Max Verstappen delivered a real masterpiece in the rainy qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal and secured pole position with a best time of 1:21.299 minutes.
Verstappen took 0.645 seconds off his closest pursuer, Fernando Alonso (Alpine). Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) was third, ahead of Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher (Haas).
“I don’t expect a clear race, but I’m super happy with pole – no mistakes made, everything decided correctly,” said Verstappen. Veteran Alonso (40) said confidently: “A great feeling, an incredible weekend. The car was mega in the wet. We’ll attack Max – in the first corner already.”
Esteban Ocon (Alpine) was seventh, ahead of George Russell (Mercedes). Russell was the only driver to risk switching from intermediates to slicks in Q3. An experiment that didn’t work out.
Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) and Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo) completed the top 10.
Schumacher for the second time in Q3: how does it work?
For long stretches of qualifying, Schumacher was a respectful distance behind his teammate Kevin Magnussen. But at the end of Q2, as the track became increasingly dry, he turned it up a notch. In the meantime he even drove pink sectors, i.e. absolute best times. He ended up finishing P6, 1.938s behind Verstappen and 0.570s ahead of Magnussen.
That meant moving into Q3 for the second time after Barcelona. And there Schumacher continued impressively. When he had completed his first fast lap, he was 0.787 seconds behind leader Verstappen in second place.
Ultimately, Schumacher finished 6th and thus achieved the best result of his Formula 1 career.
Why couldn’t Pérez continue?
Nine minutes were still on the clock when Q2 had to be interrupted with a red flag. Sergio Perez (Red Bull) had slid straight into Turn 3. Unlike Alexander Albon (Williams) shortly before, he was unable to free himself from the unfortunate situation. Although his car was only damaged on the front wing.
“He missed the braking point. Maybe he misjudged and thought that the rain tire would slow down better,” analyzes ‘ORF’ expert Alexander Wurz.
Perez first tried to reverse gear and pit, but his car wouldn’t allow it. His race engineer gave him instructions on what to do. But in the end Perez had to give up in exasperation: “It doesn’t work!”
At the time of his accident he was eighth. He ended up 13th in Q2. He was joined by Valtteri Bottas (11th/Alfa Romeo), Albon (12th), Lando Norris (14th/McLaren) and Leclerc (15th) in Q2. At Norris, a problem with the Mercedes power unit was responsible for this.
Why was Vettel so slow?
In the final training, also in the rain, he had finished third. The expectations were correspondingly high. But when things got down to business in Q1, suddenly nothing worked. When Vettel was told he was eliminated in 17th (one place ahead of teammate Lance Stroll, after all), he was stunned.
“I can’t believe it. What was that? Completely different than this morning! Oh man,” he was annoyed – and when asked he specified: “It’s just strange, I didn’t have any grip in the back. It felt strange in the back left. Me almost seems like something’s broken, to be honest.”
When he got out of the car, Vettel still couldn’t make sense of the poor performance: “We were extremely slow. I had a lot of oversteer. At times it felt like the car was broken. At this point, I understand I haven’t yet,” he muses.
“It’s a shame, because FT1 and FT2 were so good, even this morning. Those who were fast this morning are fast again now, for example the Alpines. We were bad with both cars. It must have been something,” says hag.
In addition to the two Aston Martins, Pierre Gasly (16th/AlphaTauri), Nicholas Latifi (19th/Williams) and Yuki Tsunoda (20th/AlphaTauri) also retired in Q1.
How were the weather conditions?
It had already rained in the third free practice session at noon. Hamilton said in Q1, when everyone was full wet and the spray was extreme: “I can’t see much in front of me.” In Q2, the track gradually became drier. With seven laps to go, Hamilton (on Intermediates) radioed, “I’m starting to see a drier line.”
Are there actually resets in the starting line-up?
Yes. As of the end of qualifying, two drivers are affected. Leclerc has changed his power unit and exceeded his engine contingent for the season for the first time. He has to go to the end of the starting grid. The same goes for Tsunoda. Because of the better qualifying result, Leclerc starts 19th and Tsunoda 20th.
Under normal circumstances, Leclerc would certainly have been able to do more than P15: “We only drove a few laps so that I had a time. I didn’t take any risks,” says the Ferrari driver. “But the feeling for the race is good.”