Antonelli wins in Canada as Mercedes, Ferrari and Verstappen respond
Antonelli’s Montreal win stretched his lead to 43 points. Hamilton’s Ferrari podium and Verstappen’s contract talk sharpened the 2026 power struggle.
Kimi Antonelli’s win at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve did more than extend a championship lead. It reset the tone of a season in which Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull Racing are all being judged as much on control and credibility as on raw speed.
Antonelli won the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal after George Russell’s race ended on lap 30 with a power unit issue. Lewis Hamilton took third place, giving Ferrari its best result of the season, while Max Verstappen finished third. The result pushed Antonelli’s lead to 43 points and underlined how quickly the title picture can move when one front-running car fails and another finds a clean run.
For Mercedes, the weekend brought both promise and warning. Antonelli’s victory showed that the team still has the pace to win when the execution is right, but Russell’s retirement exposed how fragile the platform remains. Canada, held from 22-24 May, was round 5 of the 2026 calendar, which makes every point and every reliability problem feel amplified before the championship moves on to Monaco from 5-7 June and then Barcelona-Catalunya from 12-14 June.
Ferrari’s own story in Montreal was more complicated. Hamilton said before the race that changes to his engineering team had helped him feel more like himself, and the podium suggested those adjustments were beginning to matter. Even so, Ferrari’s stronger showing in Canada has become part of a wider search for answers after a difficult start to the season, with the team trying to turn one improved weekend into something more durable.
Verstappen’s third place kept Red Bull in the frame, but the discussion around him remains shaped by contract politics as much as by lap time. Formula 1 lists his Red Bull deal through 2028, Red Bull’s own material says “Max Continues Until 2028,” and Formula 1 has reported that the agreement is believed to include performance-based exit clauses. In August 2025, Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said Verstappen confirming he would stay for 2026 was “good for everyone to hear.”
That is why Canada mattered beyond the podium ceremony. Antonelli’s win gave Mercedes a statement result, Hamilton’s podium offered Ferrari a brief lift, and Verstappen’s presence at the front kept Red Bull’s future in the spotlight. With Monaco next and the European run beginning, the season is already shifting from pure pace to pressure, prestige and the politics of who looks strongest for 2026 and beyond.
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