Formula 1: despite Verstappen taking pole, Ferrari and Red Bull lost in the Canadian GP

Max Verstappen gave a lesson on what a champion should do. After dominating on Friday, the Dutchman was the poleman of the Canadian Grand Prix, the ninth round of Formula 1, where he took care of his Red Bull during the third training session due to the rain and ended up annihilating his rivals in classification.

This Sunday at 3:00 pm in Argentina, he will be accompanied in the front row by the surprising Fernando Alonso, who narrowly beat Carlos Sainz, Ferrari’s hope after the penalty against Charles Leclerc. “It’s great, so far it’s been a great weekend for us … I think we’ll attack Max in the first corner!” Said the two-time F1 champion.

Sainz, meanwhile, will occupy that second row with the seven-time English champion Lewis Hamilton, while the surprise was given by the Haas drivers, who will start from fifth (Magnussen) and sixth place (Schumacher). Behind will start Ocon (Alpine), Russell (Mercedes), Ricciardo (McLaren) and Zhou (Alfa Romeo), who for the first time went to Q3.

Although Fernando Alonso had set the best time in the last test with wet intermediate tires, full wet tires were chosen at the start of qualifying. With the rain still present on the island of Notre Dame, where the Gilles Villeneuve circuit is located, George Russell was the one who set the best time at the start (1: 36.688), 747 thousandths from the first record of Max Verstappen , the big candidate with Charles Leclerc sanctioned and at the bottom of the grid on Sunday.

With much more spray and fog, due to weather and rain, the Englishman remained first for quite some time, despite Alonso and Hamilton getting close to him. But then the Dutchman started to risk more and with slightly warmer tires he lowered the Mercedes driver’s time by almost a second, stopping the clock in 1: 35.830, 114 thousandths faster than Ocon (2nd) but, a few moments later, 18 slower than Carlos Sainz, the new ruler of a Very complicated Q1 in terms of visibility.

Unlike his teammate, with back problems and multiple complaints, Russell proved once again that he is better suited to Mercedes and once again dominates the standings, with a time of 1: 34.989, 448 thousandths faster than Pierre Gasly but almost a second off Sainz, which the Spaniard then reduced to 176. Ten minutes from the end, between them there is it was Esteban Ocon’s Alpine.

Accustomed to the Danish cold and rain, Kevin Magnussen made a surprise by putting the Haas ahead of the others with a time of 1: 34.893, then overtaken by the Finnish Valtteri Bottas. The improvements on the track thus helped everyone to lower the times, except Leclerc who was in the elimination zone (17th) despite having been the poleman in six of the eight races so far. However, it would not have been the last time for the Monegasque, who finished fifth.

Finally, Q1 established that the best was Max Verstappen (1: 32.219), ahead of the Spaniards Fernando Alonso – just 58 thousandths behind – and Carlos Sainz, but also that Leclerc will not be the last in the race on Sunday to 15 (Star +). Is that Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri), the other penalized on the ninth round, was 20th and was eliminated together with Nicholas Latifi (Williams), the two Aston Martin (Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel) and Pierre Gasly (16th) , the other Alpha Tauri. Magnussen surprised, with Haas in fourth place.

With Sainz anticipating that it was time for intermediate tires and Vettel and Gasly complaining that in the last test they only got on the podium behind Alonso, Q2 started with Alonso, Sainz, Ocon, Magnussen, Schumacher, Pérez and Alex Albon with green line tires e with the absence of Leclercwho decided to finish his work and leave the qualification with 14 participants.

That compound difference allowed us to see in the early stages how Alonso (1: 30.910) was half a second and a fraction behind Verstappen, with blue tires. But soon the yellow flags appeared. First in sector 2, when Albon continues long but manages to avoid the impact of Williams with a tight braking, and then in sector 1 with Checo Pérez, that the distance did not give him time, slips on the grass and hits the protection so hard that sank it and caused the red flag.

Once the Mexican retired, and with no possibility of continuing the race for getting out of the car when he was eighth, the fight became even more agitated. When the rain subsided and everyone switched to intermediate tires to improve their times, the test resumed nine minutes from the end and those eliminated, at that point, were Zhou, Magnussen, Ricciardo, Norris – even if they would draw advantage from the abandonment of Pérez- and, of course, Leclerc.

In a close fight between Verstappen and Sainz, and with even better track conditions without rain, it all made it to Q2 when the clock hit zero. So, at the last lap, it was decided that Leclerc and Pérez were accompanied by Norris (who could not go out for a while), Albon and Bottas and that It would have been difficult to get the “1” from Verstappen (1: 23.746), a second and a fraction better than Alonso, his escort.

In this way, the last part of the ranking had ten somewhat unexpected protagonists, including the two Haas pilots, because Schumacher was sixth and Magnussen ninth in Q2. Although no one was encouraged to use slick tires, as the track had dried out but there were some slippery areas, Verstappen lost a second from his previous time (1: 22.701) and left the rest far behind at the start of the finish. of the session.

Russell was the first to pit for the red tires and try to get out of fifth place and get closer to Verstappen. There were four minutes to qualify, so the Englishman had a difficult task ahead of him to warm up; He even went off the track between turns 1 and 2, the wettest part of the track, and no other driver has tried to go in that direction. While Verstappen, with intermediate rain, continued to improve his times (1: 21.620), 1s312 away from Sainz, the hope of Ferrari in Montreal.

With an impressive time, Verstappen was set for his second pole position of the year. And neither Sainz’s attempt at the last second, nor Hamilton’s, managed to knock him down, because the Dutchman signed 1: 21.299, which left Alonso at 645 thousandths to occupy the front row and leave Sainz behind (797 behind the champion)who will share second place with Lewis Hamilton, who finished more than a second and a half behind the poleman.