Mercedes ended up 1-2 on the grid again at Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix, but its route there was not entirely straightforward.

Here’s our pick of who has most to celebrate from qualifying and who desperately needs a better Sunday.

Winner: George Russell (1st)

Qualifying was not going to plan for George Russell until the last 70 seconds or so that earned him pole position.

The Mercedes driver was clearly knocked off his stride by a tricky session, which he put down to some set-up changes for the race and the general challenge of getting the tyres working in colder conditions and a generally tricky track for warm-up. 

But that just made the feeling of besting team-mate and title rival Kimi Antonelli to pole a lot sweeter compared to qualifying on top when everything's already been going your way.  

"It was just such a great feeling because I did a really great lap," Russell said. "It all was hooked up together.

"I crossed the line, I see my name's gone to the top of the leaderboard and I knew that was pole - and that rush of adrenaline within the space of 10 seconds is what we all live for."

Russell said it wasn't about the championship picture, it was the thrill of the moment. But given how much scrutiny he's been under after a trickier run and a particularly underwhelming Miami weekend, this felt like a particularly important last-gasp triumph. - Scott Mitchell-Malm

Loser: Lance Stroll (21st)

Lance Stroll has been outqualified by Aston Martin team-mate Fernando Alonso in every session they've done together so far in 2026 - and it is absolutely true that, were that to flip 100%, he probably would still have the same amount of points he has right now.

Two-three tenths won't matter very much right now to the Aston Martin-Honda project in the grand scheme of things. But this weekend has been a bit of a mauling between the two drivers - Alonso one thousandths away from being a full second clear in Q1 as Stroll felt all at sea and confidence-sapped in his AMR26.

Going by the weather forecast, tomorrow's performance patterns will have little to do with today's - and Stroll's weekend could yet somehow end up a very, very good one. But there have been some eye-catchingly large gaps between this team-mate pairing this season, obscured by the general woes of the technical package. - Valentin Khorounzhiy

Winner: Lando Norris (3rd)

This may seem like a blindingly obvious thing to say for someone who finished second in the sprint race and qualified best-of-the-rest behind the two Mercedes cars, but Lando Norris is having a superbly effective weekend in Canada.

He's not been mind-blowingly quick in the sense of having a massive margin over McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, or produced a giantkilling feat.  

But Norris has been on the right side of fine margins to Piastri when it's counted in two qualifying sessions, split the Mercedes drivers in the sprint, and was right at the sharp end in all three qualifying segments. 

He's driving really well in Montreal and it showed with another very good qualifying result. - SMM

Loser: Charles Leclerc (8th)

Charles Leclerc promised a crash or eighth place coming into Q3, and he was a man of his word in the end, with no crash and thus eighth place.

The gap to pole (0.398s) and to Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton (0.108s) actually looked a considerable upturn relative to Q1 and Q2, even if the result didn't.

Leclerc corroborated all this speaking after the session, describing himself as "on ice" through the first two segments as he "struggled incredibly" to warm up the tyres. He said Q3 was finally an "acceptable lap" but with a "not really acceptable" position, a consequence of having struggled so much through most of qualifying.

He could still do some good work from eighth on the grid - but does not relish the prospect of a cold and wet race on a weekend in which tyre temps have already been a "nightmare" for him. - VK

Winner: Isack Hadjar (7th)

Isack Hadjar lamented his Q3 effort, feeling he "made it difficult with my mistakes" and squandered a car that was "really working".

That's less important, though, than the conclusive evidence across yesterday's and today's qualifying segments that he is genuinely in the groove again, looking like the impressive version we saw in the opening rounds and not the what-is-going-on version of Miami - a weekend he says has now been consigned to the "bin".

"I feel a lot better in the car. I'm not getting destroyed in every corner and it feels more normal, more like the first three rounds." - VK

Loser: Valtteri Bottas (22nd)

Qualifying last was kind of what Valtteri Bottas signed up for when he committed to his F1 return with the fledgling Cadillac team. That’s not why he’s in our loser category.

The issue is that whenever you spot a Cadillac far higher up the field than you’d expect, it’s Sergio Perez producing those heroics.

The time gap between them this weekend has been massive, and Bottas’s last-lap lock-up and excursion in Q1 doesn’t account for all of it.

Perez is making it look like his lack of a 2025 seat was an injustice and he still has plenty more to offer F1. Bottas’s comeback isn’t giving that impression yet. - Matt Beer

Winner: Arvid Lindblad (9th)

Arvid Lindblad was a little disappointed with his eventual ninth, having been far higher at times during the three parts of qualifying.

But his assessment that ninth is the best possible for Racing Bulls when none of the top four teams has a nightmare is spot on.

This weekend’s performance is exactly the kind of form a Red Bull junior needs to be producing. And quite well timed when Red Bull’s lead driver is talking seriously about not being on the 2027 grid. - MB

Loser: Pierre Gasly (14th)

A run of two weekends adrift and four qualifying defeats within them (relative to Alpine team-mate Franco Colapinto) is clearly beginning to weigh on Pierre Gasly, who was distinctly un-chipper discussing his qualifying struggles after the session.

"I don't really know what's going on since Miami - but at the moment, on my side we're absolutely nowhere," he lamented.

"It was easy top 10, quite consistent, good car - and at the moment... can't brake, can't turn in, can't accelerate, there's no grip. I think we've got a lot of work and hopefully the team can help to find the answers."

He stonewalled questions about whether he'd gone back a spec on some bits of the car, but did say "there's just more to it" as "fundamentally something is not clicking since Miami".

"I think there's something more fundamental, which obviously we're trying to understand. On the data, there's quite clearly stuff which doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, at the moment, we haven't found the fixes yet." - VK