F1. Canada 2025 Review

By Gavin Huet, Chelsea Wintle, Aiden McLaughlin, and Graeme Woolf

Driver of the Weekend

Chelsea: George Russell. Montreal was made for him – dominant qualifying, and the race looked easy peasy. Plus some epic trolling of Max Verstappen over the penalty points situation – both with the media, and scrapping right down to that final lap under safety car.

Aiden: George Russell says he’s driving better than ever and it shows. An exhilarating pole position lap followed by a commanding performance on Sunday saw the gorgeous one claim his fourth win in F1. With Lewis Hamilton now in red, Russell is leading his Mercedes team with class and authority, and he’s not afraid to stand up to Max Verstappen on and off the track.

Graeme: I said it earlier in the season but Kimi Antonelli is a class above the rest of this years rookie class, and he’s the youngest.  After starting in 4th, he finished 3rd to achieve the first podium of his F1 career but that’s not the story.  The overtake on the 1st corner of current Championship leader Oscar Piastri, was a crucial move and he held that position throughout.  A win is soon on the horizon for this young man.

Gavin: George Russell had a great weekend and capped it off with an impressive win but his teammate, the rookie Kimi Antonell, gets the award for that first corner overtake on Oscar Piastri and his maiden F1 podium for third place. Oscar did not have the stomach for a fight on the first corner now that he has a Championship in his sights so did not put up much resistance but it was still a great move and gave the race a different dimension and ultimately ended with the McLaren debacle at the end of the race. I am sure this won’t be the last podium for Kimi.

 

Talking Point

Chelsea: We all knew it was coming – two duelling McLarens have a wee nudge in the closing stages, leading to antagonist and eternal self-flagellator Lando Norris bowing out of the race. Dumb move but probably a good thing to get it out of their systems relatively early in the season.

Aiden: Things are getting a little bit petty it would seem. After the race it emerged that Red Bull had lodged a protest against George Russell for “allegedly driving erratically under Safety Car and displaying unsportsmanlike behaviour by complaining that Car 1 had overtaken under Safety Car conditions.” Russell’s defence was that “periodic braking is commonplace and to be expected during Safety Car deployments to ensure that temperature is maintained in tyres and brakes.” The Red Bull protest was rejected but just the fact that they told tales on George was pretty bold – with us all able to listen into the radios these days, we can see that this sort of reaction from a driver is commonplace. Mind games perhaps? If so, they didn’t work this time, but will this sort of thing continue…time will tell.

Graeme: Finally, after so much speculation, it happened. The McLarens came together. And surprise surprise it was Lando Norris’ fault. Admirably he owned up to his error straight away. There was never enough room to complete that undertake of Piastri but as I’ve said before, he lacks patience and once again he did so on this occasion, ruining his own race and losing valuable points in the process.

Gavin: Officially it is known as “Papaya Rules” but it was inevitable that at some stage it would morph into “Papaya Fools”. Well done to Lando for acknowledging his mistake, but that was so stupid as to merit further punishment by his team. It could easily have resulted in both cars not finishing and heap the pressure on McLaren to deal with the aftermath. I know Zac Brown and Andrea Stella will come out and say all the right things but behind closed doors they will be furious. You can almost feel the momentum going away from Lando in the title race, not that the media will stop with their breathless fawning.

 

Gossip Time

Chelsea: Christian Horner to Ferrari to replace Vasseur? Really? I don’t think so, but given it’s hot on the heels of rumours about Verstappen himself departing, I can’t help but think of The Ship of Theseus. At what point is Red Bull no longer Red Bull? And more crucially, how will Ferrari fans deal with conflicting emotions if the man we love to hate goes to the team we love to love?

Aiden: With the news that Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo has announced his resignation, what will this mean for Alpine’s Executive advisor Flavio Briatore? Briatore seems to be pulling the strings at Alpine, with his big personality towering over the big decisions. But will a new CEO be as warm towards Briatore? In fact, will they want Alpine to continue at all?

Graeme: Interestingly there looks to be some good battles going on in the mid to lower field this year. Nico Hulkenberg has been scoring points for Sauber, Williams have had their moments, RB (or whatever they’re called now) have scored consistent points as have Haas. Those places come seasons end mean a massive amount in terms of dollars to those teams so it’s cool to see this part of the table being closely fought this year.

Gavin: I think Ferrari are gone in terms of the championships this season, again. They are not looking like they are even close to being competitive and with another odd strategy call under their belt they are looking like a team in transition, again. No wonder the main Italian newspapers are running stories about team principal Fred Vasseur being replaced. I hope he stays in the role long enough to see what happens next year with the new rules and cars, but who knows what the board are thinking especially after they backed bringing Lewis Hamilton on board which has so far failed to produce much apart from a shock win in the China sprint race.

 

Looking Ahead

Chelsea: Nico Hulkenberg is a geriatric 37 years old with a 237 race starts under his belt and not a single podium. Could this be the year? Hulk has been looking strong across the last few races, and the tumult at the front could easily leave a door open for him. With Liam Lawson a definitive tail-ender, Hulk is my pick of the mid-field. I love a feel-good story.

Aiden: The only thing Lando Norris can be grateful of after (in his own words) making a fool of himself is that he only conceded 12 points to Oscar Piastri. The Australian now leads the championship by 22 points after 10 of 24 race weekends. Piastri seems to be in control of the risk and reward aspect of his campaign, being careful on lap one as Kimi Antonelli passed him. Piastri understands that accumulating steady points, even when the McLaren isn’t dominating, is the most sensible thing. But Norris comes across as being more flustered, more irrational and he ended up taking himself out of the race and saying goodbye to at least ten championship points of his own. The mental side of this championship is likely to be the difference and as things stand, Piastri is the driver that is strongest in that regard.

Graeme: The much hyped F1 Movie comes out shortly and it’s being pushed pretty hard everywhere I look. From what they say, it’s a very good watch. It’s pretty cool that they effectively ran an 11th team on the grid last season whilst filming.  It also means that there should be tons of actual race weekend footage. I can’t wait to see it. It is a shame that this bunch of amateur reviewers from NZ must’ve missed our invites to the world premier in New York earlier this week.

Gavin: Liam Lawson was demoted from partnering Max Verstappen in the main Red Bull team back to the Racing Bulls in order to get his racing confidence back, but we are really not seeing it are we? Almost every race there appears to be another issue with racing incidents, pit lane starts, early retirements, and senseless scraps. Not all of this is down to Liam and he could still bounce back but it really does look like F1 is passing him by even while he is racing in it. Right now he is the fourth placed Red Bull driver by a long way and with the team getting a Super Licence for Arvid Lindblad before his 18th birthday the pressure is certainly mounting. If there isn’t an improvement I don’t expect he will last the season.

Bonus Photos

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