Canadian Grand Prix

Making our way to MontréalMaking our way to Montréal

2025 season

Straight after Fernando's home race in Spain, we're off to the circuit where the Aston Martin Racing Green tends to come with a #18 attached. The Canadian Grand Prix used to be a double-header with the United States, but with the races in America migrating to southern states, our visits to Montréal have become a standalone excursion in F1’s European summer.

Not that this presents a hardship: the Canadian Grand Prix is one of those races with a real buzz around it. It's an event that generates some of the sport’s biggest crowds, best parties and most dramatic racing. The old school Circuit Gilles Villeneuve doesn’t take prisoners with its narrow, tunnel-like layout and rarely does a race pass without high drama. It’s been a good track for us in the past, but there are new intrigues for 2025 with softer tyres and perhaps an opportunity for a first dry race on a track resurfaced after the 2023 Grand Prix.

Off the back of his first points of the season, Fernando is eager to get going at a track where he’s always excelled, Lance is returning from injury for his home race, and we have F1 Academy back this weekend, with Aston Martin Aramco F1 Academy driver Tina Hausmann keen to extend her recent run of points-scoring finishes.

Keep scrolling for everything you need to know for Lance's home race weekend, including an exclusive interview with the home hero, and our 100th Grand Prix since Aston Martin's return to the pinnacle of the sport in 2021.

TRACK INSIGHTS

Circuit Gilles VilleneuveCircuit Gilles Villeneuve

The final chicane is challenging because there’s a wall on the exit and very high inside kerbs. You have to cut across the chicane as much as you can and brake very hard.

Pedro de la Rosa – Aston Martin Aramco Team Ambassador

Toggle below to highlight parts of the track.

Sectors
Turns
DRS

Circuit length (km)
4.361
Number of corners
14
Race distance (km)
305.270

NEED TO KNOW: CANADIAN GP

The essential Montréal travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

Mastering Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

The magic of racing in Montréal

Strategy insights from Montréal

Ultimate Canadian Grand Prix facts

Last time out

The essential Montréal travel guide with Regent Seven Seas Cruises

To experience F1's most European Grand Prix… you really have to go to Québec. We're joking… but only a little bit. The Canadian Grand Prix sits in the middle of the European racing season and feels right at home there. This is a race with a history that stretches back almost 60 years, on a track in use for nearly 50 years. It has an enormous and loyal following and it is an event that spreads far beyond the confines of Île Notre-Dame.

Montréal is a city that embraces its race probably better than any other. When the action at the track dies down, everyone walks to the metro, dives under the river and surfaces in the middle of party central. The race is very much the centre of attention downtown, there are pop-up stores and chequered flags everywhere, the restaurants spill out onto the pavement, but the official hub is on Crescent Street, where the roads are closed and pedestrianised for the duration, a stage erected, and the live music goes on deep into the night.

Beyond the race-based entertainment, Montréal has all of the big city attractions. Mount Royal Park is a terrific place to spend an afternoon – perhaps more so this year with a midsummer date. That might mean we're still in hockey season for anyone wanting to visit the Bell Centre, which is usually home to live music during race weekend – though avoid the top tier if you're afraid of heights: cramming 20,000-plus spectators into the tight, intimate arena makes the stands very steeply raked – definitely not for the faint-hearted.

Mastering Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve isn't one of F1's truly ancient venues but it's 1970s origins put it firmly in the old-school camp. It's tight, bumpy and, surrounded by walls, doesn't allow much margin for error. Following the perimeter of Île Notre-Dame in the St Lawrence River, the circuit is a collection of straights, linked by medium-speed chicanes. It has kerbs to be ridden and ever-present walls, the threat of which makes a race without Safety Cars or red flags something of a novelty.

A recent resurfacing effort has smoothed out some of the biggest bumps – but the massive temperature swings of the Montréal climate are not kind to a racing circuit, and so Friday running is often an opportunity to experience new lumps that invariably appear between races. And this combined with a generally low starting grip level make the track a place to exhibit some caution in the early running.

The stop-start nature of the circuit means it's a hard race for fuel consumption, but also incredibly harsh on the brakes. It's the toughest track F1 visits for braking performance, with the issue being the short intervals between the heavy braking events, during which there often isn't enough time to properly cool the discs and calipers. Retirements due to brake failure are not uncommon.

The magic of racing in Montréal

Île Notre-Dame is an artificial island, constructed in the St Lawrence using spoil excavated when the Montréal Metro was being dug. Today it forms part of park Jean-Drapeau with Île Sainte-Hélène, the two islands linked by bridges. It was originally constructed as a host venue for the Expo 67 World Fair, and then reconfigured for the 1976 summer Olympics, relics of both of which are still prominent landmarks around the circuit.

From the Expo, the French Pavilion is now the Casino that sits in the middle of the island and lends the back-straight its name. The US Pavilion is the huge geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller, which now houses the Montréal Biosphere. From the '76 Olympics we have the rowing basin which runs the length of the back straight and hems in the paddock and pit building – which used to be up by the Hairpin – and the Turn One grandstands. For most of the year, it's a place for walking, running, cycling and visiting the attractions, but on grand prix weekend there's only room for one thing.

One of the best things about the Canadian Grand Prix is that almost every corner provides action, and so almost every grandstand provides a great view of action. This is interesting for the teams, given the start-finish grandstand is relatively small, and the start-finish straight is relatively narrow, which at times makes it feel like the spectators are in the garage. While there are good views from grandstands out in the woods, the two main concentrations are at the ends of the track, with the stadium sections around T1-T2 and the Hairpin.

Lance has his own grandstand at the Hairpin – which is the gift that keeps on giving because not only does it have an excellent view of the track, it also has the iconic geodesic dome as the perfect backdrop for pictures. The other advantage of this – or any of the other stands around the Hairpin – is that they're closest to the Jean-Drapeu Metro station on Île Sainte-Hélène. This can be significant. There isn't any public parking at the track. Walking down to the big bleachers at T1-T2 can take an hour from the station, though it provides a very nice run for members of the crew after the day's activities have ended.

It's also worth noting that the grandstands are uncovered, so an umbrella is a useful accessory. The Canadian Grand Prix tends to be a wild ride, from torrential rain to baking sunshine and everything in between – sometimes in the same session. On the upside, it's extremely welcoming, packed to the rafters for all three days, and has an amazing, positive atmosphere.

Strategy insights from Montréal

This isn't a particularly straightforward question to answer.

Last year's race saw heavy rain at the start, which left everyone reacting to conditions rather than implementing a pre-race plan. 2023 isn't much of a guide either, as the track was resurfaced between 2023 and 2024. And were that not enough, we've also gone down a step in the Pirelli range, with the new C6 compound making its third appearance of the year.

So, what might happen? The Circuit Gilles Villenueve is a little different to Imola and Monaco as a venue for the C6. At Imola, the idea of using the new tyre was to convert the race from a one-stop into a two (while two stops were mandated in Monaco). In Montréal, two-stops already looks like a strong option, and had been the default strategy for a few years. Last year, had it been dry, the projections were for a two-stop race, of either Medium-Hard-Hard, or Medium-Hard-Medium, both of which were expected to be quicker than the Medium-Hard one-stop option.

Going a step softer in the compound range likely takes that one-stop off the table, but the second half of last year's race suggests the two-stop shouldn't be problematic. When it stopped raining, cars were running the C4 Medium compound – this year's Hard compound – from lap 42 onwards to the flag in the 70-lap race, without issue, which suggests it's likely to be a strong tyre for two long stints, with one of the C5 or C6 tyres used for a first stint.

Ultimate Canadian Grand Prix facts

1 | This is the 54th Formula One World Championship Canadian Grand Prix. The race made its debut in 1967, skipping 1975, 1987, 2009, 2020-21. The early races were held at Mosport Park near Toronto, except 1968 and 1970 when the Mont-Tremblant Circuit here in Quebec hosted. Since 1978, the race has been held on the current track.

2 | The 1978 Canadian Grand Prix, held on 8 October, is officially the coldest Grand Prix on record, with temperatures of 5°C.

3 | Back when this was an end-of-season race, the Canadian Grand Prix was a Drivers' Championship decider in 1980, and settled the Constructors' Championship in 1967 and 1981.

4 | Lance scored his first F1 points on this circuit, finishing ninth in the 2017 Canadian Grand Prix.

5 | Fernando is one of three Canadian Grand Prix winners in the field this year. He won here in 2006. Lewis Hamilton has seven victories on this circuit, while Max Verstappen has won the last three.

6 | The track was originally named the Circuit Île Notre-Dame, taking its name from the island on which it is situated. The first race at this venue was won by Gilles Villeneuve, after whom the track is now named.

7 | Villeneuve is one of six drivers to take a debut victory at his eponymous track. The others are Thierry Boutsen (1989), Jean Alesi (1995), Hamilton (2007), Robert Kubica (2008) and Daniel Ricciardo (2014).

8 | The 2011 race made history for many dramatic reasons. It holds the record for the most Safety Car deployments (six), the most pit-stops by a winning driver (also six, for Jenson Button, now shared with Verstappen at the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix), the longest duration race at 4h4m39.537s (due to a two-hour red flag), and as a result of that, statistically the lowest average winning race speed of 74.844kph / 46.506mph.

9 | Last year's race saw the rare occurrence of the pole position and P2 sharing the same time, George Russell starting from pole having set his 1m12.000s lap before Verstappen. It's only happened once before, when the top three cars set the same time at the 1997 European Grand Prix.

Last time out

Our three races at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve have been productive, with Lance scoring points every time he's raced at home, and Fernando weighing in with a couple of memorable drives.

The Canadian Grand Prix came back onto the calendar in 2022 after a two-year hiatus when restrictions were in place due to the global pandemic. A wet Qualifying session on Saturday was a lottery, with both Sebastian Vettel and Lance being eliminated in Q1. Lance, however, played the long game with a reverse strategy, doing 47 laps from the lights on the Hard tyre before passing his way through the field in the final third of the race on the quicker Medium tyre to finish tenth, after the field was bunched by a Safety Car.

Lance went the other way in 2023. Having started 18th after wet Qualifying, he started the race with two very short stints before a long final push on the Hard tyre. His only overtaking move came on the final lap, when he passed Valtteri Bottas for P9. The day was, however, memorable for Fernando's podium. Having made his way through a treacherous qualifying session, he lined up P2, but lost that position on the opening lap, taking it back in the second stint after a duel with Lewis Hamilton.

Last year's wet race was our strongest weekend of the season, with Fernando starting and finishing P6 but Lance having a more eventful afternoon, starting P9, dropping a position at the start and then rising through the field to finish P7.

Session Times

FP1

Fri13Jun

18:30-19:30 BST

FP2

Fri13Jun

22:00-23:00 BST

FP3

Sat14Jun

17:30-18:30 BST

Quali

Sat14Jun