The FIA Formula 1 World Championship is finally back in Canada after three years away due to the pandemic. After an exciting wet elimination session on Saturday, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won pole with seven tenths of a second. In the second quarter, the defending world champion was more than a second faster than the rest of the field.
Surprisingly, Fernando Alonso passed his Alpine in the front row with Red Bull taking the lead. Alonso is consistently one of the fastest drivers across all three qualifying segments. The two drivers chasing Verstappen in the points rankings had scary goals. His Red Bull teammate, Sergio Pérez, crashed in the second quarter and qualified 13th. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was forced to start 19th, subject to energy department penalties.
After qualifying, the two-time world champion joked and boasted that he would race Max Verstappen into the first corner. Alonso will never get a chance. Verstappen saw the Spaniard better than a car length. The cars ahead pass the first two corners in the starting order.
Alonso’s focus quickly shifted to the rear as he fought to keep second and keep Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz at the back. By the time Sainz overtook his countryman in the third lap, the Ferrari driver had faced a gap of more than three seconds on the road for Verstappen to take the lead.
Soon, Red Bull will lose other vehicles. Sergio Pérez’s car seems to have a damaged transmission. To take advantage of the virtual safety car implementation, Red Bull was pitted against Verstappen in lap 9 of 70. Ferrari was able to mimic the opponent’s tactics when Mick Schumacher’s Haas was unsuccessful in lap 20. Neither Sainz nor Verstappen fell behind due to pitting under controlled conditions.
Verstappen led until he finished second in lap 43. Sainz inherited first place, but he still needed one last stop to get the car to the finish line.
Scuderia Ferrari bet on a safety car showing up in the later stages of the race to give Carlos Sainz the chance to win the Grand Prix. The gamble paid off. Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda locked her wheels when she got out of the pit lane and crashed into the Tecpbarrier ro. Even so, Sainz did not have a big enough advantage to return to Verstappen to maintain the lead.
The race started again at lap 55 with Sainz in second place on slightly newer hard compound tires than the Red Bull driver took the lead. Sainz’s Ferrari had nothing left to give as he was able to consistently stay within a second of Verstappen but could never get any closer to trying to take the lead.
Max Verstappen comfortably won the Canadian Grand Prix against Carlos Sainz. Mercedes-AMG Petronas won both third and fourth after Alonso plunged off the field. Charles Leclerc was voted Driver of the Day after a heroic drive across the field to come in sixth place.
Race results – Top 10
- Max Verstappen
- Carlos Sainz
- Lewis Hamilton
- George Russell
- Esteban Ocon
- Charles Leclerc
- Fernando Alonso
- Valtteri Bottas
- Zhou Guanyu
- Lance Stroll
Max Verstappen currently leads the World Drivers’ Championship by 36 points ahead of Sergio Pérez. Formula 1 will return in two weeks for the British Grand Prix.
