- Russell wins Canadian GP Sprint after surviving two Lap 6 attacks from Antonelli.
- Antonelli’s last-lap lunge on Norris fails as he runs wide at Turn 1 to finish third.
- Hamilton loses fourth to Piastri and Leclerc in the final moments of the race.
George Russell won the first-ever Canadian Sprint Race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Saturday, holding off McLaren’s Lando Norris and team-mate Kimi Antonelli to take the chequered flag.
Antonelli finished third behind Norris, but the result came after a chaotic sequence of events between the two Mercedes drivers that threatened to define the afternoon more than the victory itself.
Russell led from the start and survived two overtake attempts by Antonelli to take the lead on Lap 6. Antonelli ended up on the grass twice, lost second place to Norris in the process, and made his frustration clear over team radio.
The 19-year-old then launched a last-lap lunge on Norris at Turn 1, braked too late, ran wide and had to surrender the position. He recovered to finish third.
As it happened in the Canadian GP Sprint
Russell got a clean launch when the lights went out and led into the first corner. Antonelli held position alongside him, and the McLarens were unable to challenge at the front.
Hamilton made an ambitious move around the outside of Piastri off the line, and nearly got alongside Norris too, but the top order settled quickly after that.
The two Mercedes cars began pulling clear almost immediately. By Lap 3, Norris was already 1.9 seconds behind the silver pair.
Antonelli, meanwhile, was using his Overtake Mode to close on Russell, cutting the gap to half a second within a lap. He was fighting through Russell’s dirty air, but it was not slowing him down.
On Lap 5, Isack Hadjar reported an engine problem and dropped back before retiring. Surprisingly, he rejoined the race after a couple of laps. That handed Lindblad a points-scoring position in the Racing Bulls car.
Lap 6 was where the race turned. Antonelli went for a move on Russell into Turn 1, the cars made slight contact, and Russell squeezed his team-mate onto the grass. Antonelli kept the car out of the barriers and maintained second place.
A few corners later, he tried again, went onto the grass a second time, and this time lost second place to Norris. His race engineer, Bono, urged him to focus on chasing Norris rather than Russell.
Hulkenberg picked up a 10-second penalty around Lap 20 for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Perez received a 10-second penalty for forcing another driver wide. Neither sanction changed the points picture.
Through the middle phase of the race, Russell was unable to break free from Norris. The gap stayed within one second, which meant Norris kept his Overtake Mode active.
Russell’s medium tyres were visibly graining, and the car was sliding wide out of Turn 8 with increasing regularity. Antonelli, having composed himself after the early drama, began cutting into Norris’s gap and was within one second of the McLaren by Lap 14.
Hamilton’s tyres had overheated during his battles with Antonelli in the first half of the race. He dropped backwards, and Piastri began closing in on him. Leclerc was behind Piastri, applying his own pressure for fifth.
By Lap 17, Verstappen was running a quiet seventh, Lindblad was comfortably placed in eighth and on track for a point, and Colapinto was ninth.
Heading into the final three laps, Russell led Norris by 0.9 seconds. Antonelli was closing on both of them. Behind, Hamilton was holding Piastri back by just 0.4 seconds, and he pushed hard enough to clip the wall. He survived, but the damage was done in terms of pace.
On the final lap, Antonelli passed Norris at Turn 1. He braked far too late, however, ran off the circuit, and had to hand the place back to the McLaren. Further behind, Piastri found a way through on Hamilton. Leclerc followed him through in the same move, and Hamilton fell to sixth in the closing seconds.
Russell crossed the line first to claim his second Sprint victory of the season.
What the top three drivers said after the race
Antonelli chose his words carefully after the race but made no effort to hide that he felt hard done by.
“It was a tough battle; we were all there in terms of pace,” he said. “I tried to make a move, I need to review as I was alongside and was pushed off. Then I made a mistake in Turn 8 and got bumped off, but it was a good battle.”
The teenage championship leader had been vocal and unhappy on the radio during the race. The measured tone in front of the cameras suggested he had taken a moment to collect himself before speaking.
Russell offered the kind of answer his team would have wanted to hear. “It was a cool race,” he said. “It was difficult to get a gap; the slipstream was quite powerful. Good battle with Kimi, glad we are both standing here after the race.”
Norris watched the two Mercedes drivers fight each other and acknowledged that the chaos ultimately helped him. “It was good to watch them go at it for a while and pick up the pieces,” he said. “Kimi caught me back up pretty quick, so today was a good result for us.”
Full Canadian GP Sprint Race classification
| Pos | Driver | Gap |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | George Russell | Leader |
| 2 | Lando Norris | +1.272s |
| 3 | Kimi Antonelli | +1.843s |
| 4 | Oscar Piastri | +9.797s |
| 5 | Charles Leclerc | +9.929s |
| 6 | Lewis Hamilton | +10.545s |
| 7 | Max Verstappen | +15.935s |
| 8 | Arvid Lindblad | +29.710s |
| 9 | Franco Colapinto | +31.621s |
| 10 | Carlos Sainz | +36.793s |
| 11 | Liam Lawson | +61.344s |
| 12 | Gabriel Bortoleto | +61.814s |
| 13 | Esteban Ocon | +64.209s |
| 14 | Sergio Perez | +70.402s |
| 15 | Nico Hulkenberg | +72.158s |
| 16 | Lance Stroll | +1 Lap |
| 17 | Valtteri Bottas | +1 Lap |
| 18 | Oliver Bearman | +1 Lap |
| 19 | Alexander Albon | +1 Lap |
| 20 | Pierre Gasly | +1 Lap |
| 21 | Isack Hadjar | +3 Laps |
| 22 | Fernando Alonso | DNF |
