2023 Canadian Grand Prix Recap
Max Verstappen takes the checkered flag Credit: Getty Images
Max Verstappen
Fernando Alonso +9.570
Lewis Hamilton +14.168
Charles Leclerc +18.648
Carlos Sainz +21.540
Sergio Perez +51.028
Alex Albon +60.813
Esteban Ocon +61.692
Lance Stroll +64.402
Valtteri Bottas +64.432
Oscar Piastri +65.101
Pierre Gasly +65.249
Lando Norris +68.363
Yuki Tsunoda +73.423
Nico Hulkenberg +1 Lap
Zhou Guanyu +1 Lap
Kevin Magnussen +1 Lap
Nyck De Vries +1 Lap
George Russell DNF
Logan Sargeant DNF
A little late on the recap of the Canadian Grand Prix but better late than never. For round 9 of the F1 season, granted why are we still calling it round 9 when the Imola race got cancelled? For the 8th race of the F1 season, Formula 1 visited Montreal, Canada. As far as competition is concerned, things were looking up heading into Canada after Mercedes scored a double podium in Spain and Aston Martin were bringing upgrades this weekend. Practice and qualifying did not disappoint. On Friday in practice, Red Bull were unusually off the pace. Verstappen commented after the weekend that the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada didn’t suit the Red Bull car. Well despite the slow Friday from Red Bull and Verstappen’s comments, Red Bull got their act together by qualifying on Saturday. Qualifying was quite interesting as rain was involved. The big take aways from qualifying was Leclerc and Perez failing to get into the top 10 for the 2nd week in a row and Carlos Sainz basically stopping his car in the middle of a turn, that’s how slow he was going, and killing Gasly’s lap in Q1. In the end, Verstappen picked up his 25th career pole followed by Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, after Nico Hulkenberg qualified 2nd but got hit by a 3 place grid penalty.
To start the race, Max Verstappen got a great jump and took the lead. Fernando Alonso got a not so great jump and Lewis Hamilton was immediately in front of him heading to turn 1. Alonso followed Hamilton closely but couldn’t quite get by him in the first 10 laps of the race. Then on lap 12, George Russell slammed into the wall and was surprisingly not out of the race yet as he was able to limp the car back to the pits. The amount of debris from Russell’s incident did bring out the safety car and the first round of pit stops. Fernando Alonso almost made the pass over Lewis Hamilton in the pits but Hamilton pulled out just in front of Alonso. The two nearly collided and the move did get investigated by the marshals for an unsafe release but they ended up deciding against a penalty for Hamilton. In the end it didn’t matter for Alonso as about 5 laps after they went back racing, Alonso was able to get around Hamilton for second place.
The remainder of the race was relatively straight forward other than midfield battles. The Ferraris were able to work their way up to 4th and 5th after going with the 1 pit stop strategy. George Russell continued the race after his lap 12 incident till about lap 55 when he was ordered by the team to retire the car due to brake issues. Hamilton reeled back in Alonso with about 15 laps remaining but apparently Alonso was saving fuel and as soon as Hamilton got nearly within the 1 second margin of Alonso, he just pulled away from Hamilton and ended up finishing about 5 seconds clear. Max Verstappen finished the race about 9 seconds clear for this 6th race win of the season in only 8 races. That win brings Verstappen to 41 career wins and ties with one of the all time greats, Ayrton Senna. Verstappen has also now led every lap of the last 3 races.
3 Star Drivers of the Day
3rd Star - Fernando Alonso
Fernando didn’t gain any places compared to his starting place on the grid, but I feel he had a great race. After not getting a good start, Alonso was sandwhiched between the pair of Mercedes and had to battle both. Alonso got back around Hamilton and finished less than 10 seconds behind Verstappen, which so far this season is a pretty big accomplishment to finish that close behind a Red Bull. The Aston Martin team even said they thought they could’ve challenged Red Bull more if not for the fuel issues they had.
2nd Star - Charles Leclerc
I called out just how poor Charles Leclerc has been this after the Spanish Grand Prix, and while he continued his poor form in qualifying, he had a pretty good race. Going from 11th to 4th is a very solid job and a step in the right direction by both Leclerc and Ferrari.
1st Star - Alex Albon
Alex Albon finished 7th in a Williams. That’s pretty much the only explanation you need. But seriously, the 6 points that Albon scored yesterday in Canada, brings the team’s total points on the season to 7…. seriously. I mean clearly you’re not getting any points from Sargeant, and Albon has only been able to score one other top 10 on the season. But again, this is Williams we are talking about and what Albon has done with them honestly should put him in a conversation for an upgrade to a bigger team. Put Albon in the 2nd Aston Martin car behind Alonso and I guarantee you he has double the points that Lance Stroll has.
Other Thoughts:
How can Haas be so good at qualifying yet so poor at actually racing? It seems like Haas are continually putting at least one car into Q3 each week yet they are hardly ever able to convert these opportunities into points. Hulkenberg starting 5th, granted he qualified 2nd but had a grid penalty, and finishing 16th is just unacceptable. Work on the race pace one time, Haas.
George Russell’s poor season continues. After beating Lewis Hamilton last year in his first year with Mercedes, Russell has taken a step back. And I’m not sure if it’s just bad luck or maybe he was overachieving last year, but it does seem like the majority of his issues have been driver forced errors. He’s already down nearly 40 points to Hamilton and barring some car issues or wrecks from Hamilton, it’s very unlikely he beats his teammate again this season.
Speaking of taking a step back, Sergio Perez couldn’t possibly be driving worse since Miami. Going into the Miami race, Perez was only a few points behind Verstappen after they had split the first four races with 2 wins a piece. People were wondering if Perez could actually challenge Verstappen for the title and then in Miami, Perez goes and grabs the pole. He had all the momentum in the world and then Verstappen goes head to head with him and grabs the win in Miami to remind everybody why he is the best driver in the world. Since Miami, Perez wrecked in Monaco qualifying and finished 16th in the race, failed to get out of Q2 in qualifying in Spain and finished 4th in the race, then failed to get out of Q2 in Canada and finished 6th in the race. Meanwhile Verstappen has led every single lap of F1 since taking the lead in Miami, including 4 race wins.
We’ve talked about some big gaps between teammates so far but arguably the biggest gap right now in F1 is between Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Through 8 races, Stroll is now 80 pts behind his teammate. Alonso has 117 pts with 6 podiums, meanwhile Stroll has 37 pts with 1 top 5 finish and no podiums. I get that Stroll came into the season with an injury, but he honestly looked better in the first few races than he has as of late so not sure how long the injury excuse can be played.
Lastly, how does Carlos Sainz only get a 3 place grid penalty? Not that big of a deal to drop Sainz from 8th to 11th, yet Gasly starts 17th because Sainz parked his car in the turn. Just doesn’t seem fair to me and also incredibly avoidable if the FIA would start forcing these cars to maintain a good speed when on track, especially in turns.
Standings
Max Verstappen 195 pts
Sergio Perez 126 pts
Fernando Alonso 117 pts
Lewis Hamilton 102 pts
Carlos Sainz 68 pts
George Russell 65 pts
Charles Leclerc 54 pts
Lance Stroll 37 pts
Esteban Ocon 29 pts
Pierre Gasly 15 pts
F1 does have a break next week and then returns the weekend of June 30-July 2 for the Austrian Grand Prix. It should be a really exciting race as we finally get to a non-street circuit track with the upgrades from Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari being well established by now. We might finally see how far off the Red Bull pace these teams are and which team will be the favorite for 2nd place in the constructors championship.