Key events
Norris less than a second behind Russell. The Antonelli on-board video suggests Russell was not at fault.
Correction! Hadjar back out. It will be valuable to pick up tips for tomorrow.
Hadjar is out, engine problems for the second Red Bull. A big shame for the first driver in a while to show he can at least use the Verstappen-focused Red Bull decently.
The teenager at risk of being sent to his room.
“If you drive angry, you are more likely to go sideways or backwards,” says Brundle. Antonelli has lost it so badly that Toto Wolff gets on the radio.
Antonelli being told to calm down and he is having none of it.
It all started with a mistake from Russell that allowed Antonelli to close right up. From then, it was tight. Antonelli says Russell should face a penalty.
Antonelli messes it up! Another move fails and he is off the track, allowing Norris through.
Antonelli and Russell right on each other, just avoided a clash.
The leading pair are pulling further clear. The Mercedes upgrades are stunning in their effect.
The Mercedes have 0.7/0.8 between them but Norris is 3sec back. “Miles quicker than the rest of the pack,” says Martin Brundle, but you didn’t need to be a former driver to spot that.
Hülkenberg the big loser so far, down four places.
Antonelli right on Russell’s shoulder. Stroll, meanwhile, did manage to start. Aston Martin need all the on-track experience they can get.
Best Mercedes start of the year but Hamilton will also be happy.
Russell away, Antonelli too. Hamilton ahead of Piastri.
Lights out!
Lance Stroll from the pitlane, if he is to start at all.
That is a brilliant stat: for all their domination, the Mercedes have not led at the end of a single first lap.
Here we go on the formation lap. Will the Ferraris get another fast start? Or will the bank of McLarens stop Hamilton and Leclerc from getting at the Mercedes?
Excellent recycling news from David Croft: the Île Notre Dame was built in the St Lawrence seaway using the soil excavated to build Montreal’s metro system.
The driver countdown is on. We are almost go (unless, perhaps, our name is Lance Stroll).
George Russell asked about the start, which has been Mercedes’s only problem area. “We control what we can control,” he says.
An army of mechanics are working on the Aston Martin, against the clock.
Ouch. Lance Stroll’s car is in pieces. Suspension problem, Collins diagnoses.
Lewis Hamilton zooms by on a scooter, setting a good example to any watching kids by wearing a helmet.
Wildlife watch: in case you were in doubt, all groundhogs are marmots, but not all marmots are groundhogs.
“I’ve set a lot of land speed records and I have the speeding tickets to prove it,” jokes Donovan Bailey, the 1996 100m Olympic champion. Not sure his insights on breathing in sprinting vs racing starts are that significant but more valuable is his reflection on just how busy the grid is, versus the peace and isolation of the start line in athletics.
Kravitz is looking at the new Mercedes diffuser – and Collins notes that Red Bull are having a peek, too.
The cars are on the grid, Ted Kravitz and Bernie Collins are walking.
Will the rain tomorrow be biblical? Today, the animals go out two by two from places five to eight: a pair of prancing horses on row three and a pair of red bulls on row four. And of course two papayas on row two, and two silver arrows at the front. Last time out in Miami, the top four places in main qualifying were shared by four teams, while in the sprint qualifying there were four teams across the top five places. Does yesterday’s result suggest a degree of stratification?
Half an hour to go to lights out for the sprints race. Don’t forget to email me at philip.cornwall@theguardian.com
A reminder of what is at stake in the sprint race. The winner gets 8pts, second gets 7pts, and so on down to eighth getting 1pt.
Here are the leading drivers’ standings:
1 Kimi Antonelli (It) Mercedes 100pts
2 George Russell (GB) Mercedes 80
3 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari 59
4 Lando Norris (GB) McLaren 51
5 Lewis Hamilton (GB) Ferrari 51
6 Oscar Piastri (Aus) McLaren 43
7 Max Verstappen (Neth) Red Bull 26
8 Oliver Bearman (GB) Haas 17
9 Pierre Gasly (Fr) Alpine 16
10 Liam Lawson (NZ) Racing Bulls 10
Before we get going properly, here are the full qualifying times:
1 George Russell (GB) Mercedes 1min 12.965sec
2 Kimi Antonelli (It) Mercedes 1:13.033
3 Lando Norris (GB) McLaren 1:13.280
4 Oscar Piastri (Aus) McLaren 1:13.299
5 Lewis Hamilton (GB) Ferrari 1:13.326
6 Charles Leclerc (Mon) Ferrari 1:13.410
7 Max Verstappen (Neth) Red Bull 1:13.504
8 Isack Hadjar (Fr) Red Bull 1:13.605
9 Arvid Lindblad (GB) Racing Bulls 1:13.737
10 Carlos Sainz Jr (Sp) Williams 1:14.536
11 Nico Hülkenberg (Ger) Audi 1:14.595
12 Gabriel Bortoleto (Br) Audi 1:14.627
13 Franco Colapinto (Arg) Alpine 1:14.702
14 Esteban Ocon (Fr) Haas 1:14.928
15 Oliver Bearman (GB) Haas 1:15.305
16 Fernando Alonso (Sp) Aston Martin 1:15.760
17 Sergio Pérez (Mex) Cadillac 1:16.002
18 Lance Stroll (Can) Aston Martin 1:16.354
19 Pierre Gasly (Fr) Alpine 1:16.642
20 Valtteri Bottas (Fin) Cadillac 1:16.866
21 Alexander Albon (Tha) Williams
22 Liam Lawson (NZ) Racing B
Bearman, Gasly, Bottas and Albon will start from the pitlane. Bearman had modifications outside parc fermé; Gasly had suspension work done; Bottas had setup and suspension changes; and Albon had setup changes – unsurprising after his collision with the marmot.
Preamble
It is safe to say the Canadian Grand Prix weekend is not working out the way it was supposed to for plenty of the participants – as Robbie Burns almost wrote, the best-laid plans of marmots and men in Montreal often go awry.
First, there have been more red flags than on Hannibal Lecter’s dating profile. In free practice, Liam Lawson lost power steering and parked up by a chicane – picking up a €30,000 part-suspended fine for Racing Bulls as the FIA ruled they had failed to ensure his clutch disengagement system button was working. Then it was Alex Albon, whose Williams was involved in a collision with one of the aforementioned marmots, following in the messy tyre tracks of Lewis Hamilton last year. Finally, Esteban Ocon spun his Haas into a wall and needed a new nose. Neither Lawson nor Albon made it to the start line for sprint qualifying.
Once actual competitive driving got going, it was Fernando Alonso’s turn to crash out. The Spaniard was pushing the Aston Martin hard to try to make Q2 and indeed just made it in theory, but in practice struck a wall after setting his time, ending his participation and making it a messy thé-time on the Île Notre Dame, with a long delay.
While Racing Bulls, Williams and Aston Martin struggle to get ready for the sprint race, for the organisers, the bigger clouds are, er, big clouds: while all is set fair for today, it will be absolutely tipping it down all tomorrow. The odds on there being more red flags are surely short.
One thing you can all but rely on in 2026: Mercedes will be at the front. And one man for whom Canada is going to plan so far is George Russell. The Briton, stung by his teammate Kimi Antonelli’s run of wins and now 20 points behind in the standings, just edged out the Italian to take sprint pole. Remember, while other teams brought their first major upgrades to Miami, this is our first sight of Mercedes’s development. As Giles Richards, our F1 correspondent, wrote:
Certainly, should Mercedes have made the same advances that their rivals did in Miami, they will retain the whip hand – and with it the intensity of the title fight between their drivers, Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, will surely ratchet up.
While Mercedes locked out row one, McLaren did the same to row two (Norris then Piastri), Ferrari are on row three (Hamilton then Leclerc), Red Bull are on row four (Verstappen and Hadjar), followed by the sole Racing Bull and Williams to take part in SQ on row five (Lindblad then Sainz).
Russell definitely needed his 0.068 advantage over his teammate. As Giles wrote:
The 19-year-old Antonelli, in only his second season in F1, has been enormously impressive, having won the last three races in a row to lead the world championship by 20 points from his far more experienced teammate. Russell, the pre‑season favourite, who could manage only fourth in Miami, unsurprisingly had to bat away inquiries in Canada as to whether he was starting to feel the pressure.
“It’s been a turbulent start but the truth is Miami felt like the first tough race of the season,” he said. “It’s still so early days and I know how to deal with it. It’s not the first time in my career that I’ve had a bad race or two but in this sport it does change so quickly: one week you have a tough race and the next week you come back and everything goes back to normal.”
I’ll be back from 4.30pm BST/11.30am EDT to see how it all unfolds. In the meantime, read the rest of Giles’s preview of the weekend:
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/may/23/f1-canadian-grand-prix-sprint-race-qualifying-live
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