FORMULA ONE: Max Verstappen led Red Bull Racing to its 100th grand prix victory with a pole-to-flag triumph in Canada yesterday (June 18).
Verstappen celebrates his win in Canada yesterday (June 18). Photo: AFP
Verstappen was never genuinely challenged for the win after acing his launch at lights-out, though the Dutchman lacked the same kind of runaway pace he has enjoyed at previous weekends.
His Red Bull Racing car struggled to get its tyres up to working temperature on a chilly Montreal day, with the ambient hovering around 20°C and the circuit no warmer than 34°C.
His car was also afflicted by bird strike, debris from which remained lodged behind his front-right brake duct throughout the afternoon.
It all conspired to keep him within around five seconds and theoretically within striking distance of the battling Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.
But as the Alonso-Hamilton duel came to its climax, Verstappen was able to stretch his lead to an insurmountable 9.5 seconds at the flag to take an ultimately comfortable victory.
“I’m very happy right now,” he said. “To win again, today to win the 100th grand prix for the team – that’s incredible.”
It was also Verstappen’s 41st victory, drawing him level with Brazilian F1 icon Ayrton Senna and putting him equal fifth on the all-time winners table.
“I never expected to be on these kinds of numbers myself as well,” he said. “We keep enjoying, we keep working hard. But today has been a great day again.”
Alonso started and secured second place despite being mugged off the line by a fast-starting Hamilton to initiate a race-long duel between the two championship titans.
Hamilton held the advantage early, but on the hard tyre in the middle stint Alonso was able to scythe back past and build a small cushion to guard against a late-race parry.
But the Briton’s decision to switch back to the medium tyre in the final stint saw him eat into that gap and bring it down to around a second.
Alonso had to manage his defence while also lifting and coasting to save fuel and brakes, but in the final 15 laps he had done enough to make it to the flag. He was allowed to eke back open the gap and break Hamilton’s challenge to claim second place.
“It was a battle with the Mercedes, and Lewis was pushing all the race, so I didn’t have one lap where I could relax a little bit,” he said. “It was an amazing battle.
“At the end I think Lewis had a bit more pace. It was tough. It was a very demanding race – all 70 laps of qualifying [style] today.”
Hamilton had predicted Canada wouldn’t suit his car, comprising mostly the sort of slow corners that don’t suit the Mercedes, and was pleased to be able to finish competitively on the podium nonetheless.
“It’s been a great weekend for us,” he said. “I think we are slowly chipping away.
“To just have this consistency and to be up on the podium here in Montreal [is satisfying].”
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz enjoyed a rare day of flawless execution from Ferrari, with strategy helping them to rise from 10th and 11th to fourth and fifth.
The team kept both drivers out during the early safety car – called after George Russell crashed at Turn 9 and scattered debris across the track – while most other drivers stopped for fresh tyres.
It put Leclerc and Sainz on a one-stop strategy rather than the preferred two stops, but the Ferrari car was far more consistent with its tyre usage than it has been all season, allowing the drivers to execute a clean race to decent points.
Sergio Pérez had a lukewarm recovery from 12th on the grid after a disappointing qualifying. The Mexican started on the hard compound and completed the race on one stop but didn’t have the pace to take the fight to the Ferrari drivers and never looked in contention for the podium.
The result did further damage to his flatlining title challenge, dropping him 69 points behind Verstappen.
Thai driver Alex Albon had a superb grand prix to finish seventh and score six valuable points for the Williams team.
Albon was another driver to gamble on a one-stop strategy comprising a long final stint on the hard tyre, requiring him to defend aggressively against much faster cars late in the race.
The 27-year-old was centimetre perfect in his defence, holding back Esteban Ocon and a train of five much faster cars to score Williams’s equal-best dry-weather result since 2017.
Ocon finished a frustrated eighth for Alpine ahead of local favourite Lance Stroll for Aston Martin and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas.
