Brundle’s verdict on Russell ‘despair’ and ‘rejuvenated’ Hamilton in Canada

What a tremendous weekend of F1 action, I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. This old school, slippery, narrow, and moderately bumpy track with many fast straights and heavy braking zones, tortuous chicanes, and nearby walls, almost always seems to create a thriller with more than a few surprises.

We were a little nervous that the 2026 power units might struggle more here than most track layouts this season given so many long straights and less chances to fill the battery, but the teams and drivers are, as expected, quickly adapting and learning how to best use the engine and battery for qualifying, starting the race, restarting after safety cars, and in both attacking and defensive modes.

We can do better yet, but meanwhile, we had a lot of feverish wheel-to-wheel racing, plenty of overtaking where the drivers had to finish the move off on the brakes and corner entries, or defend brutally hard on the straights.

And understanding and explaining the effective ‘Overtaking Mode’, worth about three tenths of a second per lap, is becoming easier to observe and explain. In the end I believe it can be more effective and authentic than ‘DRS’ providing drivers and teams have to work at it and make the moves stick rather than an easy blow by.

We also had two qualifying sessions, especially for the main race, which were old school punch and counter punch, and last driver over the finish line knife edge.

The Mercedes car upgrade certainly moved them to the front of the pack again with a small but undeniable advantage, and although the top five were in the same order for both Sprint and main Grand Prix, a third of a second covered the top seven. I really didn’t expect Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull to be so close so quickly.

‘Antonelli was always going to run out of track in Sprint’

The biggest spoiler of the weekend, for us and not them, was that Mercedes appear to have completely sorted out their starts and in fact George Russell from Sprint pole was best away. We then witnessed the first of two mighty battles between him and championship leader and team-mate Kimi Antonelli. George was marginally more under control and could command track position, but Kimi looked a little faster, something we would see again on race day.

The inevitable happened into Turn One when Antonelli attempted to pass around the outside. He was very close to earning the right to racing room from his more senior team-mate, but in the end any driver fighting for a victory let alone a championship was going to run him out of track. Any of us would have done, or expected, the same.

Kimi lost his head a bit for the duration of the Sprint such that the headmaster Toto Wolff even intervened on the radio. Kimi is lucky to have the wisdom of Bono and Toto at these moments, the rest of us would have just gone straight to the scene of the contact or accident, and recriminations post race.

McLaren had new medium tyres for the Sprint against Mercedes’ used tyres and this flattered them a little, but nonetheless both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri looked strong especially in the second half of a stint.

Lewis Hamilton looked a different driver all weekend, happy with the car moving around at speed, and confident out of it. He dominated team-mate Charles Leclerc who struggles on this circuit layout.

Let’s be absolutely clear, multiple champions don’t have favourite or bogey circuits, it’s ‘A game’ all the way and there’s no other option except for a lot of luck.

Norris managed to split Russell and Antonelli for the Sprint podium after a few too many adventures and lock-ups for Antonelli. Well worth watching and anybody who would still prefer an FP3 practice session after that just confuses me.

McLaren suffer pain for tyre call

All the forecasts suggested a wet race and no doubt some teams factored this in to their set-ups for main race qualifying, which they carry through to the race. In reality the rain passed through earlier than expected and other weather cells moved either side of Montreal.

The grid looked dry for Sunday’s Grand Prix when the cars assembled, but there were a lot of nervous teams and drivers really unsure what to expect next. Few of them had any comprehensive experience of these new lower downforce cars on wet or intermediate tyres. Those that had a little knowledge didn’t enjoy the experience, and it was hard enough to keep the slick dry tyres up to temperature on this track in these ambient temperatures let alone the rain tyres.

Seven drivers on the main Grand Prix race start opted for intermediates, most crucially both McLarens, who were convinced that slick tyre runners would struggle and/or crash.

Then the light rain stopped, and with Arvid Lindblad’s Racing Bulls clutch failing there was an aborted start and another formation lap. It took a while to clear his car off the grid and so there was a further formation lap. And so seven minutes after McLaren’s calculated risk on tyres the race got underway, and the intermediates looked a bad choice on the largely dry track. Painful for them especially as Piastri was asking to change immediately, and it would only get worse with a contact for Piastri with Albon at Turn 10.

Then later Norris parked his broken car on the same Turn 10. It’s the eighth race in 10 years where McLaren have not scored points and so definitely a bogey track for them.

It was a great shame to lose the McLarens from the front-running picture but the duelling Mercedes and the relentless drives of Hamilton and Verstappen more than made up for it.

‘Nothing to choose between Russell and Antonelli

There’s nothing to choose between Russell and Antonelli at the moment, experience and wisdom seems to match unbridled speed and enthusiasm perfectly, and that’s why they keep meeting in the middle of a corner.

They constantly seemed to be side by side especially when either driver ran a touch deep on the brakes into the Turn 10 hairpin. That is until Russell’s Merc expired for good with a rare technical failure somewhere in the power unit. And he was out. In his despair he threw his headrest down the road and out front of the car, for which he would be fined €5,000 suspended for 12 months. Money well spent as far as I’m concerned as a way to process the extreme adrenalin flow and disappointment. Been there, done that.

This released Antonelli on his way to a relatively untroubled fourth straight victory ahead of a rejuvenated Hamilton who grabbed second place, his best result for Ferrari in 29 races, with an audacious move on his old nemesis Verstappen in the closing stages.

Three different teams on the podium, and while not an all-time classic this was a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable Grand Prix as far as I’m concerned.

George Russell is now 43 points behind his teenage team-mate, that’s equivalent to a first and second place, and he has to believe that what goes around comes around. There’s still a very long way to go but McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull are not going to stand still either.

Isack Hadjar served 30 seconds of penalties for moving under braking in defence and breaching the double-waved yellow flag rules, and still came home fifth. He’s really turned a corner, not dissimilar to Franco Colapinto at Alpine who’s an altogether different driver lately and who came home a very credible sixth for his best F1 result.

In Monaco, the next challenge, there will be zero issues replenishing the very hungry battery and the cars will be full of immense power and challenges. I really do admire all the drivers for managing down the variability and evolution of modern F1.

MB

Next up is the start of Formula 1’s European summer swing, with the Monaco Grand Prix the first of six races in eight weeks. Watch live on Sky Sports F1 from June 5-7. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime

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