While a safety car paved the way for a crescendo final race at the Canadian Grand Prix last weekend, Max Verstappen once again took charge of his sixth Formula One season victory. 2022 and further strengthen its title defense.
Verstappen currently have a 46-point lead at the top of the standings over their Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez, while Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc is three points behind.
This good advantage of the championship has been reinforced by the recent implosion of Ferrari’s lack of reliability.
Leclerc endured the last consequences of the Scuderia’s fragility in Montreal when it took on new components of the power unit to be sent to the back of the network.
This meant that Carlos Sainz, still in search of his first top-flight victory, had to take on the challenge at Verstappen. Although the rain of the classification has set up a tempting front row, with Fernando Alonso next to the RB18 for the sprint at turn 1, it was his compatriot who welded within Verstappen’s DRS rank.
Sainz fell short, but proved he could bring the fight to Verstappen after his disappointing adaptation to the ground effect. Meanwhile, Mercedes was encouraged in the Barcelona style after Lewis Hamilton completed the podium finding an affinity with the problematic W13. Leclerc then stopped the bleeding of points at Verstappen, recovering in fifth place behind George Russell, despite his own complaints in the cabin.
With these headlines and many more subplots generated from the 70 laps of the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit, here are 10 things we learned from Canada’s weekend.
Verstappen has taken over the fight for the 2022 F1 title with the victory in Canada
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
1. Virtuous victory validates the versatility of Verstappen
To witness Max Verstappen take control of a weekend like he did in Canada is not to learn anything new. He’s done perfect days before. But his most recent performance encapsulated and the double underscored the breadth of his skills.
This was clearly shown during a slippery slope. With five minutes left in Q2 to play, Carlos Sainz turned in 1m29.153s to put himself ahead of the times. The next person on the line, to mitigate the evolution of the track, was Verstappen. He hit in a 1m27.764s. This cavernous 1,389 lead and pole position reflected his excellence in treacherous conditions.
He then showed a different way of winning the next day. In Saudi Arabia he overcame Leclerc by DRS at the climax of an exciting battle. In Imola, he was undoing the damage of the RB18’s initial unreliability and his path to the top step of the podium in Spain and Azerbaijan was undoubtedly alleviated by the problems of Ferrari’s own engine. Adding a rope to his bow was the way he headed from the Canadian front.
He immediately put Fernando Alonso in the shadows. He then worked around a troubled radio, a lower top speed and an average compound tire rhythm deficit relative to Sainz. When the safety car artificially played Sainz again after his unique aborted strategy, he created some tension in the final of the Miami-style race, but Verstappen never seemed to miss the victory in the race. Sebastian Vettel in 2011 or 2019.
Verstappen was quick to slow down to a possible second title, noting, of course, that the season has only finished a third. But when Ferrari has delivered moments that could be considered “points that the championship was lost”, what Verstappen did in Canada only in his 150th outing in the GP could be remembered as a moment “the championship is he won”.
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Ferrari equaled Red Bull in strategy and pace all the way to Canada
Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images
2. It looks like Ferrari has corrected at least one of its flaws that cost a win
For the second consecutive race, Christian Horner has launched a hypothetical. In Azerbaijan, he was confident that Max Verstappen would have the advantage of pace with newer tires to overtake Charles Leclerc for the victory before his engine exploded. Similarly, the Red Bull boss believes that a safety car had not been intervened to leave Carlos Sainz in front with a unique strategy, Verstappen again had enough to come from behind and win.
The reason why Ferrari drivers have been in these advantageous positions, at least in terms of track position, during the last two races has been due to cat reactions to virtual security cars (in Baku, Leclerc was immediately launched to stop when Sainz’s hydraulic system failure neutralized the race) and the safety cars in full swing (Sainz faced in response to Yuki Tsunoda who dropped him in the pit ).
In both cases, the other Ferrari did not fight for victory, leaving the pitwall without the luxury of sharing strategies between drivers to cover the threats. Twice he has had to play and seize the opportunity. Although the Scuderia did not win in both scenarios, the calls of the two drivers and the pitwall have been much faster than the heavy reactions in Monaco which lost 1-2 before it was even a third ahead. of the race.
The chances of getting the booty in Baku were affected by the F1-75 pace deficit against Red Bull, if events had unfolded in their entirety. These opportunities were later wiped out by Leclerc’s engine failure. Things were getting closer to Montreal. Sainz had the pace of Verstappen for the last hard tire sprint on the flag as he spun on the fastest laps and took the lead through the speed traps. But the red car’s struggles to get out of the fork of turn 10, which Leclerc also endured, helped Verstappen stay strong enough to survive the DRS threat.
Although Sainz lost the victory, if Ferrari had ignored the changing image and clung religiously to his unique plan, the Spaniard would probably have been out of the competition long before, as Verstappen chewed a difference of 9 , 5 seconds with the newest 23-lap tires with 24 laps to run.
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Former teammates Toro Rosso, Verstappen and Sainz are not fighting to win F1
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
3. Sainz should bring the fight to Red Bull more often
Carlos Sainz thought he was more comfortable with the 2021 Ferrari than the more competitive rival of 2022 with a ground effect. This, he says, has explained the difference in pace with his teammate Charles Leclerc, with his accidents in Australia and Imola that have not helped in any way.
But Sainz rose sharply to bring Max Verstappen’s fight to Montreal, with Charles Leclerc largely out of the picture thanks to grid sanctions.
While Sainz struggled too much in his last lap of Q3 to bleed time in the last chicane and cede a place on the front row grid to Fernando Alonso, elsewhere he had the pace and was in the final stages of the Grand Prix the fastest rider on the track. A point for the fastest lap is proof of that. And although a victory was called for again, it turned it into a close affair with Verstappen, having taken advantage of the safety car to deal with the difficulties.
With that stronger performance, Sainz has now made a cane for his own back. After the turmoil of reliability, Ferrari has a difference of 76 points to approach Red Bull in the race of the constructors’ championship. In addition, although Monaco so far looks like a peak more than the pair of Sergio Pérez, the Mexican is nevertheless able to get closer to the benchmark of Verstappen this season.
As such, if Ferrari wants to narrow the gap with Red Bull in the most efficient way, it needs Sainz to form half of a two-way attack. Leclerc has been playing the lion’s share so far, but now Sainz has shown that he can do the weight as well. He has to make his performance in Montreal the norm.
Leclerc climbed 14 places in the Canadian GP, but was still not satisfied
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
4. Leclerc can limit damage as needed
Given Max Verstappen’s excellent pace at the moment, Ferrari simply needs Charles Leclerc to win races to close the points gap and get the thrilling title match we all want to see. And for Leclerc to win races, he clearly needs Ferrari to banish his unreliable demons. Either way, fifth place is not enough for the Monegasque to do the job if his main rival continues to win.
But his recovery from the 19th position on the grid to accumulating 10 points in a race that was not confused by the inclement weather was a solid enough return, as Leclerc fought from a later penalty of the grille for a new engine. He slowed down the defeat on a day when Leclerc was hampered by the DRS train and a difficult differential that cost him a lot to get out of turn 10 due to the crucial drag on the final chicane.
Although, in these circumstances, it was an effective demonstration of damage limitation, the unfortunate reality is that Leclerc will probably have to offer a similar performance, as Ferrari continues to pay the consequences of the explosions of its engines in Monaco and Baku. . With the power unit released in Azerbaijan, Ferrari found “beyond repair”, Leclerc is still on track to exceed the maximum permitted of three turbochargers before hybrid elements and internal combustion are considered and any other gremlins.
Although Ferrari chose Canada, a friendly in passing, as the place to receive the blow knowing that not everything was lost, it is likely that the team will have to make a call of similar strategy to leave Leclerc to fight the cut and push the group just to cling to the layers of Verstappen.
Hamilton returned to the podium in Canada for the first time since the opening of 2022
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
5. The Hamilton season has been affected by his own experience
Dating Canada offered the best view so far of why George Russell has come to Mercedes and seems to have the measure of his teammate seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton at all times. Unfair safety cars have played a role in the fact that Russell has finished seven races ahead. But there is another important factor. That is, how …