Bad luck or misjudgement: did Norris and McLaren throw away Canadian GP victory?

“We should have won the race today and we didn't,” Lando Norris opined when he eventually turned up to the post-Canadian Grand Prix press conference, perhaps having lost track of time in the TV pen prior. Before the Briton’s arrival, race winner Max Verstappen had suggested that he was now “1-1” with Norris in terms of safety car misfortune, referencing the Miami race he’d lost to the McLaren driver through the timing of the pace car.

It seemed, at the time at least, that karmic retribution apportioned by the cosmos had rewarded Verstappen and punished Norris. Logan Sargeant’s Turn 5 crash on the 25th lap had proved to be terminal for the under-pressure American and, once it was clear he couldn’t get going again, the first of two safety cars had poked its bumper out of the pitlane. Norris, having picked up the lead following his quick-fire overtakes on Verstappen and polesitter George Russell, came through the start/finish straight. The Red Bull and the Mercedes that he had built a near-10 second gap over did not; they pitted for fresh intermediates immediately.

Norris had to wait an extra lap before picking up his next set of inters. This shuffled him behind Verstappen and Russell; seemingly, the safety car timing had cost Norris. Instead, Norris contended that it was a race that he and McLaren had lost by their own hand. “I don't think it was luck,” Norris rued afterwards. “It's not the timing of the first safety car. I had enough time to box, and we didn't box. So, this was a mistake on us as a team.”

Red Bull, in the meantime, got its big calls right around the pitstops and Verstappen made them work on track. Is it as clear cut as Norris and McLaren losing victory in Canada, or did Red Bull and Verstappen earn it and punish the Woking squad’s mistake? The answer is probably somewhere in between…

SCENE ONE, ACT ONE: Russell converts pole to early lead from Verstappen

You don’t often see standing starts in the wet these days in F1. Russell certainly hadn’t partaken in one from pole, but he held his nerve and resisted fellow front-row starter Verstappen – even if it looked like it was in slow motion as the drivers attempted to stymy any hint of wheelspin.

Russell was the faster of the two in the opening laps. In truth, the circuit was perhaps a little too wet for the intermediate tyres in the first five or six tours, evinced by Kevin Magnussen’s thrilling surge through the order on the full wet, and it was simply a case of clinging on and waiting for the racing line to start drying out.

A wet standing start saw all drivers relatively well behaved diving into the opening corners

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Mercedes had probably favoured a dry race, such was the improvements in pace that the W15 enjoyed in Montreal thanks to its cadence of updates across the previous few races. Its new front wing, far more conventional in design versus its early-season model, had set off floor upgrades to fix the mid-corner stability. Nonetheless, it was doing the job in the wet across the first four laps, and Russell had accumulated an almost three-second lead over Verstappen by that stage. But the Dutchman started to hit back, slashing the arrears by a second across the next four laps and continuing to loom larger in Russell’s droplet-covered mirrors.

By the end of lap 12, Verstappen sat within a second of the leading Mercedes. With much of the circuit still wet, DRS was not active and Russell did not have to ward off too much in the way of overtaking efforts. Both drivers were actively hunting for wet patches to keep their intermediates in the desired temperature window.

There were a couple of instances where Verstappen’s progress was slowed marginally by minor slips here and there as he attempted to pressure Russell into his own mistakes. But every time Verstappen got close, his RB20 would step out, and a lap 17 excursion into the Turn 2 run-off, when he misjudged his braking point on the wettest complex of a drying circuit. set him back by almost two seconds.

This brought a fast-approaching Norris into play.

"We started to save the tyres very early, even when [it] kind of wasn't necessary, trying to find the cold patches or wet patches to make sure that the tyres stayed in good condition for when the track would have been more challenging" Andrea Stella

SCENE ONE, ACT TWO: Norris on the charge

Norris’s early gambit in Montreal echoed that of Miami, where he spent the early laps sitting back and making sure to bring his tyres in steadily. It didn’t matter that he’d dropped a second a lap to sit over 10s away from Russell by the end of the 10th lap because it meant that he could start to push a little bit more as the circuit dried.

“Because we had no pressure, we started to save the tyres very early, even when [it] kind of wasn't necessary,” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained, “trying to find the cold patches or wet patches to make sure that the tyres stayed in good condition for when the track would have been more challenging. I think there's no magic, it's just the position we were in the first stint meant that we could apply this strategy with no loss.”

Norris's race appeared to turn with the flick of a switch, as he began to reel off fastest laps to quell the growing gap and start homing in on the two drivers ahead. He’d reduced the deficit to just over three seconds when Verstappen had his Turn 1 off, and that then meant he was in range when DRS was switched on for the first time.

Looking after his inters, Norris could plot his attack on Verstappen and Russell as the track dried out

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

It took a couple more laps for Norris to mount an assault, discretion being the better part of valour as he continued to seek out damp track to cool his inters, but he timed his lap 20 attack right as Verstappen started to close down Russell once more.

Had Norris waited a lap longer, Verstappen would have collected a DRS-assisted tow on Russell down the back straight, so the move had to be made right then. Norris avoided the wetter line this time around, soaked up Verstappen’s slipstream, and took the Turn 14 chicane ahead to slot into second.

Russell’s lead fell in the next lap as Norris had a surplus of pace over his compatriot. Again, Turn 14 provided the venue and Russell could do little to fight it. He tried, at least, but to his detriment; he took to the Turn 14 run-off and passed through the escape route, which sapped at his pace sufficiently for Verstappen to pick up second place.

With tremendous speed, Norris was about two seconds per lap to the good over Verstappen. His lead grew quickly and seemingly unstoppably over the next few circuits of the Notre Dame Island and, as of the start of the 25th lap, looked set to expand to about 10s. Then the record skipped and the needle slipped on Norris’ album of greatest hits.

SCENE TWO, ACT ONE: Sargeant shunts, Norris misses safety car window

The beleaguered Sargeant had already faced the wall once at this year’s Canadian GP, having gone deep into Turn 6 on the sixth lap and narrowly evaded tacking on a few hundred thousand dollars onto Williams’s already-extortionate repair bill.

He’d managed to reverse out of that one but, on taking too much kerb out of Turn 4 on his 24th lap, the American lost his footing and spun. He tagged the wall slightly and largely saved his FW46 from sustaining more damage, but came to a stop this time around to prompt the emergence of the safety car.

This was the sliding doors moment for Norris, as the passage of events that opened this account transpired to ensure the safety car largely worked against him. Although he suggested that the decision to not pit immediately was relatively binary, or through failing to react quickly enough, Stella revealed that there was a lot more in McLaren’s considerations. After all, the word across the team radio traffic was that another rain cell was due to pass over Montreal and bestow the circuit with a new coat of standing water.

McLaren was weighing up multiple factors over whether it was the right time to pit Norris in the first safety car period

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“It looked like he was one and a half seconds from the pit,” Stella explained, noting the tiny timeframe needed to make a snap call. “In hindsight, we could have told the driver, 'In case of safety car pit', so he would have just reacted instinctively to just pit.

“But we were monitoring the intensity of the rain and this intensity in the last few minutes was kind of reducing. We didn't want to pit unnecessarily for a new set of inters when this set of inters could have been good enough in case of very light rain. I think it was much easier for the car behind to kind of do the opposite.”

Verstappen had been on the blower to his team asking for a new set of intermediates at the next convenient time when it became apparent that more rain was inbound. “That inter was almost slick,” he explained of his 25-lap-old green-walled tyres. “I said, ‘Guys, if rain is coming, we have to box’. Luckily, we did that because as soon as we restarted, it started to rain.”

Russell had followed Verstappen in, the two departing from the pitlane line astern. Norris had to wait one more lap, by which time he had caught the safety car. That nearly 10s lead was wiped out, and the pace of the Aston Martin Vantage ensured that he returned from whence he came: third, and behind Verstappen and Russell.

Pierre Gasly’s lap-40 switch from the intermediate to the hard tyre acted as a bellwether for the teams at the front to judge their own shift to slicks. When the Frenchman started to lap faster than the leaders, most decided to make their stops on lap 44

SCENE TWO, ACT TWO: Return of the rain, but Max holds the line

The rain arrived a little after the lap 30 restart, at around 2:48pm. Verstappen, no stranger to leading away a restart, gunned the throttle out of Turn 14 when the safety car peeled back into the pits. Stella’s hope of very light rain did not entirely pan out, as the track was almost as wet as it had been at the start of the race thanks to the downpour.

Although Verstappen saw Russell off, he was not breaking away; the gap remained between 1-1.5s across the opening laps of the second intermediate phase. Perhaps the tentative nature hinted at uncertainty over further rain, although the weather radars had suggested that the dark grey cloud looming overhead was due to scarper towards the east.

Russell attempted to remain in touching distance but, as the dry line started to reform as the race went deep into its second phase, Verstappen was building a healthier gap. Once the arrears stood at around two seconds, the championship leader started to exert a stronger grasp over the race. The action stagnated between the front two, the gap rising to above three seconds and almost bordering on four, and it became clear that the circuit was almost ripe for slick tyres.

Norris almost pulled off an audacious overcut in the switch to slicks

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

SCENE THREE, ACT ONE: The transition, as Norris tries overcut in slick switch

Pierre Gasly’s lap-40 switch from the intermediate to the hard tyre acted as a bellwether for the teams at the front to judge their own shift to slicks. When the Frenchman started to lap faster than the leaders, most decided to make their stops on lap 44 – although Verstappen and Russell waited an extra lap before conducting their own stops.

Verstappen opted for the medium compound, and Russell the hard; although there were still 25 laps left on the counter, the medium was a legitimate option. Pirelli had expected before the race that wear would be minimal owing to the smoothness of the new track surface, and little lateral movement in the traction zones would not create too much abrasion either. Instead, Pirelli was most concerned about graining, but this could be overcome with a sensible warm-up phase at the beginning of the stint.

On the other hand, Norris and McLaren wanted to atone for their earlier mistake/misfortune. The inters were still delivering good performance, and Norris wanted to burn through his set for two more laps in an effort to overcut the two drivers he’d passed earlier on in the race.

“I probably pushed too late on that inter tyre in the middle stint,” Norris contended. “It's why we stayed out, because I was so quick at the end of that stint, but I probably just didn't push early enough.”

Thus, it came down to his eventual stop for mediums on lap 47. And the overcut worked, albeit fleetingly. He’d built the gap needed to get out ahead of Verstappen, but the still-wet pit exit on cold tyres offered a treacherous few metres of road. Verstappen, on two-lap old mediums with considerably more warmth, stole past a sidewinding Norris to resume his lead of the race.

“I felt like we timed that about right, going onto the medium tyre,” reflected Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. “While Lando was able to capitalise enough to hit the 20s mark, and it hovered around that, with each lap we did, the tyres were getting warmer, and I was surprised they didn't cover after one lap.

“They left him for two, which gave Max another lap to generate the temperature. When Lando did pit, Max had tyres that were in the window and was able to pull out a 3s gap by sector one.”

A second safety car tempted for fights for the lead, but Verstappen nailed the restart to lock in his win

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

This put Norris into Russell’s clutches, and the Mercedes driver collected DRS two laps later to slot past for second after Norris locked up at the hairpin. But Russell made his own mistake to enact a switch for position, taking too much kerb at Turn 9 to give Norris the impetus to snatch the runner-up spot once more.

SCENE THREE, ACT TWO: Norris gets one more chance, Mercs battle for podium

A second safety car offered one more opportunity for Norris to get back ahead of Verstappen. Carlos Sainz’s Turn 6 spin on lap 53 sent the Ferrari driver across the track and into the path of Alex Albon, who was rather minding his own business. Another Williams stranded at the side of the track was responsible for the reprisal of the Aston Martin safety car.

Unsurprisingly, Verstappen did what he so often does on a restart and held position. Norris had not enjoyed the same fire-up of his own medium tyres, granting Verstappen a lead that shattered hopes of a provisional DRS activation in the early stages. Norris never really had the measure of the slick tyres, ceding further fragments of time to Verstappen over the final 10 laps to ensure that the three-time champion’s victory was beyond all doubt.

Did Norris lose the win, or did Verstappen earn it? Both. Norris and McLaren’s immediate pitstop window had been tiny, but Verstappen and Red Bull were extremely measured and opportunistic. And, to win in F1, it’s about taking opportunities rather than simply demonstrating raw, uncontainable pace.

After a clutch of dull races, 2024 was sweetened by unadulterated Canadian maple syrup, a much-needed palate cleanser to whet peoples’ appetites

Mercedes made a late play for the final podium spot despite giving up track position to Oscar Piastri during the safety car. Russell ditched his hard tyres for mediums, and Lewis Hamilton vice versa, although neither were entirely convinced by the decision – Hamilton stating that he would have stayed out on the mediums had he known Russell was switching compounds.

Russell had another off when attempting to pass Piastri at Turn 14 in an incident that was later investigated (with no further action deemed suitable), handing fourth and a potential podium to Hamilton. The older Briton soon dispatched the Australian to look set for third, with Russell following through a lap later.

It culminated in an antepenultimate lap showdown between the Mercedes team-mates. Russell hoovered up the gap with DRS into Turn 14, bravely lobbing his car down a rapidly disappearing inside line to come up for air with third – earning the Silver Arrows’ first podium of 2024.

After a clutch of dull races, 2024 was sweetened by unadulterated Canadian maple syrup, a much-needed palate cleanser to whet peoples’ appetites. More of the same in Barcelona? It’s unlikely, but a crema Catalana wouldn’t go amiss...

The Canadian GP becomes one of the standout races of 2024 thanks to a three-way fight for victory

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images