2025 Canadian GP Raceday Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2025 Canadian GP Raceday preview. He found a nice 5.00 winner with George Russell in qualifying, hopefully there’s more to come this evening.

2025 Canadian GP Raceday

It was a novel change to pick the winner of yesterday’s qualifying session. It would have been better had he not won by over 0.10 seconds, but beggars can’t be choosers.

George ‘Mr. Saturday’ Russell is so called because of his excellence in qualifying. It is a bit surprising then to find that he has only had six pole positions in F1. Of the previous five, he has only converted one into a win and that was in Las Vegas last year, perhaps the track most suited to the Mercedes car’s qualities, or lack thereof. He was on pole here last year but only finished in third place.

The pole sitter has a good record here in the turbo hybrid era, winning six of the nine races. The driver starting from second place has won two of the last four, including Max Verstappen last year.

We have seen this movie before. The driver starting third has finished on the podium for the last seven years, which bodes well for Piastri, but there has only been one winner from third on the grid in the last twenty three years.

Team-by-Team

Mercedes

It was quite a comfortable margin for Russell in the end and he used the medium tyres to get pole in Q3. Antonelli starts fourth and yesterday was his best qualifying since Miami. Clearly, this is a Mercedes kind of track, and Mercedes kind of conditions.

The weather has been as forecast so far and today is supposed to be very sunny and 24 degrees, so moving away the cooler conditions the Mercedes needs. Their long run pace on Friday was good, but will it still be with the track nearer 50 degrees than the 41 degrees on Friday?

Russell did a thirteen lap run on 25 lap old tyres on Friday and set the fastest of all the long run times, which is encouraging.

Red Bull

Verstappen won from second place last year, but it was a wet start to the race which mixed things up as the conditions changed from wet to dry. The Red Bull’s long run pace on Friday was very close to the Mercedes.

Verstappen is flying solo with Tsunoda starting last after a ten place grid penalty for overtaking under a red flag yesterday. However, I imagine that Verstappen doesn’t even know he has a teammate these days.

Max is going for win number four in a row in Montreal, which has never been done before. The Red Bulls were the fastest on the straights on Friday and as that is where the overtaking is done, Max looks to have a good setup for the race, if he can get close enough to Russell.

McLaren

It has been an up and down weekend for McLaren but down at just the wrong time. Just as Norris had seemed to have found his qualifying mojo, he lost it again yesterday. He will start form a lowly seventh place.

He started from sixth in Bahrain and finished third and started tenth in Jeddah and finished fourth. The McLaren’s race pace is its strength but he threw away the chance to win the race with another underwhelming display on Saturday.

Oscar Piastri had been struggling all weekend but he gathered it up to qualify third and is set to extend his Championship lead over Norris. He will have one eye on Verstappen who could get himself back in the frame with a win.

Ferrari

Leclerc only ran nine laps on Friday and did no long runs. He got straight up to speed in FP3, setting the second fastest time, but it all went wrong in Q3. He came up behind a slower car and lost the rear end in the dirty air and had to abort his run, leaving him back in eighth.

Hamilton ended up fifth, his joint second best qualifying of the season. He started fifth in Spain and in China and finished sixth in both. 

Ferrari is not a happy camp right now. The knives are out and everyone is under pressure. Not good. Their race pace is better than their qualifying pace but they will have a faster McLaren coming through and their (Hamilton’s) long run pace on Friday was not as good as Mercedes, Red Bull or McLaren.

Aston Martin

They do go well here. Stroll is back in seventeenth place and surely his time is up? Alonso is going for his second top ten finish of the season and his fourth in a row in Montreal. He will do well to keep Norris and Leclerc behind him for very long.

Williams

A disappointing qualifying for Williams. They had looked good for a third row based on Friday’s pace but they lost ground yesterday. Albon only managed to qualify in ninth place after losing a big chunk of bodywork coming out of the hairpin in Q1, while Sainz was blocked by Hadjar on his flying lap in Q1 and he starts back in sixteenth.

From looking good for a top six finish and a double points finish, Williams are now looking at the minor points. The car has the potential to make up ground but they seem to have missed a good chance for a big helping of points.

Alpine

Colapinto qualified in twelfth place? Really? And Gasly in last place? Surely that is the wrong way round? All very confusing and all very Alpine.

Gasly had bad qualifying sessions in China and Miami but made up five places in both races. Colapinto will start in tenth thanks to penalties for Tsunoda and Hadjar. I doubt he will be able to stay there. The Alpine was lacking in straight line speed and their weak power unit is a handicap on a track like this.

Sauber

Very disappointing after I bigged up their chances in the ante-post preview. Hulkenberg only qualified thirteenth but is elevated to eleventh place, while Bortoleto starts fifteenth. Can they find more pace in the race? I hope so, I could do with a break.

Racing Bulls

Hadjar had qualified ninth but got a three place penalty for blocking Sainz. It was the team’s fault for telling him that Sainz was on a slowdown lap, when he was on a flying lap.

The car has the pace to threaten the top ten but its race pace is no better than  qualifying pace and Hadjar has struggled to finish in the points when he has started outside the top ten.

Haas

Qualified fourteenth and fifteenth and move up one place thanks to Tsunoda’s penalty. The car was the slowest on the straights which might not help their over taking chances, but traditionally they make up three or four places in the race, so points are possible.

2025 Canadian GP Raceday Summary

It will be interesting to see how the first lap or two unfolds. There is no great love lost between Russell and Verstappen and they have clashed before, and not just in Spain last time out.

Russell has alluded to the fact that he has less penalty points on his licence, reminding Max that he better not make any aggressive moves on him, or that one race ban would kick in. For his part, Verstappen says he will not change his modus operandi. Verstappen is really racing Piastri but he desperately needs to win the race to keep his title chances alive. He will get his elbows out, race ban or not.

Overtaking Possible

Overtaking is possible on this track. Drivers can make up a lot of places in a fast car. Indeed, Carlos Sainz finished second here in 2022 when he started nineteenth. Safety cars or virtual safety cars are fairly common here as it is hard to recover cars from certain parts of the circuit. The attrition rate is high and this is rarely a straightforward race.

That said, the winners usually come from the front row. Piastri might change that if the sunnier, warmer weather puts a premium on tyre degradation. That is where McLaren have a big edge.

Max Verstappen is the 2.75 favourite, Oscar Piastri 3.15 and George Russell 4.00. History suggests that the winner starts on the front row, but Piastri can’t be ruled out. He has won from fourth on the grid already this season but failed to improve when he has qualified third in Japan and Monaco.

Mercedes’ Friendly Track

The track is Mercedes friendly. It may not play to the Red Bulls strength but Max seems to be able to go well here even in a slower car. McLaren have not looked their best this weekend, but race pace is where they excel.

We have four ante post bets for the race. Norris to win looks to be toast now. Hadjar to finish in the points took a hit with his three place penalty, but he is still in the frame. Nico Hulkenberg to finish in the points is still possible. He starts eleventh and is now a 3.25 shot. We have 5.40 and hopefully it is not going to be another good value loser. A double points finish for Sauber was a long shot, and it looks even longer with Bortoleto so far back.

2025 Canadian GP Raceday Selections

What to add to the portfolio?

It is not often you get the pole sitter at Montreal at 4.00. However, there are quite a few threats to Russell’s chances. Verstappen and Piastri to start with. The warmer weather today is another, as is the reliability of the Mercedes.

The big question is does he have a fast enough car to hold off his opponents? Based on his qualifying pace, yes, but was that pace more about Russell executing a very good lap, or just having a faster car?

Six of the nine races in 2025 have been won from pole position, two of the other three have been won by Piastri and the other, Verstappen. You can make a good argument for all three and I am happy to leave the win market be.

The Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve has traditionally seen a lot of retirements. In the turbo-hybrid era the average not classified is 3.67. Of the nine races, seven have seem three or more. Two of the last four have seen just two, and the trend has been for lower retirement rates in recent years, but at the odds I will take a chance on under 17.5 drivers to be classified finishers.

2025 Canadian GP Raceday Tip: 1 point under 17.5 drivers to be classified finishers @ 2.75 with BET365

We haven’t had a group bet for a while but Ladbrokes Group 4 has one driver who might be a bit of value. The group consists of Ocon, Tsunoda, Lawson, Stroll, Gasly and Bortoleto.

It is a large group but Ocon is the pole sitter in it and the Haas is a car that usually finishes ahead of where it starts. In his eight completed races he has improved on his grid position six times and only dropped places once.

On average Ocon makes up 3.33 places per race. Something similar would give him a great chance to win the group. Nobody else in the group comes close to that race improvement rate.

2025 Canadian GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Esteban Ocon to win Group 4 with Ladbrokes @ 4.00

McLaren have set six of the season’s fastest laps and five of the last six. Race pace is their speciality and both are going to have to push today. The odds look a touch generous to me.

2025 Canadian GP Raceday Tip: 1 point McLaren to set the fastest lap of the race @ 1.85 with Livescorebet

-JamesPunt