Canadian GP Qualifying - The rain in Montreal elevates Verstappen and leaves Leclerc in Q2

The outcome of qualifying on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve doesn't fail to offer many surprises, except for the name of the pole sitter: once again - for the 25th in his career - Max Verstappen...

Speaking of surprises and twists, meanwhile, it is necessary to report both the final classification and the starting grid for the race. In fact, after the Qualifying session was finished, there were some penalties that upset the starting order established by the results on the track...

  • Hulkenberg demoted from P2 to P5 for not respecting the delta time in dangerous conditions (at the beginning of Q3, when Oscar Pistri ended up against the barriers causing a red flag);
  • Sainz demoted from P8 to P11 due to impeding Gasly, who even found himself out of Q1 because of this action;
  • Stroll demoted from P13 to P16 due to impeding the other Alpine, the one of Esteban Ocon (episode which took place in Q2);
  • Tsunoda demoted from P16 to P19 for impeding Nico Hulkenberg (after doing the same with Charles Leclerc, I would add) in the final part of Q1;

So let's analyze what happened, trying to classify the performance shown in qualifying between those who maximized (or even exceeded) their car's potential and those who didn't get as much as they could have hoped for.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Side note: promoting or rejecting drivers is a valid "exercise" only to the extent that one tries to give an interpretation to a single session or single weekend; we know very well that there are a myriad of factors, often not under their control, that can turn a great weekend into a disaster. Here we just want to provide an analysis of what was the ability to finalize of this or that driver/team package.

Verstappen, Hulkenberg and Albon among the stars of Saturday in Montreal

The 25th pole position of Max Verstappen's Formula 1 career is the result of a situation that never got out of hand for the World Champion and his team. Conscious of their potential, before each session from Q1 to Q3 they decided to wait even several minutes in front of the red light when exiting the pit lane: this strategy, which brings with it the disadvantage of losing tyre temperature, allowed the Dutchman to be in clean air in each of his stints.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

And this, in a session characterized by a variable intensity of rain, gave him a significant strategic advantage: well, you still have to complete a good lap even if you start from the best strategic assumptions, but for Verstappen this is not never a problem. Also for this reason we are talking about a 2-times World Champion, who will most likely reach 3 in a few months.

"Yesterday it wasn't a fantastic session. We changed the car a bit, but today the track was wet and everything was different: in these conditions you always have to stay on track and pay maximum attention... The track was slippery in some points, but I made the right decisions at the right time to set the laptimes and we are very happy about it. Tomorrow maybe it will be dry and everything will be different, but we have a good car for the race"

Max Verstappen

The second fastest laptime was set by Nico Hulkenberg, very effective at the start of Q3 to bring the tyres up to temperature when needed... So much so that, following the red flag for Oscar Piastri's accident, the weather conditions worsened and no one was able to improve their personal best laptime.

Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

However, the mistake that costed him 3 positions doesn't affect him that much, because under normal race conditions Nico is destined to be jumped by cars that are far more competitive than his Haas...

"I enjoyed this qualifying! It was crazy, in really complicated variable conditions, especially here with the walls so close to the exits at high speeds. First with dry tyres, then wet tyres, then dry again and wet again. You always have to adapt, but it was fun and with an unexpected result: I'm very happy and it was a super job by the team. I think we handled it pretty well, without making any glaring mistakes: I think that's what I'm here for in the end. According to the forecast, it will be very difficult to keep a good position: the dry race will be a completely different story, but I'll try to do everything possible to get a good result"

Nico Hulkenberg

Behind Verstappen we therefore find Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin, a constant presence yesterday in the top positions, and the two Mercedes (respectively of Hamilton and Russell). Their qualifying was excellent, especially considering that the Mercedes duo didn't stand out in the rain in FP3: starting from this perspective, starting with both cars on the second row can be considered the best possible result for the English-German team.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

What will Lewis and George be able to do in the race? A lot will depend on the weather, but if it doesn't rain, it's likely to imagine a podium as a possible result: the only threats behind them (the two Ferraris and Perez's Red Bull) will start far behind, so the two Mercedes drivers will have to build a safety margin against them, taking advantage of the traffic behind them.

Patrick Vinet / Motrosport Images

Honorable mention for Alex Albon, who brings his Williams into Q3 after closing Q2 in first position! Fundamental for him was the choice to switch to dry tyres (Soft, in his case) in the second qualifying session before everyone else: this made it easier to find confidence on a still treacherous track, and Alex was rewarded with a top 10 appearance.

Personally I am convinced that without the red flag in Q3, Alex could have improved even more on his ninth starting position, because the pace shown on Saturday suggests that he really made the difference (not only compared to his teammate Sargeant, who is still inexperienced in the wet, but also against rivals who drive cars with more downforce).

Leclerc "leads" the group of disappointed driverd: with him Perez, Stroll and... Tsunoda!

On the other hand, the one who has the most to complain is Charles Leclerc, who will only start in tenth position after a weekend which, up until Q2, had not nullified his ambitions for pole position. In the free practice analysis we said that the Ferrari SF-23 proved to be very good in the dry but the rain could have been a problem: in FP3, in reality, Charles drove very well and a good position was widely within its reach. What happened then?

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Well, yet another communication problem occurred between the driver and the pit wall: while Albon was running (well) on the Softs, all the others - including Charles himself - were on the Intermediates. The Monegasque tried to ask to switch immediately to the Softs, but the garage told him to complete at least one flying lap with the tyres he was on at that moment.

It is not a completely wrong strategic call, because if Leclerc had switched to the Softs in conjunction with an increase in the intensity of the rain, we would now be talking about a strategic disaster. Instead, by completing what is called a "bunker lap", you ensure to have at least one decent lap time under your belt.

The problem was that, after completing one lap and returning to the pits in the next one, Charles only had one real lap left in "semi-dry" conditions: on that lap he made a mistake, which left him out of Q3...

“I didn't do a good job: there were many of us with this plan and in the end I didn't make it compared to the others. We'll talk to the team to improve, because it wasn't a good day. I just got carried away, but there's a lot of passion and desire to do well, and today didn't go the way we wanted. Looking at the race, if it's dry we can make a good comeback. We'll see where we can go, but we have a car that was competitive on Friday: the sensations were very good yesterday, this is a positive aspect"

Charles Leclerc

The blame of this elimination is therefore upon both the driver (who made a driving error) and the team, which, by listening to his indications, could have reduced the risk of staying out by copying the strategy used by Williams with Albon. Some time after an initial anger, Leclerc then admitted that indeed if there are any faults, they are to be distributed between him and the team.

The other disappointed drivers of the day, as anticipated, are Perez and Stroll (with performances not on level of what the RB19 and AMR23 offer them). Only up to 2 or 3 Grands Prix ago many were talking of Checo as a real Max Verstappen's opponent for the World Title, but between Monaco, Barcelona and Montreal he had now three qualifying positions outside the top 10: whether it's a question of not being able to withstand the enormous pressure of fighting for the World Championship or simply of technical problems, at Red Bull the performance level of their drivers is pretty clear.

"It was a disaster: when we switched to dry tyres it was too late, and we were also in the wrong position on the track with an Alfa Romeo in front. Once the temperature was ok, it started raining harder and it was too late; then, when we switched to the Intermediates the track was too wet. Yesterday was a positive day, and even today in the wet we were doing quite well before qualifying, but we weren't able to put our potential on track. Tomorrow it will be tough to come back, because we have seen a very strong race pace from other teams, such as Ferrari, Aston Martin and Mercedes...”

Sergio Perez

Finally, among the disappointed ones I would also include Yuki Tsunoda, because in Montreal he drove well all weekend, and despite an Alpha Tauri not "on point" (De Vries was also eliminated in Q1) he could have achieved a good starting position. Instead, a series of procedural errors, including the impedings on Leclerc and on Hulkenberg in Q1, compromised Yuki's Saturday. Long story short, he too demonstrates the thesis above: being fast is not enough, you also need to know how to finalize.

What can happen in the race?

The race will start at 20.00 CET: much of it will be dictated - as already mentioned - by the weather conditions, but in case of a linear race it will be interesting to see how easily the two Ferraris will be able to recover from Leclerc's P10 and Sainz's P11.

Closing with a prediction about the podium, I feel like saying that Verstappen, Alonso and Hamilton have everything to be able to keep their starting positions.

Categories

Reading time: minutes
Back to blog