2026 Canadian GP Sprint Race & Qualifying Review

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Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday.

Hello and a very warm welcome to the Late Breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me Ben Hawking.

Saturday of a sprint weekend can only be one thing. We have got two sessions to review the

sprint race that happened earlier on today and the qualifying session that has just unfolded

as we're recording this episode. Sam, we've got a lot to talk about.

A lot to talk about because dare I say it, it's been quite exciting.

The spice.

A little bit. Yeah, you know, I'm not the local Indian. I'm looking for a curry to choose.

Do I go for a korma? No, a little bit of spice, maybe a booger, maybe a mackani.

There's some real options on the menu and I want it a little spicy.

And that is what Canada has delivered. I don't know, it's because we've just had this gap,

which feels like we've been out of F1 for eternity. So watching a Pirelli Tire roll

round the blooming Argos catalogue might be interesting, but this was fun. I had fun today.

Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the lemon and herb of the F1 world. Who'd have thought it?

One step up on the spice scale. Exactly. We'll get to the qualifying

session a little bit later on in this review. We're going to start out with the sprint race

that happened earlier on. So just to make sure we're doing this chronologically.

And as mentioned, a little bit of spice. So in the end, George Russell from

First Place managed to win the sprint Grand Prix, but not without some controversy with

a battle with his teammates, Kimmy Antonelli, but Kimmy Antonelli not finishing second on the road

because Lando Norris was in between them again related to the battling that the two Mercedes had.

Sam, we've had a lot of Mercedes domination so far this year, but one thing that has been absent

to this point has been battling between those two Mercedes drivers. But if we can take this as the

race went, a good start or a reasonable enough start from both of them meant the scene was set

for that sort of thing. Today was the day that they stopped being teammates and they started

being competitors. It felt like they crossed a line. Well, thank you. They do call me, I was going to

say Sam Shakespeare, but that's what we're going to do. Sorry for the pun. remotely

close to a pun. They'd just call him Sam Shakespeare. I was like, OK, what the strengths.

Yeah, they crossed a line today. And I think we're now aware that there are two camps in

that Mercedes garage. You could hear the outcry, the outbursting Antonelli over the radio, how

frustrating he was. He lost his head for a bit there and Papatoto and Bono had to come over the

radio to simmer him down just a little bit. But it was a spicy incident because Kimmy Antonelli

all over the back of George Russell for a lot of the Grand Prix up until the point where Russell

seemingly slow coming through the hairpin, which means that Antonelli is much closer

to or three tenths away. We go through the chicane, great run again for Antonelli.

And Kim, Karung Chang got gave a really good breakdown of this incident after the spring

qualifying about why this probably should have been looked into as a bigger review.

And it wasn't by the stewards. It wasn't looked into in any way. But Kimmy Antonelli was fully

alongside as they hit the apex for turn one and fully alongside the wing mirror with the front

axle as he entered turn two. So more than comfortably alongside to be given the space and was not

given any space. And I do think if this is not an intra-team battle, if this is let's say McLaren

versus Mercedes, that is protested almost immediately. And yet Kimmy Antonelli is told to

basically shut up, stop winging and get on with driving the car, which I thought was a stern hand

for someone who's been doing so well. But I guess when it's against teammates, you kind of

need to nip it in the bud pretty quickly. What did you make of that incident, Ben?

Even before that, what I thought was significant was the fact that these two Mercedes were so far

clear of everyone that it was a very much a case at that point that they could go battling,

like Lando Norris and the rest had kind of been left in the dust. And I figured at that point,

without anyone directly on the back of these two fighting, that they might go a little bit more

aggressive than maybe what we've seen from them so far this year. And it was quite clear to me,

at least, that Antonelli of the two of them had the pace. He was able to not only stay in touch

with George Russell in terms of staying within a second of him, he was quite frequently within

half a second or so. And you felt like an opportunity like the one he got was on the horizon.

The incident itself, I can see it from both perspectives. From Antonelli's perspective,

it's quite clear. He will say he was alongside George Russell and was entitled to the space that

he didn't get. And as a result of that, Russell should have got a penalty. And that seems to be

the position that many, many have taken. I do think there's a case from Russell's side as well.

And it's not the first time we've seen this type of incident where Antonelli has broke

far later than Russell in order to get side by side into the corner. Russell will claim

he's already in the braking zone when Antonelli is slightly behind him. And he's already planning

on his exit, which is the racing line, which is where Antonelli wants to go. And Russell will

claim I've already made that call before we're side by side. So I understand it from both

perspectives. For me, Antonelli did enough to warrant space to the point where it should have

been investigated. There is no reason why it shouldn't have been. And I've got no idea whether

the fact that their teammates dissuaded the stewards from doing so. If that is the case,

that is a word I'm not going to use. Don't do that. That's nonsense. But they should have at

least investigated this. And in my opinion, penalized George Russell. I think Antonelli did

enough on this occasion to deserve the space. The problem is the way these rules are written

first to the apex on the inside nonsense that we've gone through multiple times with other incidents.

The rule set still isn't particularly clear, is it? There's still too much room for arguing. It's

still difficult to know who is properly in the right, who is properly in the wrong. It does feel

like when an incident arrives between teammates, there almost isn't a completely impartial

stewards. It's where they just go, we've seen it on track. I don't care who you are. We will be

looking into this to see if the rules have been followed. There is a lot of, are we going to

make a formal complaint as a team through the stewards? And if they're within the same team,

the formal complaint doesn't get made, neither get punished. Both drivers are happy to move on,

because obviously they wouldn't want the league to be lost, even if it isn't Kimmy Antonelli,

so they believe that Antonelli was in the right. They wouldn't want to throw away a 1-3 with Russell

potentially picking up a 5 or a 10 second penalty, if that was deemed the correct verdict,

and dropping further down the field. So, Antonelli in a bit of a sticky situation there,

where arguably he's done everything he needs to do, got on the offensive, showed great pace,

delivered what looked like a really great overtake to be shown the door, pushed off the track,

and now no one's got his corner in terms of backing him up and possibly giving George Russell

a penalty. So, I can't say I agree with the way it was handled.

No. And the fallout from this, I think, was one of the few pieces of evidence so far we've had

this year of Antonelli still being a teenager. And the headloss he had into Turn 8, wasn't it?

Yeah. The second chicane.

Yeah. He steams into that and has no chance whatsoever of getting the car slowed down at

that point. And you feel like he's not trying that move unless Turn 1 has happened. And at

this point, there are still two-thirds of this sprint to go. He has already proven he can stick

to the back of George Russell and give himself an opportunity of all of the potential overtaking

chances on this track. Turn 8 doesn't feature in the top three. That's not an area typically

where overtakes happen. Let's not say you can't make overtakes there, but if you're Antonelli,

you've got to think this through and go with a better spot. Because, ultimately,

that cost him the spot to land on Norris. And I think, from there, his job was just made

way more difficult than it needed to be. I must admit, I was really quite unhappy with how he

handled that Turn 8 move. There's a little apartment that thinks he was never intentionally

trying to make the corner with the level of speed that he went through, the accuracy to that chicane.

I won't say he was trying to cause a damage to George Russell's car. I'm not saying he was

trying to cause a collision, but I think he was so out of his mind with the way that their situation

was handled, he was so angry at that moment, that specific moment, that I do think he has

essentially lost his control over the car in that moment. And that is something that the team do need

to speak to him about, because he cannot be driving at 200 miles an hour and risk himself

rustle people around him, because he doesn't want to slow down properly for a corner,

because he's let the emotions get the better of him. He's a young man, he's coaching,

he's got the better of him. We've seen the likes of Hadjar as well have these lashing out moments

where they've let their emotions really take control of them. We need to make sure it's

harness the right way, and we don't see any more of this behaviour where something's gone wrong,

and his reaction is to throw the car into a dangerous situation, and he'll actually gather

himself, take a lap to get it together again, and use that anger almost to harness a better result,

rather than just lashing out. But my sympathy for Mercedes more than Antonelli is very limited

in this, in that, yes, Antonelli today has, I think, acted like a teenager, and it shouldn't be much

of a surprise given he is a teenager. But you take the good with the bad, like when you make the

decision to hire Antonelli as a rookie into the sport last year, and he is now being

frosted into this potential championship quest this year, it's already gone well multiple times

this year, and it will continue to go well, he'll win races, and who knows, he might win the championship.

But the other side of the coin is you will also get episodes like this, but you should

know that going into it, so my sympathy for Mercedes about the, particularly the radio conduct

is pretty limited. I hate the way that they spoke to Antonelli over the radio, it felt

really patronising, it felt like they were trying to talk to a child at that point, it's kind of

when you're growing up with your parents, and when you go, I want to be treated like an adult,

and so they start talking to you like an adult, but they might do something wrong, you're treated

like you're the little kid again at home, and that's what it felt like, it felt like the first

mistake he properly made, that put Mercedes in a difficult position, suddenly he's being spoken to

in a way that I didn't love, I didn't feel like there was a level of mutual respect there, it was

essentially shut up, we'll talk about this when you get home, that's kind of a vibe that I got,

didn't love it, I do think they need to be able to prepare themselves better for a tricky situation

like this, it probably will repeat itself at some point in the future, he's only 19 years old,

he's in an incredibly high intensity situation, mistakes will be made, pressure will rise,

he's probably going to make a mistake again. Antonelli recovers this somewhat

damaged limitation still on the podium in that race, behind Lando Norris obviously in second

place, was looking like it could be worse at one point after the incident, Lewis Hamilton was

putting him under pressure but ultimately gets P3, and George Russell after this incident,

this has allowed Lando Norris to catch up, Antonelli's still there, what did you make of the fact

that Russell couldn't then break away from those two? It was interesting wasn't it, it was unable

to get his brakes and front tyres into the right window which allowed him to maximise performance,

and that tells me that with these upgrades that Mercedes have brought in, potentially the initial

pace is lightning, you know whatever else is building themselves up, but the moment that the

race really gets underway fully, we're talking between 15 and 25 laps into a Grand Prix here,

which of course will have multiple times in tomorrow's race, it feels like McLaren have got

the more comfortable race package out of the pair of them, and we're yet to see if that's going to

come true of course in the main Grand Prix, but the taster we got showed me that the Mercedes at

lower temperatures was struggling, struggling to make sure it was a unlocking all of its

capabilities, all of its maximum, and the rear banding on the rear left tyre of Russell, the

grinding was huge, it showed you that he was really going through his tyres, now of course he

was under pressure for the whole Grand Prix, so he's obviously pushing, but I really was surprised

that he and the car were unable to have the endurance to sustain that challenge, Norris a

lot closer than I expected it to be. Yeah it was interesting, especially given it was a juxtaposition

between the first sort of five laps where they were so much, both of them, both Mercedes, much

quicker than Norris and everyone else behind, and then as soon as Norris is able to catch up,

thanks to the Mercedes battling, they aren't able to break away again, and I think Russell

will be happy on the one hand because he's taken the eight points, the maximum eight points here,

when maybe he wasn't the fastest of the two Mercedes drivers out there, but that might also

worry him to know that he was being pressured by his teammate, he stood up to the challenge,

like he got the job done, but I'm sure he much would have preferred a race where he was able

to demonstrate a pace advantage and win by four seconds or something like that, so

he's got the most out of qualifying sessions so far, he'll be scratching his head a little bit as

to why that didn't quite carry over, even though he's won, in the way that he would have liked in

the sprint. We're doing this now slightly in the wrong order, but I also want to talk about

maybe their biggest issue so far this season, their starts, they can start now, both cars

off the grid properly. Yeah, I think Russell's start in particular was very encouraging,

Antonelli, I figure in a longer run down to turn one, he would have been under pressure for P2,

but we've seen him drop like five spots, I think he would have dropped one possibly two

with a longer run down to turn one, but yeah, it's encouraging for Mercedes, because that's

been the sticking point all year. Yeah, positives and negatives there, it's great that Mercedes

are able to work out that problem, but equally as a viewer, that does remove some of that fun that

we got from the starts, where we said we saw the fastest car having to battle its way back

through some of its competitors. What did you make of the battle for fourth place down a sixth

place featuring the two Ferraris and Oscar Piastri? To me, it looked like Lewis Hamilton pretty

racy early on, but struggled towards the end of the race with pressure from Piastri and ultimately

Leclerc getting on the back of that battle too. Yeah, I think Leclerc is out of it this weekend,

I'm walking the light, I think he was able to just hang on the back of that battle, stayed with him,

the overtake zone, of course, the boost mode that allows him to have the extra energy when you're

in one second of the car in front, and he was just sat there and never felt like he was putting

pressure fully on Piastri to make a move, it was always just, I'm here, but can't go any further.

Piastri, you know that McLaren is as fast, if not faster than the Ferrari, and we saw that

Hamilton got Piastri off the line, so it was always going to be a question of can the race

pace of the McLaren come back against the fast-starting Ferrari, and I think that's fine.

Hamilton looks really good so far this weekend, really strong, and the first 10 laps felt great,

then the pressure started to build, he handed that really well for a while, then suddenly he

misses the final chicane, I think it was on lap 18 or 19, he misses the final chicane,

nothing really seems to come of it, no one seems to mention it, he doesn't seem to give a position

back rowing I think to Piastri, skewers haven't brought that up, so I'm assuming he gave up the

time somewhere and it was fine, but the move that Piastri makes on Hamilton is sublime,

it is so precise, so well executed, it's so difficult to run a car up alongside that wall

in the final corner, not put them in the wall, not get yourself tangled, not go on the grass,

and get the exit needed to get the job done, and of course the Clare there has just got the momentum,

he's able to swoop through and pick off a slow-moving Hamilton who's under that pressure from the

move from Piastri, so well done for the Clare taking that position back, I think otherwise he

wouldn't have had a chance to move up, but Piastri got the job done at the end there,

and I was really impressed with it. I was impressed too, but equally just not surprised,

it's so typical of what we've seen from him with these clinical overtakes,

and I think the start ultimately cost him, maybe not in terms of position, but at least the

opportunity to get in that battle with- I think he could have been in that top three fight,

I think he would have been honestly without that start, but yeah, interesting between fourth and

sixth, I have to say like we've got Verstappen who's finished P7 a few seconds back, kind of never

really in the fight, Limblad after that picks up a point, I think one of the bigger issues we have

with sprints right now, it's a long list folks, the old way in which the sprint format worked,

I'm thinking when it was introduced, sprint used to set the grid for the grace, and it wasn't a

perfect system, and I wouldn't go back to it, but one of the benefits of it was that everyone

had something to fight for, there was always a grid spot available to you if you pulled off an

overtake, regardless of whether you were in fifth trying to get fourth, or you were in 17th trying

to get 16th, the issue we have right now with the new regulations is that the field has split

out so much, particularly with the top four teams being much better than everyone else,

these midfield teams and these back market teams have nothing to fight for in these sprints,

how many pit stops did we see? It was bizarre. But I get it was bizarre, but equally it kind

of just made sense, because why wouldn't you if you're Pierre Gasly or Bearman? We haven't seen

that before to that extent. We're now what four seasons into sprint races, now we've done a good

few years of sprint races, and this is the first time I've ever witnessed multiple teams pissing

cars multiple times to get a run on a set of tyres to make sure that they've done a full

heat system, a heat flow through the tyres, so it's better for qualifying. The fact that they

just abandoned the competitive session for about 15 laps in, it tells you that for 50,

60% of this whole grid, it's a worthless exercise. I mean, don't get anything out of it, and that is

sad. That's the way it is at the moment. It's not even though, like we're talking about

22nd and 21st came into the pits. These guys were like 14th and 15th, like they were in the mix,

but equally they knew they had no chance of points. So you might as well use this for a test

session, particularly with the likes of Alex Elbin, for example, who basically had no running

to this point. Was it four cars starting the pit lane? I guess it ended up being five,

but Stroll wasn't supposed to start there. So we've got Liam Lawson, who didn't even take part in

qualifying. We've got seven teams immediately. But that's the problem, right? These teams just don't,

and why would they care? There's just nothing to fight for at the moment for them.

What would you propose, Ben? Any initial thoughts? I want to talk to you a deep dive here, but first

thing that came to your mind, go on. Roll something up. Abolish sprints. Not constructive.

That's very constructive. I can't think of anything more constructive than that.

Honestly, it's going to be one where we just need to wait for these midfield teams to catch up.

I don't know the dilemma is you either make them more important, in which case

sprints become more important. I don't want that. Or you get these midfield scraps over nothing.

Something I still propose, which I don't know if I agree with, is changing the way that points

work and doing a minus one for every point all the way down to the bottom of the grid. So

first place would pick up 22 points, and 22nd would pick up zero points, and you go one,

23 all the way through. So even if you're 15th and you can get up to 13th, you are gaining

championship points properly. I don't know if I agree with it. It will need me to sit down and

look at it properly, but it's an interesting proposition. I don't like that just because

the winner of the sprint would be getting 22 points. And if you were to perform brilliantly

well in the race and pick up the same result of first, you would have put in three times the

number of laps to get three more points. I just, yeah, it's not for me, but then again,

probably not the target market, am I? Did you have a driver of the session for the sprint in

particular? Oh, I did have a driver of the session. I went to Limblad, I think. Hold on to

that final point. On the hard tyre, was able just to stay clear around him really well,

was really impressed with it. The pace this weekend especially, but in the spring, I thought

it was great. I was pretty impressed by Lando Norris in that Mercedes sandwich. That could

have easily gone back to P3. He could have been in that battle between Piastri and the two Ferraris.

I felt it was pretty impressive that he was in that mix.

It's been good this weekend. Yeah, he has. And shout out to Colin Pinto as well, who didn't

quite in the end have the pace to get the point, but he at least found his way back into the top 10

and really where we saw him throughout Miami as well.

Let's take a quick break. On the other side, we're getting into the qualifying session.

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Welcome back everyone. Don't adjust your TV sets because if you were watching yesterday's

qualifying session, you would have seen George Russell take pole position by 0.068 ahead of

Kimmy Antonelli. If you were watching today's qualifying session, you would have seen exactly

the same thing. It is a Mercedes front row, and just like yesterday, it's a McLaren 3-4 with

Lando Norris ahead of Oscar Piatri. Should we start with Mercedes here? George Russell gets

the same result, probably not quite as simply as he got it the first time.

Yeah, right. I don't understand why he's excited to make it so difficult. He was clearly a little

bit surprised with his team radio when he came over saying how all of a sudden out of nowhere,

you jump up the timing lines and you're on pole position. It felt like he was expecting

to be able to pull that result out. Abandoned is his first run of the Q3 session, which was

interesting but of course had the mistake where the grip seemed to really fall away from him

going through. I think it was turns six and seven and then has to leave it all on the field,

essentially on the final run, which he does and he's unable to be beaten by his teammate again.

So this is his third pole position here in a row. Fourth. Fourth in a row.

Third main plus the sprint. My boy loves Canada, doesn't he? So yeah, I was mighty

impressed with the lap he was able to put in. But before that, you never look comfortable.

Actually, from just a spectators point of view, a little bit disappointed that it has

ended up exactly the same way because in Q2, when we had Isaac Hajar sitting at the top of the table

with Lewis Hamilton next to him, I was thinking, this is great. I'm really excited. This is looking

really fun. It's just turned out to be the same top four we had yesterday.

Yeah. Weirdly, I still have a lot of fun in the way that we got there.

It was a really good day of F1, I thought.

It was still a surprise, not a surprise, but it wasn't a foregone conclusion that we were

going to get this. And I think Russell Wan and Antonelli really brought it out at the end of

that session. Like you say, it's just a very difficult way of getting there from George

Russell's perspective. Didn't look particularly great in the early part of qualifying. It looked

all right as we got into the latter part of Q2. And then, like you say, with Q3, the first run

doesn't go to plan. But that almost encourages Mercedes to do something different because we

know with how close the walls are here, yellow flags, red flags, very common. And what they

didn't want was essentially George Russell to get caught with no lap time on the board and him to

start tent. So they essentially sent Russell out first. No one else out on the track at that point.

What that allowed him to do, I believe, was to do push lap, cool lap, push lap to end the session.

And he was one of the very few drivers, maybe the only driver, who had the time to do that exact

plan. I think a couple of drivers managed to... Hamilton was doing the same thing, but bailed,

of course. Yes, yeah. I just think actually, it might have worked in Russell's favour that

I think so. They decided to get him out there for a reason that they wouldn't have been expecting.

That first lap that he did on that last run made a lot of sense in that he was about three

temps down on the best time. But he just needed something on the board that would have been

competitive enough to get ahead of Leclerc, maybe. And then he's able to go for it on that final run.

And it's a great lap. I thought Antonelli might have had it with the lap that we saw him...

I was just saying on board, but we saw a lot from the side of the track. I think he kicked

up dirt about three times on that lap. So he was really going for it. And yet Russell's just about

been able to eke out that performance. Yeah, two comments from me. One, this Canadian Grand Prix.

The track really makes it feel exciting with the dirt being kicked up that we're seeing so often.

It feels really visceral. We're really there. The second thing is, Pirelli, why are these soft

tyres lasting until the end of mankind? They just never stop being competitive.

Quite honestly, because the softer tyres that we brought last year aren't being used anymore.

These are the softest in the range. You saw Perez run the whole sprint race on a set of soft

tyres, and he was competitive for the entire sprint race. I didn't actually comment on that in

the sprint, but I think Perez's performance on those soft tyres, I know that strength of his,

probably led the top few teams to go, maybe we should have put one of our drivers on the soft

tyre. We might see it in the Grand Prix. Yeah, who knows. But yes, they do seem to go on forever.

I don't actually mind that in qualifying sessions, because I like the repeat lap,

stay out and knock them in. Yeah, exactly. Russell, a head of Antonelli,

by the same margin as what we had yesterday. The McLarens in third and fourth were actually

a little bit closer than what they were yesterday. Sure. I mean, still exactly the same though,

aren't they? Unfortunately, Landon and Norris just pipping Oscar Piaszky in terms of that

teammate battle there. In theory, Piaszky's got to look over his shoulder again, because Lewis

Hamilton could once again become the fast starter. We could have quite literally repeat of what

happened at the start of the Grand Prix, happening in the main Grand Prix, and this is the issue

with sprint races. The fact that we have seen the same top five in sprint, we might see the same top

five again in the sprint, in the race coming true. I don't want to see the same race unfold. Even with

the slight changes set up, you've got to hope we get a little bit of rain or something, but fair

play to McLaren. It felt like a gang throughout this qualifying session. They were there or there

abouts, but never setting the track alight. You had Hajar pop-up, as I mentioned, Hamilton

regularly on the front row. Both the Mercedes guys are always there or thereabouts. It felt like

they were just missing out, and yet once again, they've been able to beat both Red Bulls, both

Ferraris, comfortable in terms of them being the closest competitor to the Mercedes guys.

And ultimately, of course, they would have liked to have had one of their drivers at least on the

front row of the grid, and they came close, but no cigar on this occasion. I think the good news

for them is, with the sprint, we saw that it's not going to be Mercedes running off into the

distance. There is a chance that doesn't happen with what we saw in terms of pace from Lando Norris.

So I think this qualifying session became quite important to make sure that at least that second

row was locked out, and therefore, they are in touching distance if we get a similar sort of

pace to what we had today. And like you say, we might get some rain as well. So as we know,

when rain sets in, people think when we have rain light, it becomes more unpredictable and therefore

easier to overtake. It often works the other way in that it's really tricky to get overtakes done

in wet weather conditions. So getting a couple of extra grid spots is always handy.

So you think there was, with some of the drivers, we're going to discuss in a minute,

a risk that they set the car up for a wet weather setup, and that's why we've seen a bigger gap

than expected between some teammates. I don't know. It should, based on the likelihood of rain,

I would be shocked if these teams and these drivers haven't at least taken that into account,

at least somewhat. But they can't have gone full send towards a wet weather setup because if you

look at the lap times, they're that close, you know, but also just in terms of like what the

lap times were versus yesterday's sprint session in that George Russell's pole time was just about

in the one minute 12. So I think it was a one minute 12, nine. The pole today was four times

faster than that. So they are still for a dry setup going for it. But it will be intriguing to see

if any of these drivers have particularly gone for something wet weather based.

Fastest in the second part of qualifying was Isaac Hatchar. And whilst Verstappen did pip him

right at the end, it was piped. It was a quarter of a temp or so. But both of them again, a little

bit closer to the front. We were looking more at sort of 56 temps yesterday, looking at about

three temps today, showing a little bit more. Hatchar needed this. After Miami, that was Verstappen

versus Sangoda level performance, I think. Well, you know, the crash in the main ground,

pre, of course, but the qualifying gap was just extraordinarily large to turn up to Canada and

be right with him in every session so far. And to only be half a tenth away in the main qualifying,

I think it's spectacular. That's what Red Bull are looking for every single racing weekend.

And more often than not, Hatchar is delivering at the moment. I'm really impressed with this

great session from him. Red Bull is still having their problems though. You know,

who heard Verstappen complaining across the weekend about tyres feeling like they're on ice,

they can't get them in the right window. The straight line speed, I believe,

Verstappen used a rather lovely expletive. So I'll just say it's buggered. And they're not able to

really maximise the performance out of the car at the moment. But I do think if they can just

adjust a few of these tweaks so they can really get the car operating how they want to, I think it

could actually be a very competitive package. I do think there may be two or three Grand Prix away

from entering the fray with Ferrari and McLaren comfortably. I don't think they're that far off

anymore. It sounds similar to Ferrari in that they're just losing a bit too much speed at the

end of these straights. And if they can sort that, they might be on to something. Hatchar,

I'm so impressed by, not only to get that one minute, 12, nine in the second part of qualifying

to go fastest there, but then to be as close as he was in Q3 as well. That would be impressive

in its own right. The fact that he kind of completed the sprint, but he was out of the

running because of an issue and was a few laps down. And then they're quite late getting him

in Q1 as well. And yet he's still able to put it all together. And the lap he did in Q2 wasn't a

one off. He did look pretty reasonable. He was fourth in the first part of qualifying,

where Verstappen was down, I think, in ninth place. So it wasn't a one off. Very impressed

from him. And obviously Verstappen does what Verstappen does at the end of Q3 to get it

just about in front of his teammate. I'm interested to see if they can at least get in the fight.

I'm very interested. I'm very. My favorite bit about this from Hatchar is, I don't know if you

can't see it, as he's coming up to the line, throwing his head forward to try and get the

momentum of the car. Yes. So I couldn't work out whether it was that or it was like,

he has not done the final corner as well as he would have liked and almost like frustration.

Like, ah, I saw it as him like, go. Yeah, it could be. Yeah.

What about elsewhere? We saw Lindblad is ninth again. Colopento this time is the one that

joined them in Q3 rather than Carlos Sainz. But I think, you know, it's looking fairly similar

in terms of a backing order, right? It is. But two time gaps that I want to comment on there

between the teammates that you just mentioned. Lindblad four attempts faster than Lawson,

but Colopento four attempts faster than Gasly in that Q2 to get him through to the Q3.

Colopento has really walked up in the last two Grand Prix. He's found something. He's worked

something out in these cars. And suddenly he's able to operate at an equal, if not, maybe better

level than what Gasly is able to do in the last couple of Grand Prix. So fair play to them. Big

props. Sainz were able to maximize the way he was in the spring part of the weekend. But hey,

you know, it's it's tricky up there. There's a lot of cars very competitive. The other one that I

think deserves a shout out is just missing out Nika Holgerberg, who again, I think my man has had

six 11th place qualifying positions in the first eight qualifying sessions of the season.

Australia 11th, China 11th, China Spring 11th, Japan 13th, Miami Spring 12th, Miami 11th, Canada

Main Grand Prix 11th. My guys make it his own. Also, it's irrelevant because he's going to be 16th

after the first lap. Same thing again in the sprint. These two like just keep going backwards.

What would they like 15th and 16th after the first lap or something when they were 11th and 12th?

12th and 13th for the end of the race again. It's so frustrating seeing Audi be so poor at

starts. It's just giving up so many positions for them when they have worked so hard to get

up to the top of Q2 in these qualifying sessions. I also wanted to shout out Colin Pinto as well

for getting into Q3. Certainly after the sprint, I think I can remember the exact gap between him

and Limblad at the end of the sprint, but he would have been thinking if I didn't have to make a few

overtakes to get into this spot, maybe I would have had enough. My objective for qualifying has to

be to eliminate the number of cars between us because we know that racing balls has been very

handy over one lap, particularly with Limblad at the wheel this weekend. Now they are next to each

other on the grid. Colin Pinto has got a fanciest chances of P9 and then taking advantage of anything

else that happens in front. Yeah, like I said, three and a half, four attempts between those two

and their respective teammates. Lawson and Gasly this weekend for different reasons, just not really

having clean running. Do you think Hamilton picks up a penalty for blocking Gasly and qualifying?

Wouldn't surprise me, but who knows because they've got about 12 other things that they

refuse to look at during the session. Oh, for Andrew, a long stroll related, apparently.

Yeah, yeah, as if it really matters at this point. Oh, bless him. Anything else outside

of the top 10 that you wanted to comment on? If we're going to talk Q1, I want to talk about

Bearman beating Ocon with a broken car. That's not a good look for Eskaban. Yeah, I mean,

the margin itself is the worrying bit. My theory is that the thing on the side of the car was

probably a misnomer. I don't think that was actually hampering him at all in that I think

Bearman's Q2 lap was the same as his Q1 lap after presumably they fixed it. So I don't think that

maybe played into it, but even so that's that's four attempts again between Bearman and Ocon.

And we said yesterday with Lawson and Albin not being part of Q1 that maybe one of the

hash drivers would have been eliminated in a more normal session. Here we go. And it's Ocon

that's on the wrong side of it. It's happened. And the trend continues with teammates that got

limited running in practice, right? Gasly, of course, behind his teammate. We mentioned Lawson,

of course, behind his teammate. Alex Albin, who you just mentioned, I think was six tenths away

from Carlos Sainz, when the flag dropped at the end of Q1. Was it nine tenths? I could be wrong,

but it was no, you're right. You're correct. Six tenths. But still, six tenths is still a

drastic divide between those guys. And I am hoping because there's not something

right in the car for Alex Albin and it's due to that lack of running in comparison. I hope

if it's raw pacing, Alex was comfy. That's a big problem. Also, big up Fernando Alonso.

One second faster than your teammate gets you two spots. Good job. That's your button. Yeah,

great stuff. I kind of lack as well. Bottas didn't get that last run in, but Perez sort of

has been good. I only got the penalty, but it's good. Did you see that, by the way, in the sprint?

What, the pushing in wide? Yeah, little bit spicy. Probably shouldn't do that, should you?

Probably don't do that. Those two, get them away from each other, separate them at all costs.

Honestly, how is it always there? Tricky buggers. Yeah, driver of the session here.

Oh, tricky one. I think it might have to go Russell, you know. I think the way he pulled it

out the back right at that last moment, when they were so close together, I think the top seven

separated by three tenths and it wasn't looking great for him at the end. He did a great job

getting over the line. Yeah, I think I'm going to go Russell today as well. Similar contenders

really to yesterday. Again, Lin Blart has probably got all he can from the session.

Colin Pinto getting into Q3 as well, but I think Russell, maximising what he can do in that car,

matching what he did yesterday, deserves a lot of credit. It's also probably the first time that

Hamilton has been properly better than Charles Leclerc, I think, across our full session. So

the fact it's a tenth between them, I think actually Leclerc might secretly take that.

It was kind of the same yesterday, to be honest, wasn't it? I think, again, it was just under a

tenth yesterday and it was like, that's the best. It was looking all qualifying sessions. So there

is still some magic in that Leclerc car, but yeah, he's not particularly happy this weekend.

Not loving it. No. Well, we know that Ferrari in the past has gone very well in the wet,

which we might have tomorrow. So we'll have to see if we're reviewing a rainy Canadian

Grand Prix tomorrow, Sam. I just want a sprinkle. I just want a little sprinkle of rain. Just for

like 10 laps or something. It'll be fun. It'll be fun, I promise. Do join us, folks, after the main

Grand Prix. Sit down, watch it, have a little drink or have a cup of tea, have a little snack.

Get in the discord. We're in there chatting away and we'd love to chat with you as well.

It's always a good bit of fun. Good vibes in there. Links to the description, as I mentioned.

So join us and then come back and listen to the race review, which will go live on Sunday evening,

UK time. If you're in the US, of course, it'll probably be late afternoon, early evening for you

guys. So choose straight in. And then if you want extra content, Patreon is available to you with

power rankings. And if you do subscribe, you massively help out this show and allow us to

create more and better content to give straight back to you. So thanks for that. Join us for the

power rankings for Canada, where we go through every single driver and what we thought they did

over the main Grand Prix. So we'll see you then. In the meantime, I've been Samuel Sage.

And I've been Ben Hawking. And remember, keep breaking late.

2026 Canadian GP Sprint Race & Qualifying Review

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