Mercedes may have introduced an ambitious set of F1 upgrades for the Canadian Grand Prix, but that hasn’t stopped Lewis Hamilton from taking the fight to his former team.
The competitive action got underway early in Montreal with the third sprint weekend of the 2026 season, and practice and sprint qualifying kicked off the race weekend on Friday.
For Canada, Mercedes brought several upgrades for their 2026 challenger, including an updated front wing and circuit specific changes to contend with the high braking demands of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Ferrari on the other hand, didn’t introduce upgrades for Montreal, instead deciding to optimise the changes they made in Miami, where they struggled against more direct competitors Red Bull and McLaren.
Nonetheless, Hamilton challenged the narrative that Mercedes’ upgrades would make them the dominant force in Montreal – at least for a while – during sprint qualifying.
At one stage in SQ3, Hamilton split the two Mercedes and it looked as if he could hang onto a front row start for Saturday’s sprint. That was until the two McLarens set faster times and Kimi Antonelli secured the second place spot alongside team-mate George Russell.
Hamilton secured a sprint race start of fifth, but was overwhelmingly positive about the work the Ferrari engineers achieved, and said to the media on Friday: “That’s probably the best qualifying session we’ve had for some time. Just really great work with the engineers, setup changes, the car felt really fantastic from P1, and we made just subtle changes going into quali.
“SQ1 and SQ2 were looking good, and then I don’t know why the others are able to like turn up a little bit more, I don’t know. But I’m just happy to be there in the fight. I was having so much fun out there.”
Wolff: Lewis can fight for pole
After sprint qualifying on Friday, Toto Wolff was asked by Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz how much Mercedes’ upgrades were worth. While Wolff remained positive over the upgrades, he was also wary of the threat Hamilton posed during the session.
“Well, it was enormous workload that was being brought to the car,” Wolff explained.
“I think if Lewis does not make this one mistake in the lap then he is probably fighting for pole with us, so we need to see what it brings in the real qualifying tomorrow and in the race. I don’t want to get either neither too greedy but on the other side also not too negative.”
