Neptune Did What Neptune Does
ROUND 5 RECAP: CANADIAN GRAND PRIX · Circuit Gilles Villeneuve · May 23–24, 2026
There’s a thing the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve does to people who show up already holding the trophy. It dissolves them. George Russell had pole position. He’d won the sprint on Saturday. He had a gap, he had pace, he had thirty laps of clean air and a championship gap that had dropped to eighteen points. And then his car stopped on lap 30 and Kimi Antonelli had a clear track to his fourth consecutive victory.
I want to say this was a surprise. The sky, however, had notes.
The Cosmic Weather Report
Race day opened with the Sun in Gemini forming a sextile to Neptune in Aries, exact at 10:37 AM. Neptune is fog and dissolution and the beautiful, maddening space between what looks inevitable and what actually happens. A sextile is a flowing angle, cooperative energy - but Neptune doesn’t do cooperative in a straightforward way. It does it sideways. The fog arrives right where it needs to, at exactly the right moment, and by the time you notice it, the thing you were watching has already changed shape.
Pluto has been retrograde in Aquarius since May 6. Pluto retrograde doesn’t announce itself. It works from inside structures that looked stable - teams, cars, championship leads - and it asks whether they can hold. Russell is an Aquarius sun. I’m not saying Pluto retrograde took his gearbox. I’m saying it’s been circling his chart all month, and this is now the second consecutive race he’s walked away from without points.
Venus is in Cancer, where it’s been since the 18th. Cancer holds things - loyalty, homecoming, the circuits that become personal over years of racing. Hamilton told his team on the radio: “I love this track.” He didn’t need to explain further. The car delivered a second place, his best Ferrari result yet, and the overtake that got him there was genuinely worth stopping the tape for.
The Race
Russell led into Turn 1 from pole, Antonelli tucked behind him, and for thirty laps it was the championship fight the paddock had been hoping for since winter testing - controlled, precise, neither driver making a mistake. Then Russell pulled off, parked, and the radio went quiet.
From that point, Antonelli was alone out front. He crossed the line to win his fourth consecutive race, becoming the first driver in F1 history to win his first four starts in succession. He is 19 years old. He is doing this at a circuit where experienced drivers retire four deep on the same lap. His championship lead over Russell is now 43 points, which is a real number in May.
The interesting race was happening behind him. Hamilton had been patient - Cancer-Venus patient, if you want to read it that way - and when Verstappen’s defense opened up in the closing laps, Hamilton took an outer-line overtake that the broadcast team was still replaying five minutes after the flag. P2. His second podium of 2026 and the first time he’d looked genuinely comfortable going wheel-to-wheel with someone who actually pushes back. Verstappen, who had spent the weekend grumbling about the RB22’s balance, took third and described it as “positive.” From Max, in this mood, that’s basically a standing ovation.
Leclerc took fourth, which makes it a decent day for Ferrari on paper even if their season storyline remains unresolved. Hadjar finished fifth as Red Bull’s most reliable points scorer right now. Colapinto took sixth for Alpine in a race where he just… kept going while others stopped. Five cars retired. That list includes the reigning champion (Norris, McLaren - suspected gearbox, lap 40), Alonso (Aston Martin, who the team described as a “problem with his seat,” which is the funniest possible phrase in a post-race statement), Albon (Williams, taken out by Piastri at the hairpin), Perez (Cadillac, front-right suspension), and Russell himself, who will have a conversation with the stewards for throwing his headrest out of the car when he parked it. Lindblad never made it to the grid at all - a Racing Bulls DNS before the formation lap even started.
The Sprint, Briefly
Russell won Saturday’s sprint from pole, holding off Norris across the line by 1.272 seconds with Antonelli third after going too late into Turn 1 on the last lap and running wide. Hamilton hit the Wall of Champions - yes, in the sprint, on a Saturday, before the main race - and dropped to sixth. Verstappen finished seventh and picked up an investigation for ignoring yellow flags. Lindblad scored the final point for Racing Bulls.
It was, in short, a very Montreal kind of Saturday.
Full Results
Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +10.7s
Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +11.2s
Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +44.1s
Hadjar (Red Bull) +1 lap
Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +1 lap
Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +1 lap
Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +1 lap
Carlos Sainz (Williams) +1 lap
Ollie Bearman (Haas) +1 lap
Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +2 laps
Nico Hulkenberg (Audi) +2 laps
Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) +2 laps
Esteban Ocon (Haas) +2 laps
Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +4 laps
Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) +4 laps
DNFs: George Russell (Mercedes, power unit), Lando Norris (McLaren, suspected gearbox), Alex Albon (Williams, contact), Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin, seat issue), Sergio Perez (Cadillac, suspension)
DNS: Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls)
The Standings
Antonelli leads Russell by 43 points after five rounds. Hamilton moved ahead of Norris into fourth, which tells you something about where each of their seasons is sitting right now. Red Bull finally has a podium. Ferrari has two.
Five races into a new regulations era, with Saturn in Aries and Neptune doing exactly what Neptune does, there is still no settled order. The championship is fully open. Anyone who tells you otherwise at this stage is going to look very Neptune by August.
The Bottom Line
Antonelli won four consecutive races, became the first driver in F1 history to win his first four starts in succession, and extended a championship lead that is starting to look like it has real weight to it. Russell’s car stopped on lap 31 while he was leading. Hamilton made a beautiful outer-line overtake on Verstappen and finished second. Six cars didn’t finish - five retirements and one DNS (Lindblad, who never made the grid). The Wall of Champions got Hamilton - on Saturday, before the actual race, just to make sure the circuit got its annual tribute.
Neptune sextile the Sun on race day means the fog was real. Russell had this. The circuit just had other ideas.
What is it about this track that keeps producing exactly this kind of weekend - are you watching this with full superstition attached, or are you somehow still surprised every single May?
Sarah O’Keefe is a front-end software engineer, writer, and new mom based in Charlotte, NC. She writes about tech, the texture of everyday life, and a lot of Formula One. Subscribe above for free to receive new posts and support her work.