McLaren drivers clash in Canada as George Russell beats Max Verstappen to win F1 race

MONTREAL — George Russell won the Canadian Grand Prix with a lights-to-flag victory on a hot Sunday in this city, giving Mercedes its first win of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

He beat rival Max Verstappen of Red Bull, who finished second, and 18-year-old rookie Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes, who finished third and became the third youngest podium-sitter in Formula 1 history.

But the race was marked by dramatic incidents in the final stages that altered the trajectory of the world championship fight. McLaren’s teammates Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris engaged in a fierce battle, culminating in Norris’ crashing out after a failed overtake attempt on the start-finish straight.

Norris initially overtook Piastri on the hairpin, but Piastri reclaimed the position on the long straight and into the final chicane. The fight wasn't over as Norris got a better exit and went for the overtake — but he ran out of road, slipped onto the grass and crashed out after he hit the wall. Over the team radio, he was quick to take full responsibility for the incident.

“I should never have gone for it, I guess, is my complete hindsight thing. I thought he was starting to drift a little bit to the right, so I thought I had a small opportunity to go to the left,” Norris told reporters after the race. “But it was way too much risk, especially on my teammate.”

Piastri continued on to finish fourth, extending his lead over Norris in the championship race from 10 to 22 points. Verstappen is still third, 43 points off the lead.

The result in Canada will fuel questions about Norris and his tendency to make mistakes in clutch moments. Still, the title race is far from over: This was the 10th Grand Prix of the 2025 season. There are 14 more races to go.

“Plenty more races left,” Norris said when he was asked about his championship hopes. “I don’t expect it to be easy. I don’t expect to catch him easily. But I have to work hard for it and make less mistakes than I made this weekend.”

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There is bad blood between Russell and Verstappen, who qualified first and second, respectively, for a highly anticipated start.

Russell got the better jump and led away, but Verstappen stayed close and sought to attack him in the first few laps. But he couldn’t get past in the first stint, and Verstappen, the defending four-time world champion, ended up having to fend off Antonelli. Verstappen tried to attack again in the final stretch, but Russell increased his pace and kept his rival behind.

“It’s amazing to be back on the top step. Obviously the last time for us was back in Vegas,” Russell said in a post-race interview. “Amazing day for the team.”

The 1-3 finish puts Mercedes back in second for the constructors’ championship, after it lost out to Ferrari in the prior race.

It was the first time all year that both McLaren drivers failed to make the podium. Piastri started in third place but fell into the clutches of a faster Norris in the closing stretch. Norris qualified poorly in seventh place but gambled on a different tire strategy that helped him gain positions.

Charles Leclerc of Ferrari finished fifth, while teammate Lewis Hamilton finished a disappointing sixth, struggling with car damage throughout the race.

Hamilton said he learned afterward that he hit a groundhog. In the moment, "I didn't know what it was. I just felt something," Hamilton told reporters.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who finished seventh, delivered a standout radio moment of the day. When his race engineer asked him to ease off when he entered certain corners to preserve his tires, Alonso, a two-time world champion, clapped back.

“We are racing. Not testing,” he replied.

Verstappen, who was under the cloud of a potential one-race ban if he incurred penalty points in Montreal, bristled at questions about it. He insisted he wouldn’t adjust his driving style, and he showed his irritation Saturday when he was asked about the prospect during the weekend.

“I don’t need to hear it again. It’s really pissing me off,” he said after qualifying. “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.”

Russell’s pole position was the first of the 2025 season for Mercedes. He’s just the fourth driver to claim a pole position — with Norris, Piastri and Verstappen having taken the previous nine.

The race came ahead of the premiere of the “F1” movie starring Brad Pitt, which was heavily promoted during the Grand Prix weekend. The movie comes out on June 27 in the United States and Canada and internationally on June 25.

“I think for sure it will do good,” Guenther Steiner, the former boss of the American Haas F1 team, told NBC News in the paddock. “A production like this — and the people involved are the best of the best. So how can it not help F1 in the world? Not only in the States, in the whole world.”