fFive laps before the end of the Canadian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull Honda jumps over a curb. The lone leader gets a fit of laughter over the pit radio: “Haha, I almost shot myself out.” In reality, however, the world championship leader has achieved a special record in Formula 1: His sixth win of the season, the fourth in a row, is also that 41st of his career. At the age of 24, he is already fifth in the all-time best list, level with Ayrton Senna.
The eighth World Championship round is also a special one for the Dutchman’s racing team, it is the 100th Grand Prix victory in the racing team’s history: “An incredible number, I never expected to come up with such numbers myself.” Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin is second, almost ten seconds behind Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes. Nico Hülkenberg ended up in a disappointing 15th place with the Haas-Ferrari.
Verstappen rushes away immediately
It’s a starting grid with asterisks: All three Formula 1 drivers with world championship titles are in the lead in qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix after chaos caused by the moody rainy weather: Max Verstappen on pole position as expected, then Fernando Alonso, as hoped, then beating the hopes Lewis Hamilton.
However, the nice series of champions only exists because Nico Hülkenberg from Emmerich loses his second starting place, which he secured at the right moment with the right tires, after a verdict by the sports commissioners. The Haas driver had clearly exceeded the prescribed speed reduction under red flags. A variety of penalties, lucky or unlucky strategies influenced the starting position for the eighth round of the World Championship.
When things get a little muddled, expectations often drown out a sense of reality. Compared to Saturday’s performance, the way the Grand Prix gets rolling at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve is almost boring. Max Verstappen basically doesn’t care about others, he just rushes away. Behind them, Alonso and Hamilton fought an elbow duel that went in favor of the Mercedes driver.
Nico Hülkenberg is passed through, gets fresh tires early on, and when he comes out of the pits again, the race is neutralized. After a kiss on the wall, George Russell scattered a lot of parts of his Silver Arrow on the asphalt with his rear end. It is a special outing for Bernd Mayländer, the safety car is celebrating its anniversary on this race weekend, it was used for the first time in 1973 at Mosport.
In the rush of interplay, Hamilton and Alonso almost collide, both equipped with racing cars that are getting better and better. On the 28th lap, the Spaniard easily passed his Mercedes rival on the track, but Verstappen was four seconds behind again. The Dutchman has led every lap since the middle of the Miami Grand Prix, round five of the championship. Purely hypothetically, before the guest appearance in Montreal, Max Verstappen talked about allowing Fernando Alonso to win if he wasn’t able to win himself: “He’s a real reindeer.”
However, the safety margin after the middle of the race is already too big to allow an attack. Nevertheless, Alonso is more optimistic than ever that he can still win this season at the age of 41. His team colleague Lance Stroll, who is 17 years younger than him, on the other hand, meets all expectations at home, especially those of his father. In the end, the Canadian is ninth.
The best scenes are in midfield, determined by very different tire strategies. The two Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, again victims of unfortunate strategies and individual mistakes in qualifying, are coping better. In any case, the sun, which made its first appearance this weekend, has changed a lot in the performance of rubber and racing cars.
The tacticians from Maranello therefore manage to move Leclerc and Sainz from starting positions ten and eleven to fourth and fifth. Sixth place with Verstappen’s colleague Perez is another disappointment of Saturday’s prelude. The Mexican, who was only able to start 12th, seems further away from the podium than ever. The only thing he wanted to do was “damage control”. He succeeds, in the end he snatches the point from Hamilton for the fastest lap of the race.
The leading trio competed for the fastest laps, also knowing that anything can happen on this circuit. Before the final third, Alonso is asked by his engineer to take the technical overdrive so as not to overheat the rear brakes. Alonso grudgingly sticks to it, but doesn’t let go of his aggressiveness: “I want to win the race!” He’ll have to be patient for a while.
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