F1 news: Winners and Losers from 2026 Canadian GP — Red Bull, McLaren and more

Kimi Antonelli broke yet another record in Canada, becoming the first F1 driver to get their first four victories in a row.

After team-mate George Russell suffered a retirement, Antonelli convincingly won the race, followed home by Lewis Hamilton in second and Max Verstappen in third.

In an action-packed race, which saw five DNFs and one DNS, there are plenty of winners besides Antonelli across the grid, as well as several losers.

Here, Sport Just Sport writer Ella Magyar gives her winners and losers from a frenzied race.

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Winner — Red Bull

Red Bull have had a rather tumultuous start to their season, but with upgrades brought to Canada, real performance improvements were shown in the race.

Drivers Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar qualified in P6 and P7, respectively, but were much closer to the pace of the other top four teams this time out. 

During the race, Verstappen had some good battles and was looking good for a second-place finish until Lewis Hamilton overtook him just six laps before the end.

Team-mate Hadjar showed strong pace all weekend and finished in a strong P5, although he was a lap down and received two 10-second penalties.

Despite this, Red Bull secured their first podium of the season, an impressive one at that, and Hadjar cemented his best finish for the team.

Loser — McLaren

McLaren’s race was doomed from the start when the strategy team took a gamble and started both drivers on the intermediate tyre, despite a dry track and lack of rain.

Immediately on the formation lap, the drivers knew this was a mistake, which led to Oscar Piastri pitting already on the first lap and Lando Norris on the second, despite having taken the lead of the race into turn one on lap one.

After the pit stops, the McLaren duo fell towards the back, with Piastri in 18th and Norris in 14th.

Piastri began to climb up the order until he hit Alex Albon on lap 13, leading to a 10-second penalty and ultimately finishing in P11 and two laps down, a result flattered by all of the DNFs.

Norris also began to climb up the order to P7 until he had to pit due to reliability issues, emerging back to P14, after which he made it back to P8 until he suffered a gearbox issue and had to retire from the race.

Scoring no points when your drivers started in P3 and P4, largely due to the initial strategy error, barring Norris’ DNF, made Canada a weekend to forget for McLaren.

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Winner — Alpine

Alpine secured their second double points finish of the season, a strong showing from the Enstone team.

Franco Colapinto continued his good form from Miami by making Q3 and qualifying in P10, out-qualifying team-mate Pierre Gasly again after a difficult start to the season.

After McLaren’s blunder, Colapinto moved up the order, driving most of the race in P6, and held strong, with only one slight error, securing his best-ever career finish.

Gasly made up for his slightly disappointing qualifying result by climbing up the order to finish in P8, another points score for the Frenchman, who is having an impressive season.

Alpine’s points haul this weekend has bolstered their strong P5 position in the constructors’ championship, once again proving to be convincingly best of the rest.

Loser — Arvid Lindblad

Racing Bulls driver Arvid Linvlad started the weekend strong, scoring points in the sprint race and qualifying in P9 for the main race.

However, his weekend unravelled when he was unable to get off the line at the start of the race due to a clutch issue.

Given his team-mate’s strong result in P7, Linblad’s weekend soured into a what could’ve been.

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Winner — Carlos Sainz

Carlos Sainz was another driver who started on the intermediate tyre, forcing him into an early pit stop once the strategy proved to be wrong.

Team-mate Alex Albon had a difficult weekend, and so Williams’ hopes relied on the Spaniard.

Sainz got lucky in his battle for the points with Haas driver Oliver Bearman when Bearman suffered a slow pit stop, allowing Sainz to jump him.

Despite the luck, it was ultimately Sainz’s driving that allowed him to somehow salvage a points score from the wrong tyre strategy call, points which are incredibly valuable to a team in Williams’ position.

Loser — Esteban Ocon

Esteban Ocon has had a lacklustre start to the season, especially in comparison to that of his young team-mate Bearman, who is consistently outperforming the Frenchman.

Ocon needed a good race in Canada, preferably one in which he convincingly beat Bearman; however, this wasn’t to be.

Ocon qualified in P17, not making it into Q2, whilst Bearman did — although Bearman did only qualify one position ahead.

In the race, however, Ocon again fell short of his team-mate’s performance as Bearman secured a points finish whilst Ocon ended in P14, only ahead of the Aston Martin and Cadillac drivers who were still in the race.

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