Madness in Montreal but Max Wins Again
Round 9 of Canada GP: What the heck has happened?
An ironic and not serious at all summary of the race.
Going from a race where nothing happened to one where everything happened is like devouring a mega hamburger on Sunday evening after having fasted for 3 days. It’s too much, period. Afterward, you feel bad.
Canada ’24 will be remembered as one of the craziest GPs of this decade on a track that has already provided surprises in the past. This is why the expectations for a usual victory for Max Verstappen were not so obvious.
Despite not being seen much by the cameras, once again Max made his presence felt with an imposing victory. Many, almost everyone made mistakes in this GP.
Not him — apart from a small off-track on lap 17, but we’re talking about a cinch. He led a masterful race, even though he was also helped by a good dose of luck, let’s face it.
There is no time to waste because there are so many things to say this time. But really a lot.
Let’s start, as is right and obvious, from the beginning. What a start it was! Everything is fine, there are no jolts, apart from Pérez who chooses a very narrow space to try to pass an Alpine.
Everyone starts out cautious because it rains a lot on the track and they are all on Intermediate tyres.
All except two: the Dynamic Duo of Nico Hülkenberg and Kevin Magnussen. The two Haas have Wet tyres: they’re the only ones who bet on this. Result?
The two fly as if they were jet skis. In three laps Kevin arrives in fourth position and Nico in eighth. Impressive, speechless.
But it is an ephemeral joy. As the clouds clear and the sun begins to timidly appear on certain points of the track, the Haas lose their magic, or rather their advantage, and drop down in position.
Meanwhile, the worst car of the top teams is Ferrari. Starting in P11 and P12, Leclerc and Sainz “compete” at the back. Charles immediately reports an engine problem. And there we all thought: “Here we are, we’re back to what we used to be”.
It hasn’t been explained, but it could have been an electrical problem, which could have been resolved remotely (and so it was), and not a mechanical one, which would have instead led to the withdrawal.
Sainz, on the other hand, is literally unable to overtake anyone: a more than disappointing performance, even if this time the failure was on the part of the whole team who didn’t get the car’s set-up right.
It was just one of Ferrari’s worst performances in recent times. This stuff takes us back to 2020, but there’s no reason to despair (I’m a naive optimist, I know).
Leclerc loses a second per lap and Haas misses Magnussen’s first pitstop.
The track dries out and lap after lap, Max gets closer to George and the McLaren suddenly fire up. It’s a sign that the fight for the top positions is very heated, even though it’s still early laps.
This hasn’t happened for a while and once again it means that Red Bull is not as uncatchable as it seems: or rather, that MAX is not uncatchable.
The Dutchman is very close to Russell but makes his only mistake on lap 17 by going off-track and this allows Norris to gain a nice advantage. Lando gets closer and closer to Max so that on lap 20 he overtakes him and on the following lap, he catches Russell too.
George once again lacks brilliance in managing pressure situations and, also due to the track still being wet on the sides, he goes off-track. This causes him to lose P2 to Max: losing three positions in a few seconds isn’t pretty.
Lando instead flies and flies: on lap 25 he has a gap of 9 seconds over Max. And here comes the intervention of Lady Luck, or rather, here comes the b****t of the McLaren strategy.
Just then, Sargeant crashes into the first sector. It’s a Safety Car. The Woking team could have called Lando to the box straight away but they waited for a lap more. It was too late.
The Englishman returns on track in P3 behind Russell and Max is comfortably the race leader.
Lando takes it philosophically: “Although [second place] is no longer a position to celebrate […] I certainly won’t be among those who complain about the Safety Car because in Miami it played to my advantage and in Canada it didn’t, it’s racing”.
On lap 29 the Safety Car goes away while Leclerc takes a seemingly incomprehensible gamble: he goes to the box to fix the engine issue but opts for Hard slick tyres when the forecast brings more rain.
Absurd choice? It can be. What is heartening, and tragically funny, is that it was enough to switch the car off and on to solve the engine problem. Windows XP docet.
The race resumes and Albon makes the overtaking of the year on Ricciardo and Ocon for P9. Wow!
Leclerc returns to the box to put Intermediate tyres again and finds himself last. Not even a dozen laps before he is retired: going from P1 to DNF is not nice, but that’s racing.
We are on lap 46 and almost all the drivers have opted for slick tyres, some on the Mediums, others on the Hards. Lando instead tries to do an overcut: he stays with his Intermediates to try to maintain the P1.
The following lap however, he is called to the box and exits the pitlane a little too slowly, but let’s keep in mind that the tyres are still too cold. Max then takes advantage and returns to be the leader.
At this stage, the fight for the top positions is still open, with Russell overtaking Norris on lap 49 but then making a mistake on the following lap. Lando returns second then. Among other things, the Brit also does the fastest lap to get closer to Max, who is almost 4 seconds away.
Now you would think: What on earth else could have happened? Between laps 52 and 53 Pérez crashes into the wall and scatters a lot of debris on the track: DNF + 3 penalty positions for the next race for having returned on track in those conditions.
At the same time, more or less, Sainz spins and hits Albon. Double retirement for both and, drum roll, Safety Car again! Double DNFs for Ferrari and Williams…
The two Mercedes take advantage of this for a pit stop opting for different strategies: George gets the Mediums and Lewis the Hards.
It’s total confrontation from here until the end. Max is first but not so comfortably (2.5 seconds on Norris), Russell tries to pass Piastri but the Australian defends himself well by sending him out.
No investigation: that’s racing — this is my mantra for this GP.
Then it’s the turn of Hamilton: he overtakes Oscar at the end of the main straight. On the following lap, George overtakes the Australian from McLaren in P4 again, and, not satisfied, on lap 68 he overtakes Lewis too.
The Norfolk driver finishes on the podium. Here the determination of the #63 has returned.
Two laps earlier I had just thought: “Wow, Tsunoda is having his best season this year! He is almost always in the points.”
Well, what happened? Yuki spins and by a hair’s breadth, literally by a millimetre, he is avoided by Magnussen who steers with frightening reflexes (the opposite of Monaco).
End of race:
- Mercedes in P3 and P4: maybe Silver Arrows are back;
- Two Aston Martins in the points (P7 and P8),
- Ricciardo in points: what a blow he gave to Jacques Villeneuve!
- Two Alpines in points (P9 and P10).
Well, how do you feel? If you have a stomachache or headache, you’re not alone. In any case, we’ll see you again after Spain and I send you a hug if you’ve read me this far 🫶
