Lapping Montreal with Oscar Piastri

An incredible start to the 2025 season saw Oscar Piastri fail to stand on the podium on just two occasions. One was at his home race in the season opener, and the other was at the Canadian Grand Prix, where McLaren was less competitive as a team and Piastri was limited to fourth place. As he seeks his first top three finish at the venue, the Australian joins us to explain the challenges of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

"It’s very challenging. It is very unique compared to a lot of circuits, a lot of straights, a lot of chicanes and it's basically a street circuit in pretty much every aspect. So, it's very tough.

"You need very good braking stability, and just braking ability. You need good change of direction, you need good traction, you need basically everything around here but braking is a massive part of the lap. There's so many big braking zones so that's probably the biggest challenge and it also doesn't get used very much.

"It's very dusty and very bumpy. It obviously gets incredibly cold here in the winters. The track moves around a lot. It's on a man-made island, so the ground just moves around a lot. You throw all of those things that you need, add bumps into the mix as well and it makes it a really demanding place.

"I think braking stability is the biggest thing to focus on set-up wise, but it's quite easy to get yourself in a bit of a trap here because you need that braking stability and to be able to charge into the corners a lot. But you also need the front at mid-corner to be able to turn, and you need good traction – but all three of those things you can't have (at once).

"So it's always a bit of a compromise, and you often find that if you are chasing just braking stability and just traction you have no front end in the corner and actually you can't rotate the car how you want, so it makes the traction really difficult, just because you've still got to turn. And finding that balance of being able to turn the car and then therefore straighten up the exit, you can actually get away with a bit less grip on exits and you'll have a better lap time, basically. So it's a tricky compromise.

Going fast in Canada requires a car that can juggle good stability under braking, a solid front-end in mid-corner, and good traction, all at once. Rudy Carrazzevoli/Getty Images

"Pretty much everywhere here is crucial, there’s no specific section. There's so many chicanes or one-two sequences. You've got Turn 1 and 2 obviously but then you've got 3-4, 6-7, 8-9, 13-14…

"There's a lot of places where you need that change of direction and where you get one corner wrong you get the next one wrong. So I think all of those sequences are very tough.

"Turn 1 and 2 probably being one of the tougher ones just because you're trying to brake and turn and get yourself stopped for Turn 2 all the way through Turn 1 and then the last chicane with the massive curbs and the Wall of Champions. There's very, very little margin for error so honestly every section of corners around here is pretty tough.

"It's always tough on a Sprint weekend to find the set-up and here is going to be really tough given the compromises you’re searching for. Last year was not an easy one for us and we probably would have taken an extra day of practise to sort out our problems!

"But it's going to be really tough, and the track evolves so much here given that it barely gets used. There's probably going to be a lot of people with unhappy cars or unhappy drivers in Sprint qualifying and the Sprint race and hopefully we're not one of them.

"Obviously we've got upgrades on top of that as well, so we've really got a lot to get on top of in an hour, but it should make it exciting. I think it's a circuit where you can overtake, a circuit where it's easy to make mistakes and if you don't have things in the right window it can be pretty challenging so it should be exciting one way or another."