The Saturday in F1 Canadian GP saw errors from two key drivers in Q3 as George Russell made it two in a row, while Williams has a freak run.
It was a sort of repeat on Saturday in F1 Canadian GP at Montreal of last year where Mercedes’ George Russell took pole from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen – only this time the lap times were not the same. The medium tyres worked for both, as the Brit continued the team’s fine run at the circuit.
It will be a challenge to hang on still considering Verstappen is close behind and points leader Oscar Piastri too in the McLaren. The Dutchman was not in a chatty mood in the press conference after he got upset by questions on the penalty points situation and potential ban.
He was pissed and annoyed by it. His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was frustrated as well after the 10-place penalty for overtaking Piastri under red flag conditions in FP3. The Japanese driver qualified 11th and is to start from last despite the better showing in qualifying after few bad weekends.
He reckoned it was harsh from the stewards, arguing why he did what he did. Much like Red Bull’s teammate, even Piastri’s teammate Lando Norris was not happy after ending only seventh. He had a good Q1 and Q2, but made mistakes on both his fast laps in Q3 to be way down the order.
He feels the update has worked in terms of feel, but not performance which was expected. It will be a fight for podium than win as per Norris on Sunday. The Brit has Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc alongside, who had an equally bad qualifying. He made a mistake on his quick lap to be only eighth.
The moment left his hugely frustrated as he initially blamed the dirty air from Visa Cash App RB’s Isack Hadjar. But post-session, the Monegasque toned down a bit. He reiterated that the dirty air still has an effect, but it was not intentional. His teammate Lewis Hamilton had a better qualifying in fifth.
He noted on Friday that it will be difficult to make it in Q3, but the Brit looked good all-through and was not far off from the Top 3 drivers either. The only ‘top team’ to be ‘happy’ was Mercedes after Andrea Kimi Antonelli ended up in fourth on a used medium set, which was the better tyre he reckoned.
Russell: “Honestly, it was probably the most exhilarating lap I’ve ever done in my life because around this circuit you’ve got to be so committed. It’s not easy. It’s quite bumpy. It’s so easy to make a mistake. You know, I think I almost found seven tenths on that last lap. Every corner I was going a tenth faster, a tenth faster, and it was just like the car was on rails. I just felt in such a rhythm, and crossing the line, when you do a lap like that, to get pole position afterwards as well was just insane. I had goosebumps in that moment. I don’t think I’ve ever had goosebumps after a pole position or a good result. That one meant a lot to me. I think that was definitely the faster tyre today. We’ve seen it a few times before. The qualifying was a tricky session. The people who were at the front—it was always variable. In Q1, I was further down the order.
“Then Q2, I had a good lap. First run in Q3, I was a bit off the pace—three or four tenths off—and it felt like a good lap as well, but the Medium really gave me that bit of extra confidence. But I think the gap still to Oscar on the Soft was still almost three tenths. So, I’m not saying I’d have been able to do just as good a lap on the Soft, but the Medium’s definitely not three tenths better than the Soft. So I think whatever tyre we had on for that lap, it would have been the one. Right now, I’m not too sure. To be honest, we had good race pace on Friday, but it depends on the temperature. In practice, it was five degrees cooler than it was today, and the car was easily in its sweet spot. Now, it can easily go the other way tomorrow in the race. If the sun comes out—it’s a 2:00 race, it was a 4:00 qualifying today—that makes quite a bit of difference. So, it’s not going to be an easy race and, you know, of course, got some really quick guys around me. We don’t know if it’s going to be a one-stop or a two-stop, so it won’t be straightforward. I think, obviously, we’re both fighting for the win here, and neither of us are really in a championship battle. I haven’t had a win this year, so I want to get one on the board.
“Time will tell. I don’t think any driver goes out looking to crash into somebody and get penalty points on your licence. Max is one of the best drivers. There’s no reason for him to race any differently, and I’m not sitting here thinking he’s going to give us more room. If anything, probably the opposite to try and prove a point. So I’ll be keeping an eye, but ultimately, we’re all here to win. You’re not going to do something that’s going to jeopardise yourself from the race. It’s a busy season as well. If you get a race ban, you get a race ban and spend some time at home. It’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world.”
Verstappen: “It was fine. I mean, I made progress every qualifying. We planned it with a Medium like that, and everything worked well. So I’m happy with that. I think being on the podium, trying to be as competitive as we can be, trying to extract the most out of the car. But I don’t know. We’ll probably find out after the race if we did so. But, yeah, hopefully we can just be good on tyre management. I don’t need to hear it again. It’s really pissing me off. I mean, you were speaking about it on Thursday. It’s such a waste of time. It’s very childish. So, that’s why I also don’t want to say too much because it’s really annoying, this world that we live in.”
Piastri: “Much better than practice, that’s for sure. I mean, honestly, I’m quite happy here in P3. After all the practice sessions, I was struggling, obviously. I didn’t have a smooth session this morning, and, yeah, everything just felt more back to normal. In qualifying, everything came alive again. So, you know, there’ll always be the question—should we have gone for a Medium at the end? But I think with how we’d been going in practice, having just a clean run on the same compound seemed like the best idea for us, and honestly, I think it worked well. So honestly, pretty happy. I mean, we always kept it on the table, but I don’t think we were ever that—or I certainly wasn’t ever that tempted. Like I said, practice was pretty miserable. So, I just wanted to have a clean run through qualifying, not introduce any variables that could have made things even more difficult.
“That’s what we stuck to. I think it’s been a strength of ours so far this year—sticking to our guns and doing what we think is best for us. Would we have been on pole position on a Medium? Maybe. But there’s also the risk that it goes wrong, and you end up worse than we are now. So, I’m pretty happy. I’m not that concerned really. I’m obviously not going to get into too much detail on it, but I could have run it if I wanted to, and I didn’t really. It changes some things—some things are better, some things are worse. It’s not as simple. It’s not an upgrade, it’s a different part. So, yeah, I had the option to run it but chose not to. I’ve been happy with how the car’s been so far this year and, again, just wanted to keep consistency.”
Norris: “Yeah, just a couple of big mistakes. One, hitting the wall on the last lap in the exit of seven. And first lap, I think, last corner. So, yeah, just two mistakes that cost me, I guess. I think we’ve clearly not been as quick as normal. I think that’s just because of the layout of the track. I think the car has not been performing relatively well. I was happy through all of qualifying. Maybe not the car to take pole today, but good enough to be up there and fighting for top three. It’s very low grip. I think, first of all, it’s one of the bigger things. And, therefore, the car balance just never comes together as much as what it does on other tracks. Probably just low grip and some of the kerb riding bumps, which just hurts us, it seems, more than some others. Yeah, you can say so, it is easy track where you can push 1% extra and pay the price and that’s what I did. I hope so, that would make my race a bit more interesting, yeah the more opportunity that comes my way, the better for me. I think we can go forwards anyway but not a lot.
“It is not like we can have easy 1-2 like on other tracks, it is going to be a bit more difficult but anything that can help us will be welcomed. I think a podium is tough, just because we don’t have the pace we’ve had in the last few races. But it could be easily a one, two or a three stop, depending on how the tyres behave tomorrow. So, of course, I’ll hope for a bit more to happen, but not as confident as in other places, for sure. Still confident we can go forwards, but clearly I think we don’t have the best car today. So, it will be a struggle to get to the top. It’s tough to say [if the suspension tweaks worked or not] because this track, everything just feels different. So, I think it’s something we’ll have to wait and see on the next few races through Austria and Silverstone and so forth to understand. And maybe back-to-back tests between them both, but it’s nothing that I’ve felt just yet.
“But it’s more that when you go to a new track, it’s hard to remember everything perfectly relative to other tracks. So, like I said, we just need a bit more time to understand if it’s any better or not. It can be a benefit elsewhere, but it’s not a guarantee that it’s going to be a benefit just yet. So, it’s aimed to maybe give a bit more feeling. It’s not aimed to make us quicker or give the car more performance. So, it’s again something that we’ll have to review over time.”
Leclerc: “Could have done better? Definitely yes. It is more than disappointing. Is it impacted in any kind of way from yesterday? Zero. From FP3 from the first laps, I felt good, so I regretted nothing. I basically didn’t change the car since my three laps in FP1, because I was happy with the car. I’m just very, very disappointed with Q3 because I think that the beginning of the lap was worth, or at least good enough, to be fighting for pole position and we are now starting P8, so very disappointed with that. It was [Hadjar’s dirty air]. I mean, we are going to look back at the data. On a track like this with the walls, it’s like Monaco, it’s like some other tracks where it’s always trickier with the dirty air. Obviously emotions are running high when you are in the car.
“I don’t think he’s done anything wrong, but we know how it is. I mean, sometimes depending on where you are catching a car, then this can have a big influence on the lap. It had a huge influence on me. I just wanted to obviously warn him what I said in the car, that I was quite angry, but there’s nothing wrong with what Isack has done. Speaking about Isack in that particular phase, I don’t think so [he did it on purpose]. But we don’t know how much dirty air affects other drivers. It is part of the game, it is qualifying, it is that way, especially I went quite early on, probably paid a price to it. I want to target the podium. But it all depends on how quickly we are going to get past the others.”
Tsunoda: “It was a very tough day after losing quite a bit of time in FP3, especially with the new floor. In practice you want to feel how the car balance is, it is a lot different and losing time is not ideal. Having 10-place grid penalty, it is ridiculous for me. I’m not really sure I deserve that penalty because I don’t know what they want me to do. Oscar having massive damage, spreading debris all over the place from last corner to the end of the lap, he was driving 80 km/hr in the back straight in the far left, he did a good job to avoid collision with other drivers and obviously I saw Oscar driving far left and I understand that under the red flag you can’t overtake. But waiting for Oscar to pit behind the damaged car, for me it’s just waiting for debris to hit me. I saw the tyre was going sideways and I thought the tyre was going to fly away. Obviously I knew that, so I went far right. I checked the car ahead of Oscar, the car behind myself, make sure there’s no one.
“I went far left, opposite way to overtake him with a sensible speed which was 170km/hr. Half the speed of the speed that we normally drive and I got a penalty. So having 10-place is ridiculous for me. I don’t know what they want me to do. Apparently they want me to stay behind Oscar to not overtake. But for me it’s just hoping that debris won’t hit me. I don’t understand with this, especially the car having damage, driving very slow. I don’t think I deserve this 10-place [penalty]. Yeah, it’s very frustrating. Considering that, with circumstances, what’s happening in P3. P11 is not the worst probably. Obviously it’s not good enough at all. But, it’s not a P20 again. I don’t normally start like this, P20, that often. Last two years at least especially. It’s not an experience that I’m enjoying at all. But it is what it is. Time to make the position up.”
The Top 10 saw only three cars from the midfield make it in as Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso led the way in sixth after yet another solid qualifying trim, even though he knows it will be difficult to finish in the same position. Teammate Lance Stroll was caught out by red flag to be knocked out in Q1.
Even though Hadjar made it in Q3 in ninth, a three-place penalty for impeding angry Williams’ Carlos Sainz, dropped him outside the Top 10. The Frenchman noted that he was told the Spaniard abandoned his lap, but it was not the case. He will fight for points sure, but is a bit down to loose Top 10 start.
Teammate Liam Lawson had a troubled run as well, where he echoed that it will slightly difficult to put a lap together. For once, it looked like Williams will have no cars inside Q2. Alexander Albon had a freak incident of loosing engine cover on the back straight, but a red flag saved his day.
It gave time for the mechanics for a quick work and he eventually progressed to Q3, where he lamented that wind change hurt their chances. As noted, Sainz was livid after getting knocked out in Q1. He was not happy Hadjar, even though he understood that it was a genuine mistake.
It was two havles for the likes of Alpine and Sauber, where Franco Colapinto almost made it to Q3 in a better show but Pierre Gasly was knocked out in Q1 in 20th due to the red flag. Nico Hulkenberg, meanwhile, reckoned he got the maximum which the car could do.
Likewise Gabriel Bortoleto felt it had pace to make it in Q2, but was knocked out by just in Q1. Both the Haas cars did make it to Q2, but both Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon did not feel as good as they have in some of the races – this weekend was the odd ones where it lacked pace.
Alonso: “The job today has been done and I’m pleased with P6. I really enjoying driving around this circuit and it’s always a fun challenge. The car felt good in Qualifying and I was able to push the car to the limit. Since Imola I have felt a bit more comfortable with understanding the car and I am happy for that. We have to be realistic that it will be tricky tomorrow with a lot of fast cars around us, but we will try to be in the top ten and score some more points.”
Sainz: “Well, I don’t care if I was fast. If in Q1 you arrive and there’s a guy in the middle of the road that completely blows your qualifying away and that means that your weekend is destroyed. I’m in P17 when I should be fighting for Q3 and top eight today, so I’m extremely disappointed. I saw him already in turn three to four, I was surprised he didn’t get out of the way in three to four. I already lost a tenth or two with a dirty air, but I was like, ‘okay, he’s just playing the game of giving me dirty air’. That’s not impeding, but he’s giving me dirty air of a tenth just to try, maybe he was on the cut and trying to give me dirty air on purpose. And then I realised going into Turn 5, he’s not getting out of the way, I have to lift and I have to overtake him in the inside of six. Like if it’s a race, obviously with a bad angle into six and seven.
“I lost another two or three tenths there, so three or four tenths just in that lap, which is anyway a lap that is 20 milliseconds from Q2. That was the margin we had today. So, it’s honestly very frustrating, but it’s what it is. It doesn’t matter what he thinks, not because it was my last lap in qualifying…everyone behind him is in the last push laps of the session, yeah I am surprised. I don’t care about tomorrow right now, my brain is on how disappointed I am with today’s outcome because I was 20 milliseconds off Q2 and I got impeded. Basically, I had to do a wet line in a corner. Honestly, I don’t care right now, we’ve been quick all weekend, we were quick in race pace, but we’re still not where we want to be.”
Hadjar: “I never impede anyone, not even in practice. I got told Carlos had aborted his lap, and in fact he was still pushing. So, complete miscommunication from what I got told, and it’s a shame, it ruins his qualifying. And probably a bit mine. I didn’t feel happy with the car. I feel like the pure pace of the car is still good, this weekend has been much-much harder to put a lap together compared to previous tracks. There’s a bit of fortune. I don’t know, from my position, it is not really a thing you want to play with, we are going to be aggressive as always and we are not fully sure on the tyre situation, haven’t run the hard yet, the graining is heavy but at the same time the track is getting better every day, every session, so definitely it is going to be interesting. I think Canada will be difficult to overtake, this weekend so far I have had a good start, so maybe I can take advantage on that and we still fighting for points.”
Albon: “A frustrating Qualifying session. We should be top six or seven – that’s the pace we’ve been showing all weekend – so today has been a bit of a bogey session at the wrong time, unfortunately. The wind has changed 180 degrees from yesterday to today and that changes the balance of the car. We struggled as well with the tyres and the result was us falling back a lot from yesterday. With the bodywork issue we had in Q1, the team did a fantastic job to get the car ready and did a lot of work in a short amount of time. We’ve got some work to do tonight and ongoing work to understand the C6 tyre, as we need to get on top of that.”
Hulkenberg: “It was a really tight field out there today in qualifying—just incredibly small margins separating the cars. We made it into Q2 and finished P13, which I’m happy with given how close everything was. With penalties ahead, I’ll be starting from P11 tomorrow, so that puts us in a decent position. Looking ahead to tomorrow’s race, we’ve got a solid foundation to build on. The long-run pace in practice looked decent, and with a slight rise in temperatures expected, things could get a bit more interesting. It’s going to be a competitive race, no doubt, but from where we’re starting, we should be in the mix to fight for points.”
Bearman: “It was a tough session, and I made my life a bit difficult in Q1 by missing the first lap, so I was a little bit on the backfoot but luckily managed to squeeze through on a good lap. In Q2, we only had used tires so that made life harder, and the car was more edge on the used set. On the second lap, I tried to get a bit more out of it, but the tires weren’t really there so we didn’t get to go through. I’m a bit disappointed with qualifying – the car really had a bit better performance than what showed on the timesheets – but I am still looking forward to the race tomorrow.”
Gasly: “It’s a painful one to take to be out in Q1, especially as the car had pace and potential for more today. We were on course for the top ten in Q1 before the red flag came out, so we had to abort our lap, which was looking quite strong and safely through. On the final set of Softs, we were just not in the right tyre temperature window and we struggled for grip and it was a messy lap with so much sliding. We need to review what happened as the jump between the tyre sets was frustrating and, clearly, we had much more lap time than we were able to show. The car was good and we should definitely have both cars further up the grid. We will see what we can do better and also look into our options on strategy tomorrow as it could be a long race with opportunities to take.”
Here’s moment with Alexander Albon: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-canadian-gp-qualifying-albons-engine-cover-flies-off-his-car-on-the-straight.1834937842392820598
Here’s how F1 Canadian GP qualifying panned out