For the first time since 2019 Formula 1 returned to the man-made island of the Ile de Notre Dame and the Canadian Grand Prix.
What lives in the memory bank for the famed circuit Gilles Villeneuve is the great Michael Schumacher’s dominance and the fact that it is the site of Lewis Hamilton’s first win. Amongst other indelible memories the rain in Canada also features quite prominently in the recollection, not least of all due to the 2011 Grand Prix.
The rain made its presence known in 2022 as well but confined itself to Saturday qualifying this time around. Although there was no monsoon level of rain it was enough to produce a spicy qualifying session. Checo Perez’s mistake in Q2 confined him to second half of the grid while teammate Max Verstappen was peerless as he headed to a comfortable pole position. But elsewhere Fernando Alonso snatched a front-row starting position for the first time since 2012 while Hamilton put his Mercedes in fourth alongside the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz. Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher too delivered stand-out performances to qualify fifth and sixth for Haas. Meanwhile, Charles Leclerc was relegated to the back of the grid owing to penalties for new power unit elements.
Race day saw the return of pristine sunshine albeit on a green track. Verstappen led easily away from pole and quickly gapped Alonso in second. On lap 8 the weekend went from bad to worse for Perez as the Mexican driver was forced into retirement with a suspected gearbox issue. The stricken Red Bull prompted the deployment of the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) which allowed Verstappen to swop his medium tyre for the hard compound while Sainz and Alonso opted not to take the cheap pitstop.
A handful of laps later, on lap 15, another VSC was called upon. This time it was to recover the Haas of the luckless Mick Schumacher. Schumacher had been running solidly in the lower end of the points paying positions before retiring with a mechanical problem. The opening stint of the race didn’t produce the meteoric rise through the field that Leclerc would’ve hoped for. Nevertheless, by lap 21 he was running seventh after choosing not to pit under the VSC.
By lap 35 the race had seemingly settled with Verstappen comfortably in the lead from Sainz and Hamilton with George Russell and Esteban Ocon rounding out the top five. While Verstappen had stopped on lap 8 Sainz with fresher tyres was able to close the gap to the leader to around six seconds. On lap 43 Verstappen opted for a second stop and emerged just behind Hamilton. The Dutchman made short work of the Mercedes though and was back into P2 by the end of the lap.
On lap 47 Yuki Tsunoda exited the pitlane with cold tyres and acquainted himself with the barrier at the exit of the pitlane. This prompted the deployment of the full Safety Car and allowed Sainz not only a cheap pitstop but put him right on the back of Verstappen with much fresher tyres at his disposal.
The race resumed on lap 55 and try as he might Sainz could not snatch the lead from Verstappen. Despite running mere tenths ahead Verstappen absorbed the pressure from Sainz to take his fifth win in the last six races. While Sainz was second a clearly chuffed Hamilton was third for Mercedes.
George Russell, in fourth, underlined a good day for Mercedes while Leclerc recovered to fifth overall. Esteban Ocon was sixth for Alpine ahead of the Alfa Romeo duo Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu in seventh and eighth. Fernando Alonso finished only ninth after a post-race five second penalty for weaving on the back strait. Lance Stroll, racing at home, was tenth for Aston Martin.
The start of this season was blighted by two DNFs in three races for Verstappen which saw him 46 points behind then-points leader Leclerc. A few months and string of sublime drives later the reigning champion now enjoys his own 46-point lead in the standings. So far, it’s been a mature and blindingly quick Max Verstappen that has turned up in 2022 clearly with the intent, and currently the form, of defending his title.
