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Laurence Edmondson
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 neglect for championship chief McLaren. Sunday’s podium celebrations have been the primary with no papaya-clad driver this yr, and the grid a few hours earlier was the primary with out one of many crew’s vehicles on the entrance row.
Anomalous outcomes are virtually all the time current in otherwise-dominant championship campaigns — assume again to Crimson Bull’s single surprising weekend in Singapore 2023 throughout a season by which it gained the 21 different races — however they’re usually probably the most revealing races of the yr. From a efficiency perspective, the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix was removed from a catastrophe for McLaren, which remained inside just a few seconds of a podium proper up till Norris tangled with Piastri at first of lap 67, nevertheless it did present the potential for bumps within the street over the remainder of the season.
Earlier than arriving in Canada, McLaren had anticipated Montreal’s observe structure — with its lengthy straights punctuated by chicanes outlined by fast route adjustments — wouldn’t showcase the strengths of its automotive. And whereas the alarm bells will not be ringing again at base in Woking, England, the consequence will present some gas for cautious optimism amongst McLaren’s rivals.
With the collision between the McLarens sapping up all of crew principal Andrea Stella’s media session on Sunday, we have now to rewind 24 hours to search out the crew’s finest clarification of the lackluster efficiency in Canada. It is attainable that both Piastri or Norris may 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 automotive’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 battle — which we have now seen just about right away in Free Apply 1, the place it was troublesome on the time to place collectively laps for the drivers — is we realized that the automotive wasn’t in a position to generate a lot grip,” he stated. “And we predict that the reason being that even when it is low-speed corners, there’s truly a variety of 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 situations, we have now to say that the automotive struggled a bit to start out with.”
If Canada’s observe structure 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 seemingly be on the different. The high-speed, long-duration corners of the Spanish observe is the place the McLaren’s supreme downforce and automotive stability was most evident this yr — to the tune of greater than 0.4 seconds over its closest rivals in qualifying.
What’s extra, the McLaren’s means 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 crew on the grid is striving to duplicate, however the easy observe floor in Montreal meant it barely factored on Sunday.
Quite than combatting overheating, drivers have been making an attempt to forestall a phenomenon generally known as graining, when the tire floor tears up early in its life and creates balls of rubber that scale back the grip degree. The issue was significantly evident on Piastri’s entrance left tire in the course of 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 observe traits that hindered the championship leaders helped Mercedes unlock important potential from its automotive. 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 primary difficulties Mercedes has confronted for the reason that present set of rules have been launched in 2022 is discovering a automotive setup that gives a superb stability throughout low- and high-speed corners. There’s a tendency for this technology of automotive to understeer in low-speed corners, whereas makes an attempt to extend entrance downforce runs the chance of unbalancing the automotive with a quick and unpredictable rear finish in high-speed corners.
Mercedes has made progress to find a greater stability in its automotive all through the previous yr, however Montreal’s abundance of 1 nook sort (low-speed) simplifies the equation. Nail the setup to work via 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 beneath management. The fast route adjustments between the partitions in Montreal reward driver confidence and a secure automotive beneath braking, however are usually not lengthy sufficient to place any actual pressure via the rubber.
Add to {that a} easy observe floor and the tires weren’t as liable to overheating — even with a observe temperature of fifty levels Celsius on race day.
“I assume you must have a look at the observe structure,” Mercedes crew principal Toto Wolff stated when requested to elucidate his automotive’s robust 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 easy asphalt right here, which is much less abrasive and subsequently much less damaging to our automotive that suffers from rear tire degradation and overheating.”
Mercedes additionally raced a brand new rear suspension structure in Montreal that had solely beforehand been utilized in follow at Imola earlier than being left off the automotive for the remainder of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix weekend. It was designed with Mercedes’ tire temperature weaknesses in thoughts, and whereas it seemingly supplied some positives in Canada, it’s going to want a sterner check on a extra demanding structure to be classed as a real game-changer for the crew.
“I feel we introduced the brand new rear geometry for the actual [tire overheating] downside that we had, the rear [tire] floor overheating, and we weren’t fairly certain in regards to the leads to Imola, as a result of they have been worse than we anticipated,” Wolff defined. “And there I feel taking it off was the proper factor to do, and bringing it on right here, as a result of hopefully the event route is appropriate long run.
“However it’s all the time, in these form of rules, you by no means know whether or not you land improvement or whether or not you do not. Correlation has been troublesome, significantly for us. After which, I feel there’s different components at play right here additionally, the observe structure is simply completely different, the asphalt is completely different, and there’s by no means one magic resolution that makes the automotive go from a, for example, best-case-podium automotive to a dominant winner.”
Russell added: “We’re beneath no illusions that this actually suited the strengths of our automotive the identical approach because it did final yr. 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. However it’s nice to see that after we get that probability, we take it.”
All of which implies Sunday’s result’s seemingly only a blip for McLaren moderately 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.