Probation and Revenge - 2026 F1 Canadian GP Review

The forecast for the Montreal weekend also predicted a high probability of rain on Sunday. However, the rain passed before the race started, and the first wet race under the new regulations was once again put on hold.

However, it seems there was a team that was caught off guard in a different way by the slightly damp track surface after the rain stopped...

《This review is, so to speak, a post-race analysis of F1. I will not post the results, nor will I follow the race development in detail. So, what am I writing about? I am focusing on the important highlights of the event, or conversely, on topics that nitpick the details. I hope you can enjoy it casually.》

■ Antonelli's 4th consecutive win!

To start with the result, pole-sitter Russell retired due to trouble, and after that, it was an easy win for Antonelli. However, if both Mercedes drivers had finished the race, it wouldn't have been strange for either of them to win, so I don't think Antonelli's victory was a fluke.

In Saturday's sprint, Antonelli, who desperately wanted to overtake Russell, made an unreasonable move and complained on the radio, saying, "I was pushed out!", for which he was scolded by Toto Wolff.

Following this, the team held discussions with Russell and Antonelli to clarify what is and isn't allowed on the track when teammates are fighting for the lead. In fact, both drivers seemed to head into Sunday's race with a clear mind, saying, "Everything has been cleared up."

And on Sunday, I was surprised by Antonelli's high adaptability, including his mental state. This is because Antonelli's way of attacking Russell had completely changed from the sprint. I wanted to watch that clean yet tense battle until the very end.

This is just my personal opinion, but there is no doubt that Antonelli is championship material. Since the inception of the F1 World Championship, 16 drivers, including Antonelli, have recorded 4 consecutive wins, and all 15 of the past drivers have been World Champions. Well, if he continues to grow smoothly like this, he won't become the "only exception." Whether that happens within this year is another matter.

By the way, Mercedes' starts have improved quite a bit, haven't they? In Canada, they didn't drop significantly in position in either the sprint or the Grand Prix. It seems they have been making steady efforts, such as fixing the clutch software and modifying the paddles to make subtle operations easier.

■ Poor Russell

Even so, Russell was truly pitiful. He must have been determined to win this time! He won here in Montreal last year, and this weekend he had a pole-to-win in the sprint and also took pole in the Grand Prix qualifying.

The cause of the car stopping was an ERS-related trouble, and everything shut down suddenly. He was fined 5,000 euros (approximately 930,000 yen at the time of writing) for throwing away his headrest when getting out of the car, but this came with a 12-month suspended sentence. Perhaps the FIA felt a little sympathetic and gave him a suspended sentence.

The look on Russell's face as he stood stunned by the fence while the car was being recovered, that expression of pure disbelief, left a strong impression on me.

■ The messy McLaren

What on earth was McLaren's tire choice of starting on intermediates? Both Norris and Piastri questioned it at the time of the first formation lap, saying, "I think it's already slicks..."

It's a mystery why the team insisted on intermediates when they had started from the second row. In terms of position, I don't think they needed to take a huge risk and go for a "do or die" strategy to aim for a large haul of points.

The team must have calculated, "The slick runners will all struggle to get heat into their tires, so we might be able to gain one pit stop's worth of time on intermediates in the meantime." They must have thought that way because they believed they wouldn't be able to warm up the slicks well on this track surface either.

However, Lindblad got stuck on the grid, there were two aborted starts, and the track dried out more and more during that time. Or rather, perhaps the track wasn't as wet as the McLaren leadership had thought or hoped from the beginning.

In the end, Norris and Piastri changed tires on the 1st and 2nd laps respectively and lost track position, Piastri rammed into Albon's side at the hairpin and pitted again for a nose change, and Norris retired due to a broken gearbox. Well, to put it mildly, it was a disaster.

After the race, team principal Andrea Stella said, "We struggled to keep the tire temperature up during the race. At that pace, even if we had started on dry tires, I don't think we could have kept up with Hamilton or Verstappen."

■ Battle between former champions

The battle between Verstappen and Hamilton was also worth watching. It didn't turn into yo-yo racing, it was a tense fight, and both of them seemed to be really enjoying it.

This weekend, Hamilton was highly motivated from the start. It seems the car was moving exactly as he wanted. In fact, even watching his behavior on the track, you could tell he was fully engaged, and his comments were positive throughout.

His "excitement" in the parc ferme, where he hugged and lifted Antonelli from behind, was also impressive. A 41-year-old former champion who has been in F1 for nearly 20 years being that happy about a 2nd place finish!

Verstappen's 3rd place finish was, frankly speaking, a fluke. One Mercedes disappeared, both McLarens self-destructed, and the other Ferrari was lackluster throughout the weekend.

The problem of the car bouncing that he complained about in practice was apparently resolved to some extent by Sunday. However, he struggled to keep the tire temperature within the range, and he struggled in that respect. Indeed, there was even a radio communication saying, "The tire temperature is dropping!"

Even so, it seems he enjoyed the battle with Hamilton. It was nice to see them looking back on the race amicably while watching the highlights in the cool-down room. Actually, they don't get along that badly, do they?

■ The reason for less yo-yoing

There was a technical reason why yo-yo racing wasn't very noticeable at this Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Due to the course layout, there were limited places to harvest, and the flexibility of programming for deployment and harvesting was low, so it seems every team had similar programs.

Therefore, there was almost no situation where one car was fully deploying while another car was running out of electricity in the same place. This is good in that incidents likeBearman's crash at Suzukaare less likely to occur.

In fact, looking at the onboard footage, especially on the back straight before the final chicane, every car was entering super clipping at almost the same timing. As a result, just like last year, the battle was mainly about braking on entry.

By the way, the fact that we often saw scenes where a driver would make a mistake under braking at Turn 10 (the hairpin) and get overtaken, only to overtake them back on the next straight, also seems to have been influenced by the wind direction. It was easy to make a mistake because the downforce was lost due to a tailwind on the entry to the hairpin, and the back straight after that was a headwind, so the slipstream was effective.

■ Hadjar, calm down for a moment

Hadjar's tight squeeze on Leclerc on the back straight was, as he said himself after the race, "a bit too much." A 10-second penalty is a natural punishment. Furthermore, he also received a stop-and-go penalty for ignoring yellow flags.

Squeezing during a battle can't exactly be called part of racing. But the rules regarding yellow flags are also about the safety of the marshals, so violating them is out of the question. It's something you absolutely must not do, which is why the penalty is so heavy.

Even so, he had a large gap to the cars behind, and even after pitting late in the race to serve his penalty and returning to the track on softs, the result was still 5th place, so it was truly a waste.

After studying for a year in the junior team, he came to Red Bull in high spirits, but this year the situation is a bit different, and he can't really fight at the top. He might be feeling a bit frustrated. But impatience is forbidden. Let's calm down for a moment, Isack.

By the way, I noticed during the battle between Hadjar and Leclerc, when looking at the timing of the rear flap closing at the end of the back straight, wasn't Ferrari just a little faster than Red Bull?

There is a regulation that the opening and closing operation of active aero must be completed within 0.4 seconds. Therefore, if the timing is different, it means Red Bull's operation time is short, or otherwise, Ferrari, or Leclerc's operation, closed it early. Since the movement is different even for the same "curl-in," there might be a reason like Ferrari needing to close it a bit early to prevent the aerodynamics from becoming unstable.

■ Revenge for the groundhog

Albon hit a groundhog, a specialty of the Canadian GP, in FP1 and lost control, resulting in a crash. However, that decisive scene never made it to the international broadcast until the end. It must have been a splatter scene too gruesome to look at...

There is a site called Lolipopman Comics (https://youtu.be/Damx5skEqJg?si=VUvxZXZtaEwAo2q_) that shows comical animations based on F1 Grands Prix, and I look forward to watching it every time. In this Canadian GP edition, there was a scene where Piastri exchanged a thumbs-up with the groundhog that had ascended to heaven after "taking out" Albon perfectly during the race, and I laughed.

By the way, this site is only in English for both audio and subtitles, but I think core F1 fans can generally understand what they are talking about. Even if you just watch it without following the content, it's interesting because it captures the characteristics of the voices and speaking styles of the drivers and team members well. It also picks up super maniacal topics accurately. I recommend it.

However, Albon crashed on Friday and was also damaged in Sunday's race, so this is no laughing matter. For Williams, the expenses for repairs and parts production must be a real headache.

■ Fine for Racing Bulls

In Friday's FP1, less than 10 minutes after the session started, Lawson stopped his car on the side of the track due to hydraulic trouble. However, a problem occurred where the marshals could not remove the car, and it couldn't be handled with a VSC, so it became a red flag.

It seems the CDS (Clutch Disconnecting System) did not function, and they couldn't push the car to move it. The FIA deemed this a serious violation and fined the team 30,000 euros (approximately 5.6 million yen). Of this, 20,000 euros is said to be a suspended sentence, but they have to pay 10,000 euros (approximately 1.9 million yen). Ouch.

The CDS is a system that all cars are required to have installed so that marshals can disengage the clutch by pressing a button from the outside. If this is available, even if the hydraulics suddenly drop and the car stops with the gears engaged like this time, you can disengage the clutch and move the car by pushing it by hand. Incidentally, since it is a system for such purposes, it is said that it must be able to operate for 15 minutes even if the power and hydraulic pressure are lost.

Therefore, if this does not work, it takes time to clear the stopped vehicle, which can affect the entire event schedule. It is also a huge nuisance to other teams and race organizers. Especially in a sprint format weekend, there is only one free practice session.

It is said that Racing Bulls adopts a design that uses the CDS also as an anti-stall. However, it seems they had already received a warning from the FIA saying, "It is not a violation, but dual-use is not desirable." In other words, it seems they ignored that warning and continued to use it, and when this trouble occurred, it incurred the FIA's anger.

■ Aston, still no upgrades

While other teams are constantly introducing new development parts, Aston Martin had no upgrades this time either. Well, I understand they have other things to worry about.

When asked for a comment on that matter, Alonso reportedly said this aptly: "If you're 2 seconds slower in lap time, putting on an upgrade that makes you 0.5 seconds faster is a waste of money."

It was a perfectly logical argument that only Master Fernando could say.

■ Sainz's helmet

I hadn't noticed until this weekend, but Sainz's helmet has changed from Bell to Stilo. It's the same helmet manufacturer used by Stroll and Bottas. When I looked into it, it seems his contract with Stilo started from the beginning of this season.

Well, in short, it probably means that Stilo offered better terms than the Bell helmets he had been using until now. As for Stilo, they might be thinking, 'Our contracted driver isn't appearing on TV at all. Do something about it!' (just a wild guess).

I think it was a good move to set their sights on Sainz as a new advertising face for the company after seeing his performance last season. However, unfortunately, it seems the team's performance is a bit lackluster this year...

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Once again, the Italian and German national anthems played during the podium ceremony. These are two songs I heard so much during the Schumacher era that I could even sing them a cappella, but the fact that the order is now reversed seems to symbolize something new.

In the review of the Chinese GP where Antonelli won his first race, I wrote that 'the Ferrari mechanics should join in and sing the Italian national anthem to celebrate his victory.' This time, the international TV feed captured a few of the people in red clothes standing under the podium singing the Italian national anthem in low voices. I suppose they just can't help but sing it, being Italian.

June 2, 2026