Russell earns first win of season in Canada, Antonelli first podium on standout day for Silver Arrows; Verstappen holds steady in P2, as McLaren teammates collide late in race, Norris DNFs

Mercedes’ George Russell drove a superbly controlled race after starting from the pole and was able to hold off the best efforts of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to take the win at Sunday’s slow simmering Canadian Grand Prix. Silver Arrows teammate Kimi Antonelli made an opening lap pass on McLaren’s Oscar Piastri to grab P3 from the Aussie points leader and then the Italian rookie drove beautifully to hold that spot for the duration of this 70-lap contest at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve and put a second Mercedes on the podium with that satisfying third place, a career best. Antonelli was aided somewhat by an internecine squabble between Piastri and his Papaya stablemate Lando Norris late in the going, which robbed Piastri of his ability to focus forward and instead resulted in multiple laps of hammer-and-tongs battling over P4 between the first and second place drivers in the Championship. As seemed preordained by the exceptionally hard racing between McLaren teammates, something dramatic was bound to happen and it was Norris who ended up the big loser when he made a lunge to the outside of Piastri down the start-finish straight on Lap 67. The gap the young Briton thought was there was not and Norris’s front wing clipped Piastri’s rear left tire, leading to the collapse of the wing and the end of Norris’s day. While Norris admirably put his hand up to take the blame, it was still a foolish error in judgment that cost the team his guaranteed fifth-place points and also put Piastri, the F1 points leader, at risk of also DNF’ing. Thankfully, his car proved stout enough and the team was able to change tires during the ensuing Safety Car period to be safe and guard against an ill-timed puncture. The race eventually ended under the Safety Car, as there simply weren’t enough laps remaining to remove Norris’s stricken car, clean up the debris and then restart again.

Into the wall and out of the race! 😱

Lando Norris apologised for this collision with his teammate Oscar Piastri #F1 #CanadianGP pic.twitter.com/4FiNVm1hiI

— Formula 1 (@F1) June 15, 2025

For Russell, Antonelli and the Mercedes factory team, the McLaren meltdown just put their sterling efforts in an even more favorable light. It remains to be seen if their pace in Canada can be replicated in future — the next race is also at a short circuit, the Red Bull Ring in Austria, albeit one that’s a lot twistier and with much more elevation change and traditional runoff areas instead of the Wall of Champions. But Russell clearly had the pace on Verstappen, who, despite a very composed and well controlled drive, saw his streak of three Canadian GP victories in a row broken. For Russell, it was sweet revenge after Verstappen beat him last year despite the Mercedes man also starting from pole in ’24.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

If it wasn’t quite was as dramatic as McLaren’s, Ferrari also had a stressful day, with Charles Leclerc voicing doubts about the team’s tire strategy and pit stop timing and Lewis Hamilton running over a groundhog on Lap 13 that badly damaged the floor of his Prancing Horse and cost him valuable downforce. However, Leclerc gained from Norris’s misfortune despite having a bumpy weekend to come home P5 and Hamilton persevered to nurse his wounded mount to the finish in P6. Fernando Alonso gave a brilliant effort to hustle his suddenly rapid Aston Martin into a P7 finish; Kick Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg got another nice result in P8; Haas’s Esteban Ocon scored for the second time the last three races in P8; and Williams’ Carlos Sainz took the last point in P10 after running a super long opening stint all the way to Lap 57 before making his first and only stop for fresh Pirelli rubber.

Top 10 finishers of the Canadian GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in a fortnight — the Austrian Grand Prix from the short and speedy Red Bull Ring in Spielberg. Can Mercedes keep their new-found mojo working at another compact track or will Verstappen dominate at Red Bull’s home race, as he has so often in the past? And can McLaren put the intra-team drama of Canada behind them and, if so, is Piastri now the real leader over the occasionally inconsistent Norris? Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!

McLaren recover from early race bobbles to deliver masterclass in Miami, as Piastri takes dominant victory, Norris P2 ahead of Mercedes’ Russell; pole-sitting Verstappen settles for P4; tensions boil over at Ferrari en route to mediocre results

Six rounds into the 2025 Formula 1 season, the trend lines are becoming clear — that McLaren are the dominant team — and that was thoroughly reinforced during Sunday’s Miami grand Prix. In F1’s first of three visits to the United States, McLaren stomped their authority on the race despite a shambolic start by their top-placed car, Lando Norris, with Oscar Piastri pouncing on his teammate’s pace to position himself for the eventual victory. With Red Bull’s peerless Max Verstappen starting from pole after another excellent effort during Saturday Qualifying and Norris lining up alongside him in P2 on the grid, Norris went for the hyper-aggressive option when the lights went out and the cars steamed down into Turn 1 of the temporary Miami International Autodrome. While Verstappen has made a habit of going toe-to-toe with the McLaren duo this year, in one instance earning a race-deciding penalty in Saudi Arabia for cutting a chicane to maintain the lead against Piastri on the opening lap, here it was Norris who forced the issue and faced the consequences as a result. The young Briton attempted to stuff his McLaren up the inside after Verstappen locked up briefly into T1, putting himself on the outside line heading into Turn 2. While the bold move briefly gave Norris the lead, Verstappen was able to squeeze Norris off the track there, where the McLaren driver lost multiple positions as the lead pack scurried by him, quickly relegating him to sixth.

A frenetic first few corners in Miami 😱

The Red Bull of Max Verstappen just keeps hold of his lead on the opening lap ⬇️#F1 #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/e2GKtq9KM5

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 4, 2025

Despite Norris’s protestations, Verstappen’s racing was judged to be clean and no sanctions were issued. That kerfuffle redounded to teammate Piastri’s benefit and the young Aussie and currrent Championship points leader, who had only qualified P4, was quickly promoted to third place on the track. After a brief Virtual Safety Car caused by the unlucky Jack Doohan’s puncture and subsequent on-track DNF, Piastri quickly made a Lap 4 overtaking maneuver on Mercedes’ promising young pilot, Kimi Antonelli, to seize P2 behind Verstappen. Norris meanwhile used his MCL39’s superior pace to quickly dispatch the Williams of Alexander Albon, the second Mercedes of George Russell and then Antonelli, working himself back up into a podium position after his disappointing opening lap. In front of all that, Piastri was relentlessly hunting down Verstappen’s Red Bull, and despite the Dutch Master’s best defensive efforts, Piastri made the decisive pass on him for the lead of the race on Lap 14 when Verstappen went too deep into Turn 1 and allowed the McLaren to slide on by. While Verstappen was able to hold off Norris for a few more laps, the second McLaren finally made a move that stuck for second place on Lap 18 even after a major, multi-lap battle saw Norris actually give the position back earlier in the lap for forcing the Red Bull off.

Parallel passing for the McLaren pairing 😮‍💨💨

These moves from Piastri and Norris were crucial overtakes on the way to their 1-2 finish 🙌#F1 #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/MjFWQBesIR

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 5, 2025

All to say that the Miami GP was a very exciting affair throughout its 57-lap duration, despite the fact that Piastri checked out to an insurmountable lead and pulled teammate Norris along with him, showing that McLaren, having now won five of the first six rounds, are clearly the benchmark for this season and the odds-on favorite to win a second consecutive Constructors’ title. The rest of the field, however, scratched and clawed their way to the finish line in a sign of growing parity between teams not outfitted in Papaya orange. Russell was able to deny the last step on the podium from Verstappen and secure P3 after taking advantage of another VSC period on Lap 29 to make a cheap pit stop and thereby getting the track position drop on the Dutchman. While Red Bull protested that Russell had failed to lift sufficiently during the yellow flags prior, the stewards rejected that contention post-race, and Russell kept his third podium finish of what has so far been a very good season for him. A resigned Verstappen remained in P4 at the conclusion despite the pole start, while Williams’ Albon bested Antonelli, P5 to P6, an excellent result for both Albon and the rapidly improving Williams team. It was still an fine weekend for young Kimi, the Italian driver having taken pole for the Sprint race and qualified P3 for the Grand Prix, if not quite getting the same results in the races themselves.

Swapping positions 🔄

Ferrari were left wanting more in Miami 👇#F1 #MiamiGP pic.twitter.com/93m7cmKr38

— Formula 1 (@F1) May 5, 2025

Ferrari had both a disheartening and contentious day in the saddle in Miami, with Charles Leclerc only able to elevate himself to P7 after a P8 start and Lewis Hamilton working very hard to get up to a P8 finish after a poor qualifying saw the seven-time champ start from a lowly P12 on the grid. Despite the desultory results, there was a lot of spicy team friction during the race, as Hamilton lambasted the pit wall’s perceived indecision in deciding when and where to swap the Prancing Horses after another VSC period on Laps 28-29 to take advantage of Hamilton’s then-fresher Medium Pirelli tires versus Leclerc’s Hards. While the decision was eventually made to swap the positions, and after Hamilton scathingly suggested the engineers should just have a tea break for a think, the life in Hamilton’s tires had been wasted and the opportunities for further gains agains the P6 Antonelli evaporated. The disgruntled Scuderia duo were eventually obliged to swap back and the rest of us viewers were left to wish to be a fly on the wall during the post-race Ferrari debrief.

The second Williams of Carlos Sainz gave it his all, including a feisty late race showdown with Hamilton, en route to a solid P9 finish. And Yuki Tsunoda scored for Red Bull for the second race in a row by taking P10 despite a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pits on his one and only Lap 27 stop.

Top 10 finishers of the Miami GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in a fortnight with a trip to the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, better known as Imola, for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in the bucolic heart of Italy. Can McLaren retain their sheer dominance at a very different circuit from Miami, or will Red Bull and Verstappen retake the initiative after a few weeks of fine tuning? And can Ferrari get on the same page and achieve a better result in the year’s first visit to their home country? Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!