Verstappen holds off dogged Sainz to take victory in Canada; Hamilton finishes a strong P3, Russell P4 on good day for Mercedes; Leclerc salvages P5 after starting last

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen survived a late Safety Car that allowed Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz to get back up to the Dutchman’s gearbox and hound him for the lead over the final laps to earn his first victory at the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday. Under sunny & clear skies following Saturday’s rain-effected Qualifying, Verstappen saw his comfortable lead erased when Yuki Tsunoda inexplicably binned his AlphaTauri coming out of the pits on cold tires. With the Safety Car deployed almost immediately to retrieve the disconsolate Tsunoda’s mount, Sainz took the opportunity to dive into the pits for a cheap stop time-wise under yellow and a set of fresh Pirelli rubber, which also gave the Spaniard 6-lap younger tires compared to the race-leading Red Bull. Sainz was absolutely primed and ready to get past Verstappen once the Safety Car withdrew at the end of Lap 54 and racing got back under way. As Verstappen restarted the proceedings coming out of the last chicane, turned close to the Wall of Champions and steamed down the start/finish straight, Sainz didn’t let Max gain an inch on him, sticking to the Red Bull like glue. But even with a full 15 laps remaining and Sainz hounding him the rest of the race, Verstappen had the pace and skill to hold off the hard charging Prancing Horse filling his mirrors. Such is the excellence of this year’s Red Bull and its championship leading number one driver that, despite the Ferrari having the advantage of DRS for so many laps, it was Verstappen who took the checkered flag and his first victory at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. It was also Max’s impressive fifth win in the last six contests, which is some serious mo in his title hunt. For Sainz, it was a valiant effort in a season full of a lot of errors and he even set the race’s fastest lap while in pursuit. But he’ll have to be satisfied with another P2 and the elusive quest for his first-ever F1 win will have to wait until at least the next round at Silverstone in a fortnight.

For as bad as Mercedes looked all weekend long, the Silver Arrows had a remarkably good race. While they didn’t really have the pace to challenge the leading Red Bull and Ferrari on even terms, Lewis Hamilton finally got some breaks and drove a savvy and clean race to take the last step on the podium in P3. At a track where he has a record seven F1 victories, Hamilton was also clearly the better Merc for once this season, easily besting his ambitious young teammate, George Russell, who nonetheless scored a very satisfying P4. Mercedes are definitely improving after the troublesome and very bouncy rollout of their new W13 chassis and this was their second consecutive 3-4 finish, this time swapping the order from Azerbaijan a week ago with Hamilton happily on the podium. But compared to the pace of Red Bull and Ferrari, team Mercedes know that they’ve still got a lot of work to ahead if they’ve got even the slimmest shot of getting back into title contention.

Sainz’s more heralded teammate Charles Leclerc did yeoman’s work to haul himself up from last place on the grid after upgrading his power unit and subsequently being assessed several penalties at once. Fighting through the midfield all race long, the Monegasque methodically picked off slower runners with decisive passes and came home a valuable P5 when the laps ran out. While his deficit to Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship grew to 46 points due to the Dutchman’s victory today, he was able to close within three points of the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez because Perez suffered a terminal gearbox failure on only the eighth lap of this race. While Checo had to endure that frustrating DNF through no fault of his own, Ferrari were able to creep just a little closer in the Contructors’ standings thanks to having both of their cars finish well in the points.

Further back in the top ten, Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso finished in P6 and P9 respectively. Alonso had started from P2 after an excellent wet weather qualifying effort but did not have the race pace, struggled with some sort of engine issue late in the GP and then was penalized 5-seconds post-race for illegal defending against Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu. That elevated Zho, who drove very well for the second race in a row, to P8 for the Chinese rookie’s second points finish in F1. Zho’s teammate Valtteri Bottas finished ahead of him in P7, a fine recovery result for the veteran Finn after only qualifying P11. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll took the last point in P10 at his home GP.

Top 10 finishers of the Canadian GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race is in two weeks’ time — the British Grand Prix from the venerable Silverstone Circuit. Can Verstappen continue to pull away in the championship or will Leclerc bounce back in Britain? And can Mercedes use the extra week of downtime to improve their cars and pull even closer to the top two teams, perhaps even fighting for victory a mere 10 minutes from their home base in Brackley? Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!