Antonelli leads extended practice after Albon hits groundhog and crashes

Andrea Kimi Antonelli headed a disrupted opening practice session in Montreal which was extended after two red flags.

The longest disruption was caused after Alexander Albon crashed at the exit of turn seven. The Williams driver struck an unfortunate groundhog which was crossing the track.

The poor animal went underneath Albon’s front-left wheel, causing a loss of grip which sent him into the wall. He came to a rest with substantial damage to the left-hand side of his FW48. “I am so fucking unlucky,” lamented Albon before climbing out.

The session had already been stopped earlier when Liam Lawson came to a stop at turn four with a technical problem in his Racing Bulls. The marshals’ attempt to recover his car was delayed as its clutch disengagement system did not work, which led to him being reported to the stewards.

In order to make up for the time lost in the sole practice session of the weekend, race control allowed drivers an extra 19 minutes. That proved no help to Lawson or Albon, nor to Franco Colapinto, who spent the entire session in his garage due to a problem with his Alpine’s power unit.

Drivers favoured the hard compound tyre for much of the session. McLaren briefly led the way before the Mercedes drivers forged ahead by well over half a second. Andrea Kimi Antonelli led the times at this stage, a 1’14.392 putting him just four hundredths of a second ahead of his team mate.

George Russell was the first of the front-runners to switch to the soft tyres, producing a 1’13.850 which temporarily restored him to the top of the times. But moments later Antonelli took nearly half a second off his team mate’s mark with a 1’13.402, showing noticeably impressive commitment through the final chicane as the dusty track gave up more grip.

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Although Russell gained three-tenths of a second on a later run, he subsequently spun off at turn two. However Esteban Ocon did a more comprehensive job when he struck the barrier on the inside between turns four and five. The Haas driver took the nose off his car, causing the third red flag of the session.

This time the session was not extended. But it did restart with enough time left for drivers to join the track and perform practice starts, though Ocon was noted by race control for leaving the pit lane under a red light.

Behind the Mercedes drivers, Lewis Hamilton completed a lap on softs but was over three-quarters of a second slower in third place. Charles Leclerc in the other Ferrari took fourth, narrowly ahead of Max Verstappen, though several drivers encountered traffic or yellow flags on their soft tyre runs.

Oscar Piastri locked a tyre during his flying lap on soft tyres and ended up seventh behind his team mate. Fernando Alonso put his Aston Martin in the rare heights of 10th after completing his soft tyre run early.

2026 Canadian Grand Prix first practice result

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