Kimi Antonelli won his fourth race in a row and increased his championship lead to 43 points after George Russell retired from the race lead due to technical issues.
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| Photo by Bryn Lennon |
Formula One moved to Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Russell arrived in Canada hoping to reduce the points gap to his Italian teammate, Antonelli, who was leading the championship. Everything started well for George as he secured sprint pole on Friday. In the sprint race, he managed to keep Antonelli behind despite some tough battles and took the victory. Most importantly, he gained two points on Antonelli, who finished third.
In qualifying for the main race, Russell continued his strong form and put his car on pole position for Sunday’s race by 0.068 seconds ahead of his teammate.
The start of the race itself was quite confusing. When all the cars were lined up on the grid ready to start, the red lights failed to go out. At that moment, race control added an extra formation lap to repeat the starting procedure. However, Liam Lawson was stuck on the grid due to a technical issue, and mechanics had to push his car back to the pits. Because of that, a third formation lap was added.
When the race finally got underway, the Mercedes “war” could begin. Both drivers fought extremely hard while leaving each other minimal space. Some fans may have had flashbacks to the battles between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg during the 2016 season.
Despite the pressure from Antonelli, Russell remained in the lead until lap 30, when he suffered a technical issue with the recuperation system and was forced to retire from the race.
It was a nightmare scenario for Russell, who needed to gain points on Kimi. Instead, Antonelli comfortably won the race and now leads the Drivers’ Championship by 43 points ahead of his teammate George Russell.
"I mean, right now it's his to lose. It's so many points ahead. It feels like... the gods don't want me to be in this fight - when I look at the safety car timing in Japan, breaking down in China Q3 while fighting for pole, breaking down from the lead here today.
"But pressure's off. Go out, enjoy every single race, try and win every single race - and I've got nothing to lose, so I don't want to be stood here talking like that.
"It is, of course, frustrating and I want to be in that fight. Hopefully, the luck turns," said Russell after the race.
"Not really the way I wanted to win if I have to be honest because it was a tough fight with George.
"It was very intense but I think it would have been cool to see how it would have ended up because we were going at each other," said Antonelli.
As the end of the race approached, fans were entertained by a battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Together, the eleven-time world champions fought wheel-to-wheel for second place until the very last lap. In the end, Lewis came out on top and secured second place — his second podium finish as a Scuderia Ferrari driver.
In just two weeks’ time, Formula One cars will hit the streets of Monaco, where the next race will take place.