Thursday’s media day ahead of the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix delivered some intriguing comments as Formula 1 drivers returned to the paddock for the 10th round of the season.

Here’s a look at the top stories you may have missed from Montreal before the cars get on track for the first practice session.

Verstappen not changing his approach

Despite being just one penalty point away from a race after his clash with George Russell in Spain, Max Verstappen insisted he will not be changing how he drives.

The Red Bull driver faced the media for the first time since the Barcelona accident but was quick to dismiss the notion that he needs to alter anything about how he approaches races and claimed that even missing one grand prix would not be a huge drama.

“It’s not changing my approach,” Verstappen said. “I think we all live and learn. I explained immediately on the Monday my view. We’ll just move on and try to have a good weekend here.”

He continued: “I mean, there’s nothing that you can do about it. So we we just focus ahead, try to do the best we can every single time.

“In general, missing a race is not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world.”

After the Spanish GP, Verstappen had taken to social media to say that what he had done to Russell was “not right”.

Russell admitted he was surprised that the four-time world champion had shouldered the responsibility for his actions.

“It’s good to see that he took accountability, which I was a bit surprised,” said the Mercedes driver, who reckoned Verstappen was probably not trying to crash into him.

“I think he wanted to just sort of scare me a bit but he just misjudged it. It wasn’t going to scare me, it was just all a bit surprising.”

Norris believes Piastri clash inevitable

As the championship battle heats up between the McLaren drivers, Lando Norris acknowledged that a clash with team-mate Oscar Piastri is just a matter of time.

The season is now nine races old and there haven’t been any huge moments of tension between the two, but as McLaren continued to be the team to beat despite the Spanish GP clampdown on flexi-wings, Norris feels it’s inevitable that things will heat up.

“We never said we’re going to avoid everything,” Norris said. “I think we’ve been quite open in saying at some point something is probably going to happen, and we just have to be ready for that.

“Both Oscar and myself know that we’re competitive, we want to beat each other. But the main thing is we stay strong together as a team.

“But everything’s in the open, everything’s obvious, everything’s known between us. We both want to win, we both want to beat each other, but at the end of the day, there can only be one person.

“I think Andrea [Stella] said it. It’s not an ‘if’, it’s a ‘when’, and we’ll see when that time comes. Of course we’ll try and avoid everything as much as possible. It’s inevitable that it happens in racing.”

Norris is 10 points behind Piastri going into the Canadian GP, while Verstappen’s penalty in Spain means the Dutchman is already 49 points adrift and will probably need a change in the competitive order to be able to fight back.

Piastri recognises that Norris is now his main rival.

“I enjoy being the hunted,” said the Australian. “I’ve said it before, it means you’re normally doing something right if you’re in that spot. I’m enjoying it. And I think the season’s obviously gone very well so far.

“I think Lando is the main opponent, yes, but I’m not going to rule out Max. The gap is obviously a bit bigger now, but it’s not unsurmountable by any stretch of the imagination.”

Stroll coy on wrist injury

Lance Stroll returned to the paddock on Thursday after having undergone surgery during the Spanish GP weekend, from which he withdrew after qualifying citing pain in the wrist that he had injured back in 2023.

His withdrawal, and the lack of real information about the injury and recovery procedure, has not helped in silencing speculation about what had actually happened following reports that he had lost his tempter in the Aston Martin garage after being knocked out in Q2 in Barcelona.

On Thursday, Stroll again didn’t deliver much in terms of an explanation.

“I was struggling and I was trying to push through it, but I just didn’t feel it was sensible to push anymore,” the Canadian explained. “I felt like the damage was getting worse, and I needed to do something more serious about it.

“I don’t really want to get into detail about what I had to do and how I had to do it because it’s just my medical privacy, and I like to keep that confidential.

“But all I can say for sure is I’m feeling a lot better.”

Asked about the reports suggesting he was angry after Q2 in Spain, he said: “I was frustrated for sure. Frustrated about my wrist and the last three races from Imola.

“It was just inhibiting my driving. So I knew that Sunday was going to be tricky, probably impossible. And at that point, I was pretty frustrated about it.”

Bortoleto’s passport scare

Sauber driver Gabriel Bortoleto was lucky to make it to Canada in time after his passport was stolen a few days before travelling to Montreal.

The Brazilian had his car broken into while he was having dinner in Zurich, and the thieves stole the backpack with his laptop and his passport.

In the end, Bortoleto managed to recover his items and fly to Canada in time for the weekend.

“I had gone to dinner one day in Switzerland and it turned out that they opened the car, took my backpack,” Bortoleto explained to Band. “I had my passports, everything inside, computer, all my racing equipment.

“It was chaos, but we managed to find the guy. Everything went well in the end, I have my passport.”

Hadjar not feeling ready for Red Bull

Yuki Tsunoda‘s failure to perform at a competitive level since being promoted to Red Bull alongside Verstappen has already triggered questions about his future.

He has, at least in theory, been given until the end of the season, but there is no doubt that Red Bull is losing out to its rival by having just one driver regularly in the points.

In contract, Isack Hadjar continues to impress at Racing Bulls, with four points finishes in the last five races of his rookie season.

His performances are already leading to suggestions that he could take Tsunoda’s seat, but the French-Algerian driver sounded very cautious about the prospect of a promotion to the leading team, particularly having seen the struggles both Tsunoda and Liam Lawson before him went through.

“It’s a bit scary, but I wouldn’t feel ready,” Isack said on Thursday. “I’m just nine races in. It looks to be complicated when I look at Yuki and Liam who are very quality drivers.

“So no, I’m not very ready, but I would always be here for the call, that’s for sure.”