You did not need to see George Russell’s face to know exactly how he was feeling. The sight of the Mercedes driver tossing his headrest cover out of his cockpit following his retirement 29 laps into this race, whacking his car in despair, before chucking his gloves and HANS device to the floor, pretty much summed it up.

Fans around the world were probably feeling exactly the same.

What a battle we had been treated to by Russell and his young Italian team-mate Kimi Antonelli. Just as they had the day before in the sprint race, the two Mercedes drivers had gone wheel-to-wheel, lap after lap, passing and repassing each other. Oh Canada, indeed. If only it could have continued for another 38 laps.

But what a hammer blow, too, for Russell. Having worked so hard to keep Antonelli behind him during that opening stint, for his power unit to then give up the ghost, costing him 25 precious points in the title race, was unbelievably cruel.

Antonelli not only becomes the first driver to win his first four races in F1 consecutively, he assumes a 43-point lead in the title race. Sure, we were only five rounds into the season. But that is starting to look like a pretty big gap. Antonelli is starting to look more and more confident.

No wonder Russell admitted to being “a bit lost for words” once he had finally made it back to the paddock, on the back of a marshal’s scooter.

“I mean, everything just turned off all of a sudden,” he reported of his failure, which came at the end of the straight leading to the final chicane, causing Russell to go straight over the grass, cutting the corner, before pulling his car up on the side of the track. “The engine stopped. No electronics. Nothing.

“I’ve got to be honest, though, I’m proud of my weekend. Pole in the sprint, won the sprint. Pole in the main race, I was leading after a good battle with Kimi. There’s not much more I could have done. So I’ll leave satisfied. I’m pretty damn frustrated, but there’s not much I can do.”

The day had dawned dark, damp and cold, as forecast. With a light drizzle preceding the race, teams were left with a bit of a conundrum; whether to start on the intermediate tyres and hope the weather worsened, or there was an early safety car, or start on the slicks. Nearly everyone chose the latter option.

McLaren, disastrously as it turned out, did not. Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were put on the inters, a decision Piastri was already beginning to regret by the end of the warm-up lap.

Initially, the extra grip proved handy, as Norris managed to surge past both the Mercedes cars and into the race lead. But his joy was short-lived. By the end of the second lap both McLarens had pitted and they were miles off the pace. Norris was eventually forced to retire with a gearbox issue, while Piastri finished out of the points in 11th.

At the front, the battle between Russell and Antonelli was electric, with the racing generally following a pattern which had been laid down earlier in the weekend. Antonelli was probably the slightly faster driver, Russell the more controlled.

Antonelli managed to jump his more experienced team-mate at the start, with Russell wasting no time in trying to win back the position, having a little dig on the second lap into turn one. The race really exploded into life, as it had in the sprint race 24 hours earlier, on lap six when Russell passed Antonelli down the back straight, and Antonelli out-braked himself, going straight over the grass, handing Russell the race lead.

They continued to pass and repass each other almost every lap until Russell’s retirement, with Antonelli losing his cool at one point when told to give back a position he had won unfairly. “Why?” he damned. “He pushed me off.”

With things threatening to spiral out of control, their engineers came on to warn them to keep things clean, Marcus Dudley telling Russell: “Both cars need to race without risk.” And Pete “Bono” Bonnington telling Antonelli: “If you can’t keep it tidy, we will stop it.” But in the end, it was Russell’s power unit which broke first.

With Antonelli cruising to victory at the front, the main interest was in who would take the two remaining podium spots. Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton eventually claimed second place after hunting down Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and passing the Dutch driver with a brilliant move at the start of lap 62.

Russell insisted he was able to see the bright side. “I loved it,” he said of his battle with Antonelli. “I really enjoyed it. It was like karting days; hard, close. That’s what racing is about. I’d love to have continued it for another 30 laps.” But when the adrenalin dissipates, those 25 points lost are going to be tough to swallow.

“Bittersweet,” admitted Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal. “You feel very happy for one driver, and gutted for the other. But in any case, Kimi did a fantastic job today and deserved it. We kind of enjoyed watching them.”