Kimi Antonelli admitted he and George Russell were “both lucky not to crash” after the Mercedes pair came within inches of a team-mate collision during Saturday’s sprint race at the Canadian Grand Prix, an incident that left team principal Toto Wolff visibly fuming on the Montreal pit wall.
The flashpoint arrived on lap 14 of the 25-lap dash around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, with Russell running fourth and the 19-year-old Italian rookie closing rapidly on fresher medium tyres. Antonelli pulled alongside his team-mate exiting the hairpin, the pair ran wheel-to-wheel down the back straight at 320km/h, and only a late lift from Russell into the Turn 13 chicane prevented contact that would have likely eliminated both cars and handed McLaren a free run at the constructors’ standings.
Antonelli’s frank assessment
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 immediately after climbing from his car in parc ferme, Antonelli did not soften the moment. “We were both lucky not to crash there, honestly,” he said. “I had the run, I committed to the move, and George left me just enough room — but only just. Another five centimetres and we are both in the wall. That cannot happen between team-mates.”
Russell, who finished fifth to Antonelli’s fourth after the pair held station for the closing laps, was more measured but did not dispute the rookie’s reading of events. “Kimi had the better tyre and he was entitled to have a look,” the Briton said. “I gave him the room I thought he needed. We’ll sit down with the engineers and watch the onboards — these things are easier to dissect with a cup of coffee than at 300kph.”
The near-miss handed Mercedes 11 combined points from the sprint, but the manner of the points acquisition has reopened a debate that has simmered around the team since Antonelli replaced the Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton over the winter. Wolff confirmed both drivers would be called into a debrief on Saturday evening, telling reporters: “We race hard, we don’t race stupid. That was the line today and we got away with it. We won’t always get away with it.”
How the sprint unfolded
The 19-lap sprint was won by Oscar Piastri, who converted pole into a comfortable 4.2-second victory over McLaren team-mate Lando Norris. Max Verstappen took the final podium spot for Red Bull, three seconds clear of the warring Mercedes. Behind the leading group, Charles Leclerc recovered from a slow getaway to claim sixth for Ferrari ahead of Hamilton, who is yet to score a sprint point since his switch to Maranello.
Key sprint takeaways from Montreal:
- Piastri’s win extends his championship lead over Norris to 22 points with 14 rounds remaining
- McLaren have now led every lap of the last four sprint races dating back to Miami
- Antonelli’s fourth is the rookie’s best Saturday result since his debut sprint podium in China
- Verstappen’s third arrived despite Red Bull running an experimental floor flagged for evaluation ahead of the European leg
- Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso retired from ninth with a suspected hydraulic failure on lap 11
What it means for the title fight
The bigger picture for Mercedes is uncomfortable. The team sit third in the constructors’ championship, 84 points adrift of McLaren and 31 behind Ferrari, and cannot afford the kind of double-DNF that Saturday’s near-miss flirted with. Antonelli’s pace — he was three tenths a lap quicker than Russell across the middle stint — has only intensified scrutiny of the intra-team pecking order Wolff insisted in pre-season would be settled by performance.
History offers Mercedes a cautionary precedent. The team’s last sustained title drought, between 2014 and 2021, was punctuated by the Hamilton–Rosberg flashpoints at Spa 2014 and Barcelona 2016, both of which cost significant points and required months of internal repair. Wolff’s pointed phrasing on Saturday — “We won’t always get away with it” — suggested the lessons of that era remain fresh.
Attention now turns to Sunday’s main grand prix, where Antonelli will start fifth and Russell sixth on the grid set by Friday qualifying. Both drivers will face questions in the morning’s media session about whether the sprint moment changes how they will approach the opening laps. The 70-lap race begins at 14:00 local time, with rain forecast for the final third of the afternoon — a complication neither Mercedes driver, after Saturday’s events, will welcome.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
60 articles published
