Mercedes snatched a dramatic front-row lockout for Saturday’s Canadian Grand Prix sprint race, with George Russell set to start ahead of Kimi Antonelli.

Lewis Hamilton had mixed it up with the Silver Arrows in SQ1 and SQ2, but a small error at the hairpin on his final lap saw him slip to fifth on the grid – within five hundredths of a second of Lando Norris in third place.

Max Verstappen had another difficult qualifying session, and will share the fourth row with young team-mate Isack Hadjar.

Before all of that, Fernando Alonso became the first Aston Martin driver of the year to make it out of Q1/SQ1 in 2026. Unfortunately, he also locked up badly with just under two minutes left of the first part of the session, wrecked his car, brought out a red flag, and didn’t run at all in SQ2.

The result is still an overall positive for the Aston Martin team, with Alonso showing the pace to mix it with the lower midfield for the first time this year, but his mechanics will have to work hard to get things ship-shape for Saturday’s sprint.

Meanwhile, Alex Albon will start from the back of the grid, after his mechanics were unable to repair the damage from his collision with a marmot (and barrier) in practice in time for the session. He will be joined by Liam Lawson, whose car broke in a more conventional way.

Canadian Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying Results

Changes to F1 qualifying in 2026

There are a couple of changes to the way qualifying works this year, not quite as sweeping as the new technical regulations.

Firstly we now have 22 cars on the grid, so instead of 5 cars exiting after SQ1 and SQ2, we will have 6 being eliminated. That still leaves 10 for the pole shootout in SQ3.

Unlike in grand prix qualifying, where Q3 now gets an extra minute and lasts for 13 rather than 12, sprint qualifying timings are unchanged (12 minutes for SQ1, 10 for SQ2, eight for SQ3).