Canadian Grand Prix

In 2005, the Canadian Grand Prix was the most watched Formula One Grand Prix in the world, and the third most watched sporting event worldwide that year, behind Super Bowl XXXIX and the UEFA Champions League final. The 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the race returned in 2022. In 2025 the contract for the race was extended until 2035.

The early Canadian Grand Prix was one of the premier events of the new Canadian Sports Car Championship, a series created alongside the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport Park near Toronto in 1961. Mosport Park, which is still in its original layout configuration, was a spectacular and challenging circuit with many ups and downs, and was popular with drivers. Several international sports car and Formula One drivers participated. For the first five years, the event was won by drivers with prior Formula One experience or who entered the championship after winning the Canadian Grand Prix. In 1966 the Canadian-American Challenge Cup ran the event, with American Mark Donohue winning. Formula One took over the following year, although the Canadian Sports Car Championship and Can-Am series continued to compete at Mosport in their own events.

The event was first run as part of the Formula One World Championship in 1967, with Mosport Park selected as the venue. The Ontario circuit alternated with Circuit Mont-Tremblant in Quebec, located 1+1⁄2 hours northwest of Montreal, where the Canadian Grand Prix was held in 1968 and 1970. Mont-Tremblant was much like Mosport in that it was a spectacular circuit with significant elevation change. The first championship race was held on 27 August 1967, won by Jack Brabham with New Zealander teammate Denny Hulme completing a Brabham 1–2.

The 1968 event was moved to late September so it could be paired with the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. New Zealander Chris Amon led from the start until his gearbox broke 17 laps from the end of the 90-lap distance; the McLaren team finished 1–2, with Hulme and Bruce McLaren taking top honours. Following the 1968 season, a group led by John Bassett and race sponsor Imperial Tobacco proposed moving the Grand Prix to a new street circuit in Toronto along Lake Shore Boulevard and through Exhibition Place, but Bassett dropped the idea before it cleared Toronto city council.

The 1969 event at Mosport saw Jackie Stewart climb from 4th to the lead, but he and Jacky Ickx battled until lap 33, when they came to lap privateer Al Pease for the fourth time and Ickx's pass attempt led to the two cars colliding. Stewart's Matra would not restart, but Ickx held the lead to the flag. Pease was given the black disqualification flag for being too slow, becoming the only driver in F1 history disqualified for that reason. The 1970 event saw Ickx win again, with Swiss teammate Clay Regazzoni making it a Ferrari 1–2. Mont-Tremblant was not used again for Formula One because of safety concerns over winter damage to the track surface and a dispute with local racing authorities; the alternating stopped and Mosport solely held the race from 1971.

The 1971 event was flooded with rain and fog and delayed after a fatal accident at a Formula Ford support race; Stewart won easily in a Tyrrell from Swede Ronnie Peterson in a March. Mosport was upgraded with new safety features in 1972, and Stewart won again. The 1973 race was also rain-soaked: Austrian Niki Lauda in a BRM took the lead from Peterson on lap 3, but a François Cevert–Jody Scheckter collision on lap 33 led to a bungled pace car interlude in which the pace car failed to pick up the leader. After hours of confusion, Peter Revson was confirmed the winner, with Emerson Fittipaldi charging to second. The 1974 event saw Fittipaldi win while Regazzoni finished 2nd and Scheckter crashed after a brake failure. There was no 1975 event. The 1976 event was won by James Hunt, who had earlier learned his 9 points from Brands Hatch had been taken away. In 1977, French-Canadian Gilles Villeneuve made his debut for Ferrari; Briton Ian Ashley had a horrendous accident cresting a bumpy rise, his Hesketh flipping over the Armco into a television tower, and Jochen Mass also hit a guardrail that flattened on impact. Scheckter won in his Wolf, but with continuing safety concerns the FIA deemed Mosport unsuitable going forward. Toronto city council again rejected a proposal to host the race, and within hours Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau negotiated to move the race permanently to Montreal.

A track called the Circuit Île Notre-Dame was developed on a man-made island that had been the site of Expo '67; existing roads were combined and modified and pit facilities built. The Canadian Grand Prix was first held there in 1978, won by Quebec native Villeneuve in a Ferrari. The 1979 race, after layout modifications to make the circuit faster, was won by Australian Alan Jones, who won again in 1980 and took the Drivers' Championship that year. The 1980 event saw a startline pile-up; Nelson Piquet jumped into his spare car but its engine blew, and Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jabouille ended his F1 career after crashing head-on into a tyre wall, badly breaking his legs. In the rain-soaked 1981 event, Villeneuve drove to third with a damaged front wing, and Frenchman Jacques Laffite took his last F1 victory.

Villeneuve was killed in 1982 on his final qualifying lap for the Belgian Grand Prix, and the Montreal course was renamed Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after him a few weeks later. Villeneuve was one of the first inductees into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame and is so far the only Canadian winner of the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix. The 1982 race was tragic: Didier Pironi stalled at the front of the grid, Raul Boesel struck a glancing blow, and Riccardo Paletti crashed into the rear of Pironi's Ferrari at over 180 km/h. Pironi and F1 doctor Sid Watkins came to Paletti's aid, but the 23-year-old succumbed to his injuries. Piquet won the race; from 1982 the event was moved to early June.

René Arnoux scored his first Ferrari win in 1983, and Piquet won again in 1984 in a BMW-powered Brabham. Ferrari finished 1–2 in 1985 with Michele Alboreto and Swede Stefan Johansson. In 1986, Finn Keke Rosberg charged through the field but encountered problems, benefiting Nigel Mansell, who won. The 1987 race was not held due to a sponsorship dispute between local breweries Labatt and Molson; the track was modified and the start line moved during the break.

Ayrton Senna won in 1988 in the McLaren MP4/4, and in 1989 his Honda engine failed and Belgian Thierry Boutsen took his first F1 victory. Senna won again in the rain-soaked 1990 event. The 1991 event saw Mansell's Williams fail on the very last lap, handing Piquet his 23rd and final F1 victory in a Benetton. Gerhard Berger won in 1992 after Mansell spun off following a collision with Senna. Alain Prost won in 1993 while fending off Senna; after the Imola tragedies the 1994 event turned the fast Droit du Casino curve into a chicane, and German Michael Schumacher won. Jean Alesi won the 1995 edition on his 31st birthday, the only win of his career, in the number 27 Ferrari once belonging to Villeneuve. By this time the Canadian Grand Prix had grown in importance, being the only North American round from 1993 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2011.

The 1996 race saw the Casino corner removed and the layout changed, with Damon Hill winning. The 1997 race was stopped early due to a crash involving Olivier Panis, who was sidelined for nine races. Schumacher dominated most editions from 1997 to 2004, except 1999, when Finn Mika Häkkinen won, and 2001, when Ralf Schumacher and Michael Schumacher made the first sibling 1–2 finish in F1 history. The 2007 race was rookie Lewis Hamilton's first win, and saw Takuma Sato voted "Driver of the Day" after a charging drive and an atrocious crash involving Robert Kubica, who went on to win the 2008 race for his only F1 victory.

On 7 October 2008, the Canadian Grand Prix was dropped from the 2009 Formula One calendar, leaving Montreal off the list for the first time since 1987. With the United States Grand Prix dropped after 2007, no Formula One race was held in North America in 2009 for the first time since 1958. On 27 November 2009, Quebec officials and race organizers signed a new five-year contract spanning the 2010–2014 seasons, with the government paying 15 million Canadian dollars a year. The 2010 race was run in Montreal on 13 June 2010.

The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix became the longest Formula One race to date; rainstorms delayed the race for hours, after which Briton Jenson Button stormed through from last place to pass German leader Sebastian Vettel for victory, in what he described as "my best ever race". The 2013 event saw Vettel dominate, but also the first Formula One-related fatality in 12 years: 38-year-old track marshal Mark Robinson was run over by a recovery vehicle while marshals removed the Sauber of Esteban Gutiérrez, and died later in hospital.

The final corner of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve became known as the "Wall of Champions" after, in 1999, Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve all crashed into the same wall at the final chicane. It also claimed reigning FIA GT champion Ricardo Zonta, CART champion Juan Pablo Montoya, Formula Renault 3.5 champion Carlos Sainz Jr., and 2009 World Champion Jenson Button. In 2011 Friday practice the wall claimed Vettel, and in 2019 Q2 it claimed Kevin Magnussen, though he escaped serious injury. Before the wall was named it claimed victims such as 1992 World Sportscar Champion Derek Warwick, who crashed his Arrows-Megatron during qualifying for the 1988 Canadian Grand Prix.

In the weeks leading up to the Grand Prix, city officials trap as many groundhogs as they can around the race course and transport them to nearby Île Ste-Hélène. Nonetheless, in 1990 Alessandro Nannini struck a gopher that damaged his tyre. In 2007 a groundhog disrupted Ralf Schumacher's practice session, and on race day Anthony Davidson struck a groundhog that forced him to pit. In 2008 a groundhog crossed the track at the hairpin without disrupting the session. In 2018 Romain Grosjean struck a groundhog on the approach to turn 13, and in 2022 Nicholas Latifi hit one in the braking zone of turn 8. In 2025 Lewis Hamilton, a well-known animal lover, was devastated after running over a groundhog on the 13th lap, leaving a hole in the floor of his SF-25 car.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.