🏁🇨🇦 The inevitable has happened, just not in the way we thought | Pit Lane Chronicle
Lando Norris said sorry immediately after hitting Oscar Piastri at the Canadian Grand Prix, but where do McLaren go from here?
The title fight was becoming a two-horse race between the two McLaren drivers and it was only a matter of time until Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri clashed on track. That moment came on lap 67 of the Canadian Grand Prix but, instead of all hell breaking loose, everyone was rather polite about the situation… Weird! That’s not what we’re used to in F1. Usually team-mates want to throttle one another after contact but Norris said sorry, Piastri immediately accepted that apology and, though McLaren team principal Andrea Stella did his best to sound stern about it all, he too barely batted an eyelid. Maybe things will be different if we get another flashpoint where the blame doesn’t so obviously lie with only one driver – it was pretty clear this time around that Norris had messed up, and it had no negative impact on Piastri’s result.
It had been a pretty quiet race up to that point with George Russell in command from pole and leading an impressive double Mercedes podium. Then came the post-race Red Bull protest which threatened to ruin it all. All that and much more – including a thoroughly ridiculous story involving Donald Trump – in this week’s Pit Lane Chronicle below!
This newsletter looks beyond just the stories about McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull to shine a light on the other six teams making up the rest of the grid and help make F1 the vibrant sport it is today – and there are dedicated sections for each below. So read on for some of the news covering the homepages of the top F1 sites, but also plenty more content which probably didn’t.
QUICK QUIZ QUESTION – In Montreal, McLaren failed to get one of their drivers onto the podium for the first time all season. When was the previous most recent time they didn’t make the top three in a race? The answer is at the bottom of this newsletter.
The Formation Lap
The main headlines and stories from the Formula 1 paddock this week:
🏁 F1 remains a sport where you can never be sure that the end of the race IS actually the end of the drama. Some people will love that, many others will loathe it. As someone who worked around five extra hours on Sunday night thanks to Red Bull’s protest of the race result, my feelings at the time were more in line with the latter camp! They had every right to make their protest, of course, but eventually it was waved away and George Russell kept his first victory of 2025 – Here’s what the stewards said
↳ Christian Horner seemed happy with second place for Max Verstappen regardless and seemed to take some comfort from Mercedes’ sudden strong pace, and will hope Red Bull can replicate that next time out – Christian Horner, Instagram
↳ But Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was pretty angry about it all, claiming Red Bull’s protest was “petty, small and childish” before Russell revealed that sporting director Ron Meadows and engineering chief Andrew Shovlin missed their flights out of Montreal because of the delay – Kasra Moradi, The Mirror
🇦🇹 Verstappen stayed out of trouble all weekend and didn’t pick up a penalty point, meaning he is free to race as usual in Austria later this month. He’ll still be walking a tightrope at the Red Bull Ring, though, as the first two of his 11 penalty points won’t expire until after that race.
📽 The other big talking point in Montreal was, of course, THAT collision between the McLaren drivers, which happened at pretty much the exact same spot as when Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button came together in eerily similar fashion during the 2011 Canada race.
🤝 Norris was quick to hold his hands up and admit it was “all my fault”, apologising first over the radio and then to Piastri in person when they met in the media pen after the race – Phil Duncan, PA
🟠 McLaren boss Andrea Stella made it clear that the contact “should not have happened” and that he would be having words with his drivers, but defended Norris’ actions by making it clear it was “a misjudgement” with “no malice” and praising the Brit for immediately shouldering the responsibility – Connor McDonagh, Crash
🏆 George Russell continued his fine start to live as lead driver at Mercedes with his first win of 2025 and said he feels he’s “driving better than ever” right now – Alicia Turner, BBC Sport
👏 It was a red-letter day for Mercedes with 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli also on the podium for the first time in F1, becoming the third youngest driver to achieve that in the sport’s history, with only Verstappen and Lance Stroll having managed it at a younger age!
🔴 Lewis Hamilton lost ground again on race day having qualified fifth but slipped back to seventh, before rising to his final position of sixth when Norris crashed out. But there was significant mitigation having lost around 20 points of downforce due to a damaged floor having hit a groundhog early in the race. And, as an animal lover, he seemed far more upset about that unfortunate incident than he was about his result – Kieran Jackson, The Independent
📻 Charles Leclerc finished fifth having spent most of the race arguing over the radio about Ferrari’s strategy, though after the race he said his “poor” result was because of his practice crash and qualifying mistake, rather than pointing the finger at his team – Samuel Coop; Aaron Deckers, RacingNews365
🎬 The premiere of F1: The Movie took place in New York City on Monday and the embargo also lifted this week on reviews of the film, after motorsport media viewed it at the Canadian GP. I wasn’t in Montreal so I’m yet to see it! But this is an excellent piece looking at it from a lot of different aspects. There are some spoilers, but there’s a helpful warning given before they begin – Luke Smith; Madeline Coleman, The Athletic
🤯 Bizarrely, a pundit on French TV channel Canal+ reported over the weekend that McLaren might be about to give US President Donald Trump a chance to drive one of their F1 cars at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas this week. I rather sheepishly asked McLaren about it, knowing that it was almost certainly nonsense. An orange F1 car won’t be driven by an orange president any time soon, it was confirmed – Daniel Moxon, The Mirror
🇵🇱 And finally for this section, a truly heartwarming story over in Le Mans as, along with team-mates Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson, former F1 cult hero Robert Kubica won the iconic 24-hour race on Sunday, 14 years on from the rally crash that saw him break 42 bones, lost three-quarters of his blood, led to the partial amputation of his right forearm, should have killed him and scuppered a move to Ferrari. What a legend – Giles Richards, The Guardian
Fan Focus
Favourite team or driver?
I'm a big Ferrari fan and Charles Leclerc is my favourite driver on the grid. On his day he’s every bit as brilliant as Max Verstappen and we are being starved of a Verstappen vs Leclerc title battle that would be incredible. In previous years I absolutely loved the BMW Sauber team with Robert Kubica/Nick Heidfeld at the wheel and Williams is always a team I look out for. James Vowles is doing amazing work to bring them back to being competitive.
Favourite memory?
The 2021 season was pure box-office. If you’re new to the sport and want to see what it's all about in the modern era, skip Drive to Survive and watch that season. The press conferences, the wheel-to-wheel racing, the crashes and the FIA having meltdowns – amazing.
Favourite car?
Jim Clark’s Lotus 49. The car was art and Clark was poetry in motion.
F1 hot-take?
Toto Wolff is going to try to bring Max Verstappen to Mercedes for the 2026 season, hence the delay in offering George Russell a contract. Only when Verstappen is absolutely off the table will George get an offer.
Want to feature in a future edition of Fan Focus? Fill out this super simple Google Form and email a photo of yourself to pitlanechronicle@reachplc.com, and keep your eyes peeled on the next Pit Lane Chronicle! 👀
Paddock Press
Here are the main stories around F1’s six midfield teams this week:
🔵 Alpine
🤷♂️ No points scored for bottom team Alpine in Montreal. Pierre Gasly was hampered after being pushed off track by Lance Stroll while Franco Colapinto, who started in the top 10 but finished 13th, said he felt the team had gone for the wrong strategy – La Nacion (in Spanish)
❌ Christian Horner was this week linked with Alpine with the Red Bull chief known to be good friends with Flavio Briatore who is looking for a new team principal to hire. But the Brit has denied having any interest in leaving his current outfit and sources familiar with the situation suggest that particular rumour is without foundation.
📰 There was one big leadership change this week, though, with Renault CEO Luca de Meo stepping down after five years in the role – James Attwood, Autocar
↳ Pierre Gasly said he was sad to see De Meo go and urged his colleagues to “stick together” in the face of rumours that the Alpine F1 team could be sold by a new Renault chief – Phillip van Osten, F1i
🟢 Aston Martin
👀 Sky F1 commentator David Croft set tongues wagging when he said during the live broadcast from Montreal that Fernando Alonso had been seen visiting the Alpine hospitality unit on several occasions, but Aston Martin sources insist it was for nothing more than a spot of lunch – Michelle Foster, PlanetF1
↳ It’s worth noting that, even if drivers were a topic of conversation with Flavio Briatore during the Spaniard’s visits, It may not necessarily have been about Alonso’s own future as he manages the career of several others including Sauber racer Gabriel Bortoleto, Formula 2 racer Pepe Marti and Formula 3 prodigy Nikola Tsolov, among others.
😬 Alonso finished in the points for a second successive race and, while he is happy with the performance boost from Aston Martin’s upgrades, he said flaws still remain in their car – Michael Delaney, F1i
😬 Lance Stroll rushed back from surgery to make sure he could drive at his home race, but he might now be wishing he hadn’t bothered. The Montreal native suffered an early qualifying exit, landed a penalty for pushing Pierre Gasly off track and finished last of the 17 cars still running, admitting afterwards it had been “a rough, long day” – Formula1.com
👀 Aston Martin are said to be targeting an ambitious swoop for George Russell who they see as the man to lead them on track in the long-term, with the Brit nearing the final six months of his Mercedes contract – Ben Hunt, Autosport
⚫ Haas
👏 Haas celebrated their 200th F1 Grand Prix and marked the occasion with points, two of them scored by Esteban Ocon. He finished ninth and that result was under threat for a time, but he was later cleared of erratic driving – Pitpass
🤏 Oliver Bearman narrowly missed out on the points in 11th and also escaped a post-race penalty, handed a warning and nothing more for the way he rejoined the track after a failed overtake on Franco Colapinto – Ian Parkes, RacingNews365
↳ Bearman was frustrated with his result and felt “we had a lot more in the car”
🇺🇸 Team principal Ayao Komatsu has done a big interview marking 10 years of Haas being in F1, which is a very interesting read – Lawrence Barretto, Formula1.com
⚪ Racing Bulls
💥 It was a tough weekend for everyone of a Racing Bulls persuasion, especially for Liam Lawson who started from the pit lane because of a new engine after qualifying, but later retired with a cooling issue – Ben Waterworth, Speedcafe
😩 Isack Hadjar was, somewhat unusually, also a long way off the points after a grid penalty for impeding Carlos Sainz in qualifying and then a strategy mistake in the race which proved costly – Formula1.com
🇫🇷 Hadjar’s form this year has generally been excellent which has led to speculation he could be promoted to the main Red Bull squad, but Nico Rosberg has urged the Frenchman not to try to make the jump too early like some others before him did, and failed – Harry Smith, The Express
🟢 Sauber
⭐ Two weeks on from his Barcelona heroics, Nico Hulkenberg was back in the points again, finishing eighth to take him to an impressive 20 points for the year already, matching the total amassed by Sauber over the previous two full seasons combined – Harry Bright, Autogear
🚓 Gabriel Bortoleto finished 14th and had a chaotic weekend even before arriving in Montreal, after his passport was among the items stolen by a thief who broke into his car. The thief was apprehended, but the Brazilian wasn’t reunited with all of his possessions – Callum McAvoy, Metro
🤔 Team principal Jonathan Wheatley raised a few eyebrows when he said some things at Sauber operate better than they did at his previous team Red Bull, citing “the handling of traffic in qualifying” as an example – F1 Chronicle
🔵 Williams
📉 Williams felt confident that the Montreal track would suit their car and their pace in Friday practice backed up that belief. But they ended up scoring just one single point, Carlos Sainz finishing 10th after a shock Q1 exit in qualifying. He said he was managing an issue throughout the race which limited him from an even better result – Williams F1 website
📻 Alex Albon’s weekend was also messy, his engine cover flying off in qualifying on the way to P10 and then becoming the first to retire from the race when he lost the engine. He also sounded very snippy over the radio when questioning Williams’ strategy and this is a great piece looking into the background of that – Scott Mitchell-Malm, The Race
🗣 Albon has rebuilt his F1 career with Williams after a rough 18 months as Max Verstappen’s team-mate at Red Bull when he was still new to the sport. Looking back this week, he insisted he could now do a much better job of handling Red Bull’s “knife-edge” car which plenty of drivers have struggled with since Albon was axed at the end of 2020 – Connor McDonagh, Crash
Best of Substack
Here are some of the F1-related posts I enjoyed elsewhere on Substack this week:
⏪ I love the idea of watching pre-season testing from F1 seasons gone by (and I’m deeply considering making it my new hobby having read this piece describing what someone learned by reliving the prelude to the 2021 season) – A Curious Maggie, Formula Curious
💄 Really enjoyed this deep dive into the brand partnership between Aston Martin and ELEMIS, one of too few partnerships up and down the pit lane which recognises that there are more than enough female fans of the sport these days for whole new sectors to reap commercial benefits – Sarah Beakey, Sunday’s Sponsors
📚 At the moment someone is releasing a non-fiction book about F1 every few weeks and so this is a very relevant and also insightful look into who, how and why they are doing it – Elizabeth Blackstock, Deadly Passions Terrible Joys
QUICK QUIZ QUESTION ANSWER – The 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix, which was also won by George Russell!
The Chequered Flag
Thanks so much for reading this week’s edition of Pit Lane Chronicle. This newsletter is FREE for all to enjoy. Please do let me know what you think, with any tips, comments and suggestions always welcome!
✍ My name is Daniel Moxon and I’ve been an F1 fan since I was old enough to listen to my dad’s tales about Ayrton Senna and Damon Hill. I clearly caught the bug as I now work as the Daily Mirror’s Formula 1 Correspondent. I live in Merseyside, in the north west of England, with my fiancée Abby and our one-year-old daughter Eve who isn’t speaking yet but already knows how to make race car noises – “Vroom vroom!”
🏎 My aim is to provide a clear path to news about the teams or drivers you love and support without having to get past the mountain of content all focused on the Lewis Hamiltons and Max Verstappens of the F1 world.
Just want to say that I got the Quick Quiz Question thanks to Lollipopman -- love those little animations.