George Russell won his first race of the Formula 1 season as the Mercedes driver held off defending race winner Max Verstappen at the Canadian Grand Prix.
It was the fourth victory of Russell’s career, and the race ended under a yellow flag when McLaren teammates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris staged a wheel-to-wheel late battle that ended with Norris hitting the wall on Sunday.
Russell started on pole for the second consecutive year in Montreal and held the advantage most of the race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The British driver became the fourth race winner this year, joining Piastri, Norris and Verstappen, the four-time reigning F1 champion.
Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli finished third behind Verstappen for his first F1 podium.
The two McLarens came together when Norris, then in fifth, attempted to pass Piastri multiple times on the 67th lap out of 70.
Norris ultimately ran into Piastri and bounced into the wall, drawing a safety car for the final laps.
Piastri finished fourth, ending an eight-race podium streak dating back to the second race of the season. McLaren as a team failed to reach the top three for the first time this year.
Norris, who ended at a standstill by the side of the track with no front wing and a broken car, was quick to blame himself.
“I’m sorry. All my bad. All my fault. Stupid from me,” he said over the team radio.
Piastri pitted as the safety car was deployed and rejoined with a tyre advantage over Antonelli that he could not use as the racing never resumed.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished fifth and sixth, with Fernando Alonso seventh for Aston Martin and Nico Hulkenberg bringing in more solid points for Sauber in eighth place.
Piastri stretches his lead over Norris in the drivers’ championship to 22 points after 10 of 24 races in the 2025 season.
The next race of the F1 season is the Austrian Grand Prix on June 29.
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