Following Qualifying, Lawson and Gasly fitted new engines (not themselves, personally), which meant that they would start from the pit lane. Tsunoda was in 18th after his 10 place penalty. Hadjar was 12th after a three place drop for impeding Sainz, as he started 16th this would be no consolation for the Williams driver.
It was a clean start. Albon was both under pressure and pressuring others but went across a chicane and through the grass, dropping back places. Antonelli got past a risk-averse Piastri for third place. Then there was a quiet ten laps until Norris overtook Hamilton and Alonso, and Antonelli started to really challenge Verstappen. He avoided it by pitting very early. The race leader, Russell, followed him in on the next lap, which put Antonelli out front. Then he pitted. There was confusion brought on my the Red Bull strategy, so many drivers having taken a stop, it was hard to see who would be where.
By lap 21 everyone had pitted apart from Norris and LeClerc, who were in front, a cluster of Ocon, Sainz, Albon (one team mate having gotten past the other, who was very irate with the team for not listening to him), Tsunoda, Bortoleto and Stroll, then Lawson and Gasly, who would be returned to the back of the pack when they did.
Albon refused to box and a numbers of cars overtook him in quick succession. When he did pit he was last.
LeClerc pitted just before the halfway point and immediately questioned the choice of tyre Ferrari had given him. LeClerc had asked for Plan C as he felt the tyres were okay. Ferrari thought Plan B would be better but failed to communicate this with him. Norris pitted from the lead and came out in 5th and could do a one stop race.
Aston Martin gave Alonso some gentle guidance and he told them he was racing not testing. He really was.
By halfway through, not a lot had changed in the top 9. Verstappen was still setting the pace, even from fourth. Everyone responded when he pitted again. When Russell stopped it went wrong and cost him valuable seconds.
Having done 49 laps, Albon pulled off the track and down an escape road. It was a terrible day for him. Then Stroll was awarded a ten second penalty for forcing another car off the track, we don't know who, we didn't see it, it wasn't replayed. The Canadian driver was really bringing the show for his home fans.
The top five were covered by less than eight seconds with 16 laps to go. Lawson was also retired due his Power Unit, they wanted to look after it. It hadn't taken long to wear it down, given that they fitted it overnight. Then, with eight laps to go, the McLarens were battling each other hard for fourth and fifth. With Antonelli right ahead of them, they could have been making a play for a podium finish, it's seemed short-sighted by their leadership. It proved to be true, Norris got down the inside and was ahead but Piastri fought back hard. It looked like he clearly had the lead but he backed out heading onto the straight. For some reason, Norris thought he could overtake then and took the slipstream, pulling out at the last minute. He hadn't pulled out quite enough though, as he hit the go pedal to move ahead, he was not alongside but slightly behind. He tagged his team mate, which sent him on to the narrow slip of grass next to the wall where his car was basically shredded between rock (teammate) and hard place (wall). We rewound twice to watch despite knowing it would be replayed from different angles. Here was the Safety Car that Norris had been counting on. Piastri appeared to have been unharmed, lucky not to have a puncture. He had been looking in his other mirror to see where Lando was. There was basically not a car width's gap for him to put his car through. It was such an error of judgement. When asked on the radio if he was okay, Norris laid the blame calmly at his own feet: "It's all my bad. All my fault. Unlucky. Sorry. Stupid from me." No one could disagree with that. If it was Latifi or Sargeant who had made the move... I had written that opening comment about it not being Norris's race two hours before this incident. It speaks volumes. Stella would be getting it in the neck. Piastri looked very pale when he got out of the car but was given an immediate briefing by the team about what he should say.
Russell and Verstappen were still playing silly games with each other under the Safety Car, Verstappen radioed that he had to overtake Russell because his driving was erratic and the other saying that he overtook him. Each hoping the other would get a penalty because that was the only way to move their positions, as the race would end under the Safety Car. They went on to have a very civilised conversation in the cool-down room. The camera operator clearly knew to capture their faces as the McLaren incident was replayed. "There just wasn't a space there," Russell declared.
The Top 10 was Russell, Verstappen, Antonelli (very well deserved), Piastri, LeClerc, Hamilton, Alonso, Hulkenberg, Ocon and Sainz. It was Alonso's first points of the season and he had told Brundle before the race that Canada was good to him. There was a lot of celebratory hugging in the Mercedes huddle in front of the podium.
There was so much chat about tyre choice (until the drama at the end) and having to run two different compounds. The whole thing is so contrived and should be stopped; there must be other ways to make races interesting. Perhaps if the only people who could choose tyre strategy were the drivers, that would make it spicy.
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