Even with out the collision between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri 4 laps from the end, the Canadian Grand Prix would have been a weekend to overlook for championship chief McLaren. Sunday’s podium celebrations have been the primary with no papaya-clad driver this 12 months, and the grid a few hours earlier was the primary with out one of many workforce’s vehicles on the entrance row.
Anomalous outcomes are virtually all the time current in otherwise-dominant championship campaigns — suppose again to Pink Bull’s single stunning weekend in Singapore 2023 throughout a season by which it received the 21 different races — however they’re typically essentially the most revealing races of the 12 months. From a efficiency perspective, the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix was removed from a catastrophe for McLaren, which remained inside a number of seconds of a podium proper up till Norris tangled with Piastri in the beginning of lap 67, however it did present the potential for bumps within the highway over the remainder of the season.
Earlier than arriving in Canada, McLaren had anticipated Montreal’s monitor format — with its lengthy straights punctuated by chicanes outlined by fast path modifications — wouldn’t showcase the strengths of its automobile. And whereas the alarm bells will not be ringing again at base in Woking, England, the end result will present some gasoline for cautious optimism amongst McLaren’s rivals.
With the collision between the McLarens sapping up all of workforce principal Andrea Stella’s media session on Sunday, we now have to rewind 24 hours to search out the workforce’s greatest clarification of the lackluster efficiency in Canada. It is doable that both Piastri or Norris might need had the tempo to win in Montreal had they began the race from the entrance and led into Flip 1, however after the Australian certified third and the Brit seventh on Saturday afternoon, Stella was not shying away from the automobile’s lack of efficiency on the circuit.
“I feel one of many explanation why this circuit has been just a little little bit of a wrestle — which we now have seen just about right away in Free Follow 1, the place it was troublesome on the time to place collectively laps for the drivers — is we realized that the automobile wasn’t capable of generate a lot grip,” he mentioned. “And we expect that the reason being that even when it is low-speed corners, there’s really numerous braking and traction [in Montreal]. There’s not a lot mid-corner part in itself. You’re both on the brakes or on the throttle, and in each circumstances, we now have to say that the automobile struggled a bit to start out with.”
If Canada’s monitor format is at one finish of a scale of circuit varieties on the F1 calendar, the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya, the place McLaren took a one-two victory on the Spanish Grand Prix two weeks earlier, would possible be on the different. The high-speed, long-duration corners of the Spanish monitor is the place the McLaren’s supreme downforce and automobile steadiness was most evident this 12 months — to the tune of greater than 0.4 seconds over its closest rivals in qualifying.
What’s extra, the McLaren’s capability to guard its tires from overheating and subsequently restrict efficiency degradation throughout a race was additionally evident in Spain and, likewise, of little relevance in Canada. Managing tires has been a power of McLaren’s all through the 2025 season and stays a trait that each workforce on the grid is striving to duplicate, however the clean monitor floor in Montreal meant it barely factored on Sunday.
Fairly than combatting overheating, drivers have been attempting to forestall a phenomenon often called graining, when the tire floor tears up early in its life and creates balls of rubber that cut back the grip stage. The issue was notably evident on Piastri’s entrance left tire throughout the race — though he was not alone in struggling.
McLaren’s relative struggles opened the door for a rival to capitalize, and because it occurred, the identical monitor traits that hindered the championship leaders helped Mercedes unlock vital potential from its automobile. The Silver Arrows capitalized, with George Russell claiming the win and Kimi Antonelli standing on the primary podium of his nascent in third.
One of many essential difficulties Mercedes has confronted for the reason that present set of rules have been launched in 2022 is discovering a automobile setup that provides steadiness throughout low- and high-speed corners. There’s a tendency for this era of automobile to understeer in low-speed corners, whereas makes an attempt to extend entrance downforce runs the danger of unbalancing the automobile with a handy guide a rough and unpredictable rear finish in high-speed corners.
Mercedes has made progress to find a greater steadiness in its automobile all through the previous 12 months, however Montreal’s abundance of 1 nook sort (low-speed) simplifies the equation. Nail the setup to work by means of the 4 chicanes and on the hairpin at Flip 10 and there aren’t any significant high-speed corners elsewhere on the circuit to catch you out.
The opposite benefit of an absence of long-duration high-speed corners is that it is a lot simpler to maintain tire temperature underneath management. The fast path modifications between the partitions in Montreal reward driver confidence and a steady automobile underneath braking, however aren’t lengthy sufficient to place any actual pressure by means of the rubber.
Add to {that a} clean monitor floor and the tires weren’t as vulnerable to overheating — even with a monitor temperature of fifty levels Celsius on race day.
“I suppose it’s essential take a look at the monitor format,” Mercedes workforce principal Toto Wolff mentioned when requested to elucidate his automobile’s sturdy efficiency over the weekend. “Montreal was all the time good to us, it lacks the everyday high-speed corners the place we undergo extra within the warmth. That is one, and quantity two is sort of a clean asphalt right here, which is much less abrasive and subsequently much less damaging to our automobile that suffers from rear tire degradation and overheating.”
Mercedes additionally raced a brand new rear suspension format in Montreal that had solely beforehand been utilized in observe at Imola earlier than being left off the automobile for the remainder of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend. It was designed with Mercedes’ tire temperature weaknesses in thoughts, and whereas it possible supplied some positives in Canada, it’ll want a sterner take a look at on a extra demanding format to be classed as a real game-changer for the workforce.
“I feel we introduced the brand new rear geometry for the actual [tire overheating] drawback that we had, the rear [tire] floor overheating, and we weren’t fairly certain concerning the ends in Imola, as a result of they have been worse than we anticipated,” Wolff defined. “And there I feel taking it off was the best factor to do, and bringing it on right here, as a result of hopefully the event path is appropriate long run.
“Nevertheless it’s all the time, in these type of rules, you by no means know whether or not you land improvement or whether or not you do not. Correlation has been troublesome, notably for us. After which, I feel there’s different components at play right here additionally, the monitor format is simply completely different, the asphalt is completely different, and there’s by no means one magic resolution that makes the automobile go from a, as an instance, best-case-podium automobile to a dominant winner.”
Russell added: “We’re underneath no illusions that this actually suited the strengths of our automobile the identical manner because it did final 12 months. However for almost all of the circuits, we all know it’s kind of of a problem, and that is why that is the primary weekend each of us are on the rostrum. Nevertheless it’s nice to see that once we get that probability, we take it.”
All of which implies Sunday’s result’s possible only a blip for McLaren somewhat than a real turning level within the championship. However proof, nonetheless, that there’s nonetheless potential for surprises over the remainder of the 2025 season.
