Mercedes teen Antonelli wins Canadian GP for fourth straight F1 victory

Antonelli finished more than 10 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Hamilton, who secured his second podium finish in 2026.Kimi Antonelli went from furious to victorious as the 19-year-old Italian star won a wild Canadian Grand Prix for his fourth straight victory, a day after clashing with Mercedes teammate George Russell in a heated sprint race.Russell dropped out with an engine failure after the title-chasing Mercedes duo put on a show in a thrilling fight through 30 laps, trading the lead several times and coming dangerously close to making contact in the race on Sunday.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4‘Just the beginning’: Antonelli becomes youngest F1 Grand Prix pole sitterlist 2 of 4MotoGP postpones Qatar Grand Prix due to Middle East conflictlist 3 of 4Verstappen calls his Red Bull ‘undriveable’ after more F1 woes at Japan GPlist 4 of 4Antonelli of Mercedes wins in Japan to become youngest F1 title leaderend of listThen trouble struck for Russell, giving Antonelli a clear path to the finish – and a commanding championship lead.“It was a really fun battle, to be fair, with George. We were pretty much on the limit,” Antonelli said. “It was very close, and it was a shame for him to have the failure because it would have been a very cool battle. But we’ll take it.”Hamilton celebrates his podium finish [Geoff Robins/AFP]Antonelli finished more than 10 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.Antonelli opened a 43-point lead over Russell through five of 22 races. After Russell won the season-opening race in Australia, Antonelli won in China, Japan and Miami, and now Montreal.Russell’s exit marked a nightmare end to an otherwise stellar weekend for the Montreal winner last year. He took the sprint race from pole on Saturday and started first on Sunday.Once his power unit died, the 28-year-old English driver threw his headrest across the track and slammed his fists into the front of the car before leaving the circuit, whipping his gloves to the ground in rage.