A topsy-turvy wet-to-dry Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix was won by Max Verstappen, but the Red Bull driver was by no means the sole candidate for victory as several drivers starred amid the difficult conditions.
Verstappen had to contend with a sustained challenge from McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes’ polesitter George Russell as three drivers in three different machines all had genuine winning pace.
Still, weather and safety car interventions steered the race narrative and it was the reigning champion who rose above the chaos to take his 60th GP win.
But who starred and who left Montreal failing to impress?
Max Verstappen: 9
Grid Position: P2, Race Finish: P1
In a race where driver skill was paramount amid a track that started just a touch too damp for inters, before becoming too dry for inters and latterly a treacherous single line for slick tyres, Verstappen rose above to come out on top. However, it was by no means a perfect race by the Dutchman, who did succumb to running off the road at Turn 1 under pressure from the likes of Norris and Russell, who for great portions of the GP out-paced the Red Bull driver. Still, a beneficial Safety Car intervention aside, the spoils go to the driver first across the line and Verstappen met his challenges and overcame them to take a well-earned 60th GP victory.
Sergio Perez: 4
Grid Position: P16, Race Finish: DNF
Days after his two-year contract extension, Sergio Perez suffered a second successive Q1 exit in Qualifying. Meanwhile, his Red Bull teammate qualified on the front row with a time that was identical to that of pole-sitter Russell. Starting from 16th through Perez into a sea of spray and jeopardy at lights out, but unlike Monaco, he escaped the first few corners without being sent for an early exit. Still, the Mexican did find himself entangled with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly at lights out, which set the tone for a dismal afternoon. Compounding matters was a Turn 6 slip up which saw Perez hit the wall with the rear of his car, forcing him to retire to the pits with a damaged rear wing. The Race Stewards then elected to hand Perez a three-place grid penalty for the next race at Barcelona for driving on track with “a significantly damaged car” and issued him with a €25000 fine. That makes it two races in succession that Perez ought to forget in a hurry and Red Bull desperately needs him to recapture his early season form.
Lando Norris: 8
Grid Position: P3, Race Finish: P2
The fact Norris was disappointed with second and adjudged first place as McLaren’s target shows how far he and the team have come in recent times. Indeed, ahead of the first Safety Car intervention, Norris had executed a blistering pace to blast past Russell and Verstappen and punch in a near eight-second advantage. Alas, Norris failed to reclaim the lead after pitting after the first Safety Car and rued a lack of pace during his second intermediate tyre stint for costing him victory. When Russell pitted after the second Safety Car, Norris inherited second on the road, but couldn’t match Verstappen over the final laps. He got his maiden win in Miami and now after near misses in Imola and Montreal, it would be hard to bet against Norris getting a second GP victory before this season is done.
Oscar Piastri: 6.5
Grid Position: P4, Race Finish: P5
Oscar Piastri didn’t have the pace to match his team-mate as he resigned to being a semi-distant spectator to the top three battle for victory. Still, the Australian driver was by no means an underperformer and underlined his credentials as a capable component of the McLaren machine. There was little the F1 sophomore could do in the final stint of the race after the second Safety Car as both Mercedes drivers fought their way past after pitting for fresh tyres. Piastri continues to impress and his development will see him rise to Norris’ level soon enough.
George Russell: 8
Grid Position: P1, Race Finish: P3
What could have been for Russell had it not been for a couple of overzealous moments? The Mercedes driver made history with Verstappen when the duo set an identical time in Q3 during Saturday’s qualifying session with Russell taking top billing on Sunday’s grid. Russell led away from the start and was doing a fine job of maintaining the lead before fading away toward the end of the first stint, allowing Norris and Verstappen to get ahead. When the track dried and drivers switched to slicks, Russell recovered to second, but an error at Turn 8 allowed Norris back through. When the second Safety Car intervened, Russell opted to swap track position and hard tyres for fresh mediums and similar hastiness with Piastri at the final chicane meant his final charge came to a halt in third. Still, a fine pole position and pace to win saw Russell at his near best.
Lewis Hamilton: 5.5
Grid Position: P7, Race Finish: P4
Hamilton’s struggles to convert practice pace into qualifying form continued in Canada. The seven-time champion was the star player in FP3, outpacing the field by a margin of 0.374s. However, come qualifying Hamilton adjudged his pace to have “vanished” and while Russell took pole, he could only manage seventh on the grid. “The grip just disappears from me,” he explained on Saturday. Hamilton did make progress on Sunday however and won out in a long duel with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso to find himself fifth on the road ahead of the second Safety Car. A switch to fresh hard tyres under caution gave Hamilton the impetus to challenge for a podium late on, only to be beaten by his team-mate as the race drew to a close. “Just one of the worst races that I’ve driven,” Hamilton said on Sunday. “Just lots of mistakes, but of course, if I qualified better, I would have been in a much better position, so it is what it is. I will go back to the drawing board.” Enough said.
Fernando Alonso: 6
Grid Position: P6, Race Finish: P6
After dismal outings at Imola and Monaco, Alonso returned to his early season qualifying form by landing sixth on the grid just two-tenths shy of pole position. The Spaniard then did well to elevate himself to fifth at lights out before engaging in a long tussle with his old rival Hamilton. The Aston didn’t quite have the pace to match Mercedes today. but Alonso delivered what was arguably the limit of his car’s performance on Sunday to pick up some handy points for the Silverstone-based outfit.
Lance Stroll: 6
Grid Position: P9, Race Finish: P7
Lance Stroll couldn’t quite achieve the same feats as Alonso in qualifying, but slotting into ninth on the grid was a decent enough showing for the Canadian in front of his home crowd. Well-regarded for his abilities in mixed conditions, Stroll drove a clean race and where others faltered, kept his head. By no means sensational, but a capable drive ensured Aston Martin picked up a decent haul of points.
Daniel Ricciardo: 6.5
Grid Position: P5, Race Finish: P8
If ever there was a driver who encapsulated the phrase, ‘form is temporary, class is permanent,’ it is Daniel Ricciardo. The Aussie silenced his critics (Jacques Villeneuve especially) by qualifying an impressive fifth on the grid and just two-tenths away from pole. Sadly, the hard work on Saturday was undone slightly by a jump start at lights out, landing Ricciardo with a five-second time penalty. Still, the RB driver was able to overcome that pitfall and moved his way back into the top-10 when the track dried up. The Honey Badger could well be on his way to rising fully from his slumber.
Yuki Tsunoda: 5.5
Grid Position: P8, Race Finish: P14
As has become commonplace, Yuki Tsunoda got his RB car into Q3 during Saturday’s qualifying session to take eighth place on Sunday’s grid. The Japanese driver has been impressive of late and looked odds on to take another points finish when he spun at the Turn 8/9 chicane, dropping from points-winning contention to 14th. “Today was my mistake, a stupid move, and I’m sorry to the team,” Tsunoda said post-race. Judging by his previous form, Canada is likely a momentary blip in Tsunoda’s 2024 campaign.
Pierre Gasly: 6.5
Grid Position: P15, Race Finish: P9
Pierre Gasly made it back-to-back races in the points on Sunday after converting a Q2 15th place finish in Qualifying into ninth in the Grand Prix. The Frenchman is getting what he can out of the still uncompetitive Alpine package but climbing six places up the order amid the tricky Montreal conditions was no mean feat. Granted, team orders elevated him past Esteban Ocon in the final stages from 10th and contact with Perez at the start could have ended his race early, but Gasly delivered two valuable points for Alpine.
Esteban Ocon: 7
Grid Position: P18, Race Finish: P10
Ocon’s Monaco antics not only cast doubt over his favour within the Alpine outfit (and proceeded an announcement he won’t continue with the team next season), but also landed him with a five-place grid penalty to put him to the back of the order until Sauber’s double pit-lane start granted him a 18th place starting slot on Sunday. From there, the Frenchman executed well to be in the top-10 as the race drew to a close but was left angered by his team when ordered to make way for Gaslty to pursue Ricciardo. Despite Gasly failing to make inroads on the RB driver, Alpine kept its drivers in position and Ocon found himself a disgruntled 10th.
Nico Hulkenberg: 6
Grid Position: P17, Race Finish: P11
Nico Hulkenberg’s usual qualifying prowess was marred by a high-downforce set-up on his car to balance out aero issues. One half of the wet tyre Haas charge at lights out, Hulkenberg continued to battle his problems in the GP but still wound up climbing the order to 11th. An experienced head in the F1 game, the German came close to claiming a vital point for a Haas team that will miss his services in 2025.
Kevin Magnussen: 6
Grid Position: P14, Race Finish: P12
Along with his team-mate, Kevin Magnussen was one of only two drivers to start the race on wet tyres and shone with the extra grip at his disposal. As the intermediate runners tip-toed their way around the Montreal circuit throughout the opening laps, the feisty Dane driver picked them off one by one, rising to an incredible fourth. A bungled pit stop after the conditions swiftly changed gave Magnussen plenty of work to do for the remainder of the race, but like Hulkenberg, he drove well to be on the fringes of points-winning positions.
Valtteri Bottas: 6
Grid Position: Pit-lane, Race Finish: P13
Sauber remains the only pointless outfit in F1 due to its underperforming car. Valtteri Bottas can do little with the car at his disposal but was still only marginally off of making it into Q2 in qualifying. His work was made harder after the team made power unit and wing changes under parc ferme but the Finn kept his nose clean and drove a solid race from a pit-lane start to finish in 13th. There’s little the sauber is capable of, but at least Bottas is a dependable steward for the Hinwil-based squad.
Zhou Guanyu: 5
Grid Position: Pit-lane, Race Finish: P15
Multiple crashes in practice meant Zhou Guanyu was ill-prepared to match his team-mate in qualifying. Changes in Parc Ferme meant the Chinese driver’s dead-last effort on Saturday meant little. The saving grace for Zhou this weekend was that where others crashed out, he managed to keep his car on the asphalt to bring it home.
Carlos Sainz: 5
Grid Position: P12, Race Finish: DNF
Carlos Sainz suffered a strategy miss-step in qualifying that cost him the chance to progress to the top-10 shootout, paving the way for a miserable Sunday afternoon. The Spaniard’s troubles continued with a damaged floor after contact with Bottas and his race came to an end with a spin-off of the road at the Turn 6/7 chicane which saw him collect Alex Albon in the process.
Charles Leclerc: 5
Grid Position: P11, Race Finish: DNF
Charles Leclerc suffered the same fate as his team-mate in qualifying and his troubles didn’t stop there. From the outset, Leclerc was fighting a power unit issue on Sunday which required a reboot in the pits when he came in for his first stop. Bemusingly, Ferrari gambled on an early switch to hard tyres just as the second rain shower of the day hit. A few miserable laps later, the Scuderia retired the Monaco race winner for good.
Alex Albon: 7
Grid Position: P10, Race Finish: DNF
Albon continues to deliver whenever Williams requires it. Making it into the top-10 Q3 shootout for the second successive race, the Anglo-Thai driver kept his car in the mix throughout, executing an incredible double overtake on Ricciardo and Ocon down the back straight after the first Safety Car. Sadly, Albon’s progress came to an abrupt end on Lap 54 as he was powerless to avoid the spinning Sainz. In Albon’s words, “points were on the table” and he performed admirably to keep Williams in contention until his race met a cruel end.
Logan Sargeant: 4
Grid Position: P13, Race Finish: DNF
Logan Sargeant is still without the lightened floor Williams introduced to Alobon’s car at Imola and so the American did well to qualifying 13th place. However, the American’s inexperience and inconsistency came to bite him in the race. Two offs early on related him to the back of the field and it was a case of three strikes and you’re out for Sargeant as he crashed out on lap 25. With question marks over his future lingering, Sargeant sadly did little to help his cause in Montreal.
