Max Verstappen won a rather chaotic Canadian GP, with Lando Norris and George Russell completing the podium. Among the many DNFs, there were also Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Despite the tricky conditions, it was a rather smooth start. Everybody opted for inters, except for the two Haas drivers who were on full wets. That proved to be the right choice, as Kevin Magnussen went up to P4, and Nico Hülkenberg reached P8 in just 4 laps.
Meanwhile, George Russell kept the lead ahead of Max Verstappen. Charles Leclerc seemed to be in trouble, as his race engineer told him there were issues with the engine. However, he was also told to keep pushing.
As the sun was coming out, Logan Sargeant went wide and almost hit the wall, there was just a brief yellow flag. Meanwhile, Leclerc seemed to be losing around 0.5s on the straights.
The first to pit was Magnussen, who went on inters. It wasn’t a smooth pit stop, as the mechanics weren’t ready with the tires.
The track was getting dry, but the teams expected rain around lap 30. It was getting tricky for the drivers to manage the tires. Meanwhile, Lando Norris was closing the gap to the leaders and just as he did that, Verstappen went wide into turn 1-2 and lost around 2 seconds.
On lap 20, Norris overtook Verstappen in the last corner and started chasing Russell for the lead. Just one lap later, the McLaren driver did the same move to Russell and went up to P1. As he did that, the Mercedes driver went wide and also lost the position to Verstappen, who gained back the second position.
Oscar Piastri was also getting closer, but then Sargeant hit the wall, and the safety car was deployed. Verstappen, Russell, and Piastri pitted, but Norris didn’t. Therefore, Verstappen became the new leader, with Russell second and Norris third.
Ferrari decided to try something different with Leclerc. They stopped him and put him on hard tires while also trying to reset the car. He lost a lot of time to the group, but the engineers thought to have fixed the issues.
Ferrari’s timing was not the best as it started raining again, and he was struggling to keep the car on track. He then pitted again for inters, but he still didn’t have the pace.
The track was starting to get dry again and the DRS was enabled. It was still too early for slick tires. Pierre Gasly was the first one to go on slick tires, but he was struggling.
Leclerc was informed to retire the car. Meanwhile, Hamilton decided to try and go on slick tires, he opted for mediums. He was the first one of the leaders to do so. The following lap, Piastri pitted, too.
Verstappen also pitted, as well as Russell, but Norris stayed out. He pitted two laps later, but Verstappen maintained the lead.
Russell managed to overtake Norris, but the Mercedes driver later made a mistake and lost the position. Meanwhile, Perez hit the wall and broke his rear wing, bringing his race to an end. At the same time, Sainz and Albon crashed and had to retire. The safety car was deployed once again.
After the restart, Verstappen pulled away, while Russell and Piastri fought for P3. The two almost crashed, and Russell lost time, allowing Hamilton to get through. The Britton also overtook Piastri and went up to P3.
Verstappen won ahead of Norris and Russell, Hamilton was fourth, and Piastri fifth. Alonso, Stroll, Ricciardo, Gasly, and Ocon completed the top 10.