It is safe to say the Canadian Grand Prix weekend is not working out the way it was supposed to for plenty of the participants – as Robbie Burns almost wrote, the best-laid plans of marmots and men in Montreal often go awry.

First, there have been more red flags than on Hannibal Lecter’s dating profile. In free practice, Liam Lawson lost power steering and parked up by a chicane – picking up a €30,000 part-suspended fine for Racing Bulls as the FIA ruled they had failed to ensure his clutch disengagement system button was working. Then it was Alex Albon, whose Williams was involved in a collision with one of the aforementioned marmots, following in the messy tyre tracks of Lewis Hamilton last year. Finally, Esteban Ocon spun his Haas into a wall and needed a new nose. Neither Lawson nor Albon made it to the start line for sprint qualifying.

Once actual competitive driving got going, it was Fernando Alonso’s turn to crash out. The Spaniard was pushing the Aston Martin hard to try to make Q2 and indeed just made it in theory, but in practice struck a wall after setting his time, ending his participation and making it a messy thé-time on the Île Notre Dame, with a long delay.

While Racing Bulls, Williams and Aston Martin struggle to get ready for the sprint race, for the organisers, the bigger clouds are, er, big clouds: while all is set fair for today, it will be absolutely tipping it down all tomorrow. The odds on there being more red flags are surely short.

One thing you can all but rely on in 2026: Mercedes will be at the front. And one man for whom Canada is going to plan so far is George Russell. The Briton, stung by his teammate Kimi Antonelli’s run of wins and now 20 points behind in the standings, just edged out the Italian to take sprint pole. Remember, while other teams brought their first major upgrades to Miami, this is our first sight of Mercedes’s development. As Giles Richards, our F1 correspondent, wrote:

Certainly, should Mercedes have made the same advances that their rivals did in Miami, they will retain the whip hand – and with it the intensity of the title fight between their drivers, Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, will surely ratchet up.

While Mercedes locked out row one, McLaren did the same to row two (Norris then Piastri), Ferrari are on row three (Hamilton then Leclerc), Red Bull are on row four (Verstappen and Hadjar), followed by the sole Racing Bull and Williams to take part in SQ on row five (Lindblad then Sainz).

Russell definitely needed his 0.068 advantage over his teammate. As Giles wrote:

The 19-year-old Antonelli, in only his second season in F1, has been enormously impressive, having won the last three races in a row to lead the world championship by 20 points from his far more experienced teammate. Russell, the pre‑season favourite, who could manage only fourth in Miami, unsurprisingly had to bat away inquiries in Canada as to whether he was starting to feel the pressure.

“It’s been a turbulent start but the truth is Miami felt like the first tough race of the season,” he said. “It’s still so early days and I know how to deal with it. It’s not the first time in my career that I’ve had a bad race or two but in this sport it does change so quickly: one week you have a tough race and the next week you come back and everything goes back to normal.”

I’ll be back from 4.30pm BST/11.30am EDT to see how it all unfolds. In the meantime, read the rest of Giles’s preview of the weekend: