpin error?

In Miami, a self-confessed bogey track for Russell, he couldn’t get near Antonelli. At a track at which he’s something of a specialist, his advantage was minute in that it came from being a little bit calmer than Antonelli; at the start of year 2, is Antonelli already a match for the speed and experience of the British driver?

It was through the European season that Antonelli’s form became sporadic last year, and it’s all eyes now on how his second attempt at the upcoming tracks goes to see whether he can consolidate his lead through the opening half of the season.

As for Russell, there’s a long way to go, but he simply hasn’t been able to stamp his authority on this season thus far, despite the clear superiority of the Mercedes and, at one of his strongest tracks, was not able to shake off his pesky teammate.

Perhaps realising the enormity of the task ahead of him now, he suggested that the title is now Antonelli’s to lose, despite there being over 15 races still to come.

“It feels like the gods don’t want me to be in this fight,” he said.

“When I look at the Safety Car timing in Japan, breaking down in China Q3 fighting for pole, breaking down from the lead here today, but the pressure is off.

“I’ll go out, enjoy every single race, try and win every single race, and I’ve got nothing to lose. I don’t want to be standing here talking like that. It is, of course, frustrating, and I want to be in that fight. Hopefully, the luck turns.”

As for the battle itself, it was heartening to see Mercedes allow the gloves to come off to the extent that they did, making what could have been a very dull race into something far more exciting.

It would have been all too easy for Toto Wolff to command a calmer race without the tension of the wheel-to-wheel fighting, and the two drivers produced more excitement in the 30 laps of fighting for the lead of the Canadian Grand Prix than the two McLaren drivers did during their milquetoast F1 2025 title fight, so tightly leashed and concerned by team harmony were Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Radio messages had been sent from Mercedes to both its drivers, urging them to keep the racing clean and tidy, but the decision to allow them to fight was primarily due to the pace advantage over the rest of the field; had that not been the case, or had the analysis of the risk suggested that things might get hairier if tempers flared, Wolff was open about possibly intervening if one of the ingredients had been different.

“As much as we look very sportsmanlike today, allowing it, there could be a situation where we would maybe put it in policy to turn it down a notch,” he said.

The only blip for Mercedes was, of course, the battery issue on Russell’s car, but, as the only technical retirement from 10 race starts at this early stage of the new regulation cycle, it’s not yet a cause for alarm.

Loser: McLaren

“It was just one of those things where, had it rained a little bit more, we would have looked like heroes. But it didn’t, so we looked like idiots,” was Oscar Piastri’s blunt summary of the unusual strategy choice that saw McLaren plump for intermediate tyres on a dry track for the start.

Piastri explained that it had been a “group call”, rather than it being a decision that was foisted upon him, but that was of little consolation as he fell down the order upon his pitstop for dry tyres, with Norris also having to do the same after making the most of the extra grip at the start to sail into the lead.

It’s not the first time McLaren has made an unusual call, with the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix strategy call being the most recent faux pas, but what’s particularly noticeable about McLaren is that there is no hedging of bets: rather than trying the alternative with the other car, both drivers are being put on the same call.

While this is all very fair, and thus also very dull, it does lead to situations where what should be a small problem turns into a calamity. And so it was in Canada: with both drivers mired in the midfield, where they shouldn’t have been, Piastri made a mistake in battle to collide with Alex Albon’s Williams, while Norris’ recovery drive was ruined by an apparent gearbox issue, an independent problem of the pitstop he needed to clear out his radiators after going grass cutting.

With Mercedes running rampant at the head of the field, it’s becoming evident that defending Norris’ title is something of a pipe dream under the present circumstances, and it’s perhaps for this reason that McLaren felt the need to take a big gamble on the tyres – even if the explanation afterwards didn’t own up to it being a calculated risk.

Team boss Andrea Stella explained afterwards that, at the point in time where a decision was needed on the tyres, the intermediate was the right choice and, had the delays with the extra formation laps not occurred, McLaren could have been rewarded.

“The track was greasy, and the right tyre at the time was the intermediate tyre, so I was really interested in seeing a race start at the time where the race should have started,” he said.

“If you looked at the pit lane, it went from being dark grey to grey, like dry. So I think we always have to be a bit careful in judging decisions simply from the outcome.

“I think you have to judge the decision at the time that they needed to be made and, had the race started at the right time, we could have seen, I think, cars struggling on dry tyres.”

It was a tricky weekend to judge McLaren’s pace on, as, while Norris was in the mix for the win in the Sprint, and there was optimism about being so close to Mercedes’ pace despite not using the full upgrade package available, Stella suggested podium pace wasn’t possible even without the complications of the start.

“Even when we were in free air, I don’t think we exhibited any competitive pace at the level that we had exhibited up until today,” he said.

“I can only point this towards the lack of tyre temperature. The drivers kept locking tyres and going long in corners, and just not getting the front tyres to work at all.

“So I would say that, even in a normal race, in a race in which we had no issues, looking at the pace of the other cars that were contending for the podium, I’m not sure that today we would have had this pace, based on the laps that we did when we had the possibility to use the full potential.”

It’s been a mixed bag of fortune for McLaren so far this season, in which it’s clear the MCL40 is very fast, but, without the benefit of a pace advantage, the occasionally bizarre decision-making that made the 2025 title fight a mountain out of a molehill is still happening.

Winner: Lewis Hamilton

The seven-time F1 World Champion is no stranger to success in Montreal and, on a weekend where he upended his usual preparations by shunning the simulator, showed up full of beans and produced his most competitive weekend in some time.

“I can’t even begin to explain how deep I’ve had to dig to be able to get to this point, and the work and moving mountains in the background to enable this sort of performance,” he said afterwards, before pointedly suggesting the synergy with his race engineer played a big part in his step forward.

With Carlo Santi stepping up to replace Riccardo Adami after the latter was reassigned for this season, Hamilton singled Santi out for praise.

“I chose a different setup this weekend through just ciphering through the data, working really well with my engineer [Carlo Santi]. He’s absolutely awesome, and I’m really loving working with him.

“My number two did a fantastic job this weekend and helped me really pull more performance out of the car, getting into a much sweeter place. And I was able to attack all the corners finally. And as I said, there’s a lot of changes that I’ve had to ask for, and Fred’s [Vasseur, team boss] been super supportive and again also moving mountains in order to make me comfortable. And it’s finally starting to show in my performance.”

As for the use of the sim, Hamilton explained that he can now go back to Maranello armed with the knowledge of the Canadian weekend to help with aspects of correlation to figure out where he’s been previously led astray.

With Hamilton coming out on top in a battle with Max Verstappen, a fight both men enjoyed, it appears the lost Lewis of the past few years is starting to fade, although how much of this was flattered by an off weekend for Charles Leclerc remains to be seen.

“It’s been a nightmare of a weekend,” Leclerc said after the chequered flag, revealing that he has had zero feeling from the tyres throughout.

“The result [P4] is much better than the feeling I had in the car, but in those kinds of weekends when the feeling is not there, my job is to maximise the points, which, with a bit of luck, actually is a good result, considering the very bad sensations.”

More from the Canadian Grand Prix

George Russell receives suspended €5000 fine after triggering FIA investigation

Oscar Piastri admits McLaren ‘looked like idiots’ in Canadian GP strategy backfire

Loser: Audi

Like McLaren, Audi also opted for the intermediate tyre for the race start and, also like McLaren, spent the Grand Prix trying to make up for that error, albeit with a car that wasn’t a frontrunner.

It led to Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto only managing 12th and 13th in a race with just 16 finishers, and the decision to start on the intermediates was explained by racing director Allan McNish later.

“The race was heavily influenced by the weather conditions and the tyre decisions at the start,” he said.

“It was a finely balanced call between compounds, and while we opted for the intermediate tyre, based on the information available at the time, in hindsight, the delayed start ultimately meant it was not the ideal strategy.

“From that point onwards, it was always going to be difficult to recover track position, and we ultimately finished P12 and P13. While there are some positives to take from the weekend in terms of reliability and completing every session cleanly, there is still work to do to convert our pace into stronger race results.”

But, while strategy meant Audi started on the back foot, the outright pace wasn’t there either, as Hulkenberg explained about how Carlos Sainz, who also started on the intermediate and had to swap to slicks, “ran away from us”.

As for Bortoleto, he pointed to the difficulty in Audi getting the tyres up to temperature on a cold day and said it was “worse than we were expecting”.

With less to lose than McLaren, Audi’s gamble was understandable in terms of rolling the dice but, on this occasion, there was no reward for that choice.

Winner: Max Verstappen

It was a decent day for Red Bull overall, although Max Verstappen was at pains to point out how his final position of third place, his first podium of the year, was helped greatly by Russell’s retirement and McLaren messing up on strategy.

It wasn’t the easiest weekend for Red Bull, with the RB22 proving recaltricant when it came to ride quality and the medium tyre: Verstappen explained afterwards that, while he felt good on the soft tyre, on which he overtook Hamilton in the first stint, he couldn’t switch the yellow-marked Pirellis on in the same way.

“I never really felt like I could switch on the tyre, so the tyre was just not in the right window for us, and that stint was then a little bit more difficult to feel any kind of grip,” he said of the medium.

“But we still did a good job. I think for us to have our first podium is just very positive and, of course, very pleased with that in quite tricky conditions, I would say.”

The Dutch driver has been open about wanting to see change on the power unit front for 2027, and while he was reluctant to speak negatively after the race after a good result, he pointed to his Nurburgring 24 Hours experience as being how great racing can be with “pure motorsport”, as he spoke again about the current formula being overly complex.

But, despite his distaste, Verstappen still gave his all as he joked, “give an F1 driver a rental car and we’ll give you a good show”, and he landed the first podium finish for the impressive Red Bull Powertrains engine that has been the positive surprise of the season so far.

With Verstappen on the podium, it was also a decent showing from Isack Hadjar as the French driver bounced back from his poor Miami weekend. It wasn’t flawless execution from him, as he picked up two significant penalties, one for weaving to block Charles Leclerc and another for failing to slow for yellow flags, but the served penalties ultimately made no difference to his result, thanks to three front-running cars being out of the picture.

“I think it’s just confirming that we are going in the right direction of development,” team boss Laurent Mekies said, as he suggested Red Bull was closer to the outright pace than it had been in Miami.

It’s been a positive few weeks for the Red Bull squad after the apparent step forward made in Miami, but what was particularly noticeable from Mekies this weekend was that, for the first time, he engaged in a little bit of political needling in the press conference as he spoke about his understanding being that GianPiero Lambiase is off to McLaren to be team principal, which is not the official stance of the move.

It was a performance that his predecessor, Christian Horner, would have been proud of, and perhaps the first indication that Mekies is stepping up to the plate and realising that, in order to succeed and destablise rivals, playing friends with everyone isn’t necessarily the right path.

Loser: Cadillac

After the high of the Sprint race gamble on the soft tyre with Sergio Perez, Cadillac tried something audacious again on Sunday with the intermediate tyre on both cars.

Of course, this turned out to be wrong, but Perez had got back into position to fight with Haas’ Esteban Ocon, who finished 14th, before the Cadillac’s front suspension went boom. This was despite the team pointing out that he had not hit kerbing or damaged the car.

As for Valtteri Bottas, an anonymous weekend continued on race day as he “struggled with the balance”, winding up in 16th and last of the classified finishers.

Operationally, the team is open about needing to make improvements, but it is cognisant of that fact and not burying its head in the sand about its shortcomings. In brighter news, the upgrades introduced to the car appear to be working: Cadillac is no longer guaranteed to be the car propping up the tail of the field.

Winner: Franco Colapinto

A Sprint weekend with no practice might strike fear into the hearts of many drivers. But not the new and improved Franco Colapinto, who has clearly mixed up his Weetabix recipes in recent races.

Three weeks on from his career-best seventh-place finish in Miami, he’s gone one better to finish sixth, and finish as best of the rest after starting on the medium tyre.

This call turned out to be decisive, with a swap to the hard tyre seeing strong pace throughout, and, having found an increasing level of comfort with the A526 as upgrades have been rolled out to bring him to the same specification as Pierre Gasly this weekend, he spoke of his pride at having maximised his weekend despite the difficult start.

“I think as a team we are really strong now, and we are personally really maximising each session, which makes me really proud and very happy,” he said.

“We just need to keep going on the same way, we have to keep pushing, and I’m sure we are gonna get better and better results than this, but personally, really happy.”

With Colapinto outperforming the highly-rated Gasly, even if the French driver also put in a great drive to take eighth place in what he labelled “damage limitation”, it’s starting to look increasingly likely that the Argentine will retain his seat for next year, and the positive confidence spiral is gathering momentum.

Winner: Liam Lawson

Arvid Lindlad would likely have been in the battle for sixth or seventh had his car decided it didn’t like gears any more while on the grid but, having had a tough weekend up until the race, Liam Lawson stepped up to the plate and delivered when he needed to.

But, while the end result was good, Lawson wasn’t thrilled when he spoke to the media afterwards, explaining that it had been a hard weekend in which he had struggled to find a lot of speed.

Enjoying a hard-fought battle with Gasly, a car Lawson identified as having great race pace, the Kiwi driver came out on top, but said his job had been much more difficult due to his inability to get the tyres up to temperature.

With Lindblad proving something of an unflappable star in the other car, Lawson needs a big year to ensure he remains a priority for Red Bull. Capitalising on opportunities is the way to do that and, in Canada, that’s exactly what he achieved.

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