We leave the beautiful scenery of Europe to travel all the way to Canada for our impractical trip of the year, as the contribution to melting polar caps runs long overdue. (You’re welcome, Polar bears!) The track, however, is known for putting up a fabulous show and is the only track brave enough to preserve a wall symbolising the driving blunders of the biggest of champions. A pompous McLaren, a hopeful Mercedes and an irritated Max Verstappen from all the nagging reminders of his penalty tally come to change the picture of the Championship table. The home hero, Lance Stroll, has also been deemed fit to participate in the weekend to successfully disappoint his fans on track. McLaren seemed a bit on the back foot with Red Bull and Mercedes showing substantial pace, and with the events leading up to this weekend, fans will pay anything (in addition to all of their savings they have spent for the paddock pass already) to see Max and George in the front row.

Trends from free practice continued as Max and George continued to show great pace, McLaren continued to struggle and Lance CONTINUED TO SUCK. Impeding on track greeted Carlos Sainz as an old friend, bringing an early end to his aspirations for the weekend with a Q1 exit after a brilliant pace demonstration from Williams, making them a strong contender in and for Q3. For the first time this season, Q3 seemed out of McLaren’s reach. Mercedes came to life in Canada bringing the sweet nostalgia of 2024 hit us hard as Max and George went head to head for the pole in the final few minutes of qualifying, with George stealing it in the last corner of the lap, putting him side by side with Max Verstappen for the spiciest turn 1 on Sunday.

I was uncertain as to whom to give the slipstream.

Race began with a rather well behaved lap 1 with Russel having a great start to maintain the lead ahead of Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli getting ahead of Oscar Piastri with a beautiful outside move. Thanks to the brilliant dirty air coming out like Mario Kart banana peels inhibiting any move up the grid, and the only movement being Lando making his way up the grid while Charles tried to decode the Ferrari strategy for the millionth time. (Tougher than IIT-JEE for sure.) The much-awaited and inevitable McLaren rivalry finally arrived to deliver us from a painful watch as the championship rivals found themselves in a wheel-to-wheel battle in the last 10 laps, aided only by the backmarkers. Lando’s misjudgment brought a premature end to what COULD HAVE BEEN, ending his race and coming very close to ending Oscar’s. The safety car assured a peaceful end to the race with George, Max and for the first time on the podium- Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

If the season so far hasn’t convinced about the uncertainty this season holds then I don’t even know what can! Nothing is out of the frame anymore and there are no longer any safe bets or any ‘WILD’ bets. Put your passion for motorsport on the play and roll on your intuition to help you roll to the top of the pile by participating in Grid Master Italian GP Conest. Bigger stakes makes the racing even spicier with each overtake translating into big impacts on the Championship table. Join Grid Master and elevate your experience of this thrilling racing weekend!

McLaren and Zak Brown have been quite vocal about the fact that they wish to let their two drivers fight to the grave (even if that grave happens to be one of McLaren's Drivers' championship dreams). McLaren’s teammate battle arrived as most of our love life, came in too late and lasted for too short. Everyone except Zak Brown has been awaiting a McLaren one-on-one, as Zak knew that the odds of them coming together then became astronomical. With drivers like Max and George behind, incidents like these throw them into play. This will prove a huge blow for Lando and for a man who has been anchoring his self-esteem on the smallest of victories through the course of a weekend, this proves a major setback. The glory of the Monaco race win is now overshadowed by the mistakes he made from then, and it is a sure thing that he finds himself in the same dark room he was before.

Taking a break from heavy, drag inducing cars at the Canadian GP, we make our way to the discipline of motorsport that will never not stand on your expectations no matter how unrealistic they might me. It is the Jakarta E-Prix weekend and make the exciting predictions for the exciting results of the E-prix round on Grid Master’s Jakarta E-Prix contest and stand a great chance to win big as the result changes into every turn of the track.

Join in the fun and make your team now!!!

Keep a look out for something insane coming this week from Grid Master for all the lovely and passionate motorsport fans!!!

Struggling with the same old void now that the race weekend is over? Jump back into the Canadian GP weekend and relive the hottest, craziest overtakes and ‘Mad Max’ moments by tuning-in to the Grid Master Podcast! Latest Episode now live on Youtube!

Watch now: Grid Master Podcast

BAN OF CHAMPIONS

Presenting a brand new section of your much-loved newsletter, called DID YOU KNOW? A segment where we take random, interesting, shocking facts, trivia and stories, realising how they painted the motorsport world, how we now see and love!

You must have seen the drivers occupied on their screens in between the qualifying and practice sessions before a Grand Prix. Well, unlike us, they aren’t treating themselves with a TV show binge-watch but absorbing all the data of the particular session. This includes fastest laps, their lap times, onboard from their team-mate and other drivers, set-up options and much more. This is one of the factors due to which you see major lap time gains from the start run to the end.