As the lights on the gantry went out, Formula 1 (F1) drivers sped towards the first corner. Pole sitter George Russell kept his Mercedes in the lead, Max Verstappen pulled his Red Bull up close and stayed in second, and Andrea Kimi Antonelli sped his Mercedes into third past Oscar Piastri’s McLaren, switching the places for the third and fourth placed starters. While the results showed those four finished in exactly that order, the story behind the finish held a lot of excitement.

Tire strategy and the timing of pit stops are generally the two most crucial pieces of race strategy on the day of an F1 race, and that was initially true in the Canadian Grand Prix as well. While Lando Norris’ McLaren and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari looked like they might try a one stop strategy, the seven top finishers were all on a two-stop strategy.

The racing was close and tense for the last third of the race, with the top five drivers separated by a mere six seconds. Russell seemed to have time in hand to keep Verstappen off his tail, but third place Antonelli was feeling intense pressure from Piastri who, in turn, was getting serious pressure from his teammate Norris with ten laps to go.

Soon after is when the race took a chaotic turn. Norris dove inside of Piastri in the hairpin towards the end of the lap, and managed to sneak by Piastri. Not wanting to give up ground to his teammate in the championship, Piastri fought back and managed to get just ahead of Norris.

In the next several corners, the cars were side by side and racing each other hard. As the cars careened past the start/finish line, Norris broke late and went for an opening he saw to the outside of Piastri. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a gap there and Norris had gravely misjudged the situation.

Contact happened, smoke and dust billowed into the air and car parts scattered across the track. In the ensuing carnage, spectators couldn’t make out what happened to either driver initially. Norris was soon seen without a front wing, a broken front left suspension, and an end to his race. Piastri lucked out with no visible damage to his car and managed to take a precautionary pitstop behind the pace car which was immediately called to the track.

As the accident happened with a mere four laps to go, the track was unable to be cleared in time to resume racing and the checkered flag waved without the drivers able to challenge one another again.

What happened in the aftermath of the collision between McLaren teammates Norris and Piastri, the two drivers leading the championship, was astonishing.

Norris came on the radio and said, “I’m sorry. It’s all my bad. All my fault. Unlucky. Sorry. Stupid from me.”

In modern F1, drivers taking the responsibility for a clash is nearly unheard of and was extremely refreshing to hear. Watching the replays after the collision, particularly from onboard Norris’ car, it was obvious he didn’t brake in time, was in a place without enough room, and ran into the back of Piastri.

There was no ill will or intent from Piastri, and the stewards confirmed all of this by giving Norris a five-second penalty for causing a collision. This was in effect meaningless to the standings since Norris didn’t finish the race and the penalty won’t carry over to the next race, but it was definitively showing that Norris was solely to blame for the accident.

The collision was bad optics for McLaren, but far from catastrophic for them. They still have a 175 point lead over second place Mercedes (who has a total of 199 points), so they are in a great position in the Constructor’s Championship. Still, no team wants to see their drivers clash and it put the team in the position of needing to decide if they’ll continue to let their drivers race one another.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the collision was “not acceptable,” but went on to say that they “appreciate that Lando [Norris] immediately owned it and apologized to the team,” adding later that the team and their drivers “will go racing again.” Good news for the fans, as well as the teammates.

What was most impressive and refreshing to me, however, was simply the candor of Norris. There have been drivers throughout the history of F1 that have been particularly complainy, but that seems to be the expectation now as teams constantly try to get other drivers in trouble based on the rules they all drive by.

Should someone that runs afoul of the rules be penalized? Absolutely, yes, but trying to paint everything as a breach needing to be penalized is tedious and puts me off the sport, to be honest.

Take the back and forth between George Russell and Max Verstappen, the first and second placed drivers at the end of the race. They’re driving behind the safety car, race results basically set in stone as there won’t be enough laps to restart the racing. And yet, they can’t avoid drama.

Russell, in order to keep his car optimal on the off chance they do go racing again (and just for the safety of driving the car), was weaving side to side and occasionally braking harder to keep temperatures up in both tires and brakes. Nothing at all uncommon behind a safety car in an F1 race.

Verstappen, caught off guard one of the times Russell stepped on the brakes, shot a little past Russell. Passing under the safety car isn’t allowed, but a situation like this probably wouldn’t have been an issue since Verstappen slammed on his brakes to retake his position behind Russell.

Over the radio, Russell, in a rather perplexed voice, said, “Verstappen just overtook me under… under the safety car.” His Mercedes team responded, “Understood, we’ll look.”

Verstappen, on the other hand, called in, “George [Russell] suddenly just aggressively braked,” to which his Red Bull team replied, “Understood. Thank you. We will check for any erratic driving.”

Red Bull even went so far as to submit a protest against Russell post-race, citing his erratic driving and stated, laughably to me, “Car 63 [Russell] was … displaying unsportsmanlike behaviour [sic] by complaining that Car 1 [Verstappen] had overtaken under Safety Car conditions.”

To the stewards’ credit, they dismissed the protest. To Mercedes’ credit, they lodged no formal protest against Verstappen.

The actions of Red Bull are the very epitome of what I currently dislike about F1 racing, and it is something prevalent up and down the pitlane.

One of the drivers that I’ve heard complain the least over the radio? The always cool and collected Oscar Piastri who, perhaps not uncoincidentally, is leading the driver’s championship.

Much as they needed time to travel to Canada, the F1 teams have an extra week for travel time, so the next race, in Austria, takes place on Sunday, June 29, at 9 a.m. Eastern Time.