Why “faster” Ferrari couldn’t beat Red Bull in Canadian GP

“I left everything out there. But compared to Red Bull, we were quicker the whole race. First time this season that I can say that I was fastest man on track.”

Carlos Sainz’s demeanour in the four 2022 post-race press conferences he’d attended before last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix had been strikingly downbeat. His struggles to gel with the F1-75 and team-mate Charles Leclerc’s superiority explained why the famously open and analytical driver didn’t want to over celebrate. This time, he exuded confidence. But it was paired with familiar despair – because Max Verstappen beat him to victory in Formula 1’s first Montreal race since 2019.

At the start of the 70-lap affair, Fernando Alonso’s Alpine had sat between Verstappen and Sainz at the head of the grid. But any aspiration the double world champion had of attacking polesitting Verstappen at the first corner, where he suspected the Dutchman might drive with his title ambitions in mind, was struck down as soon as the lights went out.

Verstappen, although wary that “it was very low grip out there” following Saturday’s rain washing away the rubber laid down during Friday practice, shot away from pole and comfortably led into Turn 1. Sainz looked to the inside as Lewis Hamilton locked his left-front just behind, but Alonso held on, which aided Verstappen’s run to a one-second lead at the end of the first tour.

It took Sainz until the end of the third lap before he passed his fellow Spaniard – with DRS at the first chance running down the penultimate straight. From there he was left with a 2.5s gap to Verstappen, which increased to 3.1s by the end of lap five.

Verstappen made the ideal getaway at the start despite his concerns about the grip levels

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images

But here, Red Bull’s hopes of sailing off into the distance as serenely as the cargo ships negotiating the narrow channel between the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve-supporting Ile Notre-Dame and the city of Saint-Lambert on the east bank hit a problem. Verstappen’s medium tyres were graining and his lead began to slip – back down to 2.6 at the end of lap eight. Sainz’s rubber was also tearing and spreading, but the Ferrari had a fractional pace advantage and was bringing it to bear.

“I think it was maybe because it was a little cooler [compared to Friday],” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said of why Verstappen’s tyres were graining, while his charge suggested “the greener track… didn't help for us”.

But how things might have played out with a full stint on the mediums (the pitstop window for that compound was expected to start around the 20-lap mark) will never been known due to Red Bull’s second unexpected development. And this one was rather more shocking for the squad.

After starting down in 13th, Sergio Perez had passed Valtteri Bottas and Alex Albon on lap one – the former when Bottas outbraked himself at the final chicane, biffing the rejoining point marker board on his way through the runoff and the latter with a better launch. He then harassed McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo as Perez sought to recover back up the order after his costly qualifying crash.

Ferrari acted to bring Sainz in while the race was suspended – telling him that the degradation on the hards Leclerc had started on down the order was less than it expected and so its preferred one-stop plan was still on

But on lap eight, Perez suffered a suspected “gearbox failure” – per Horner – as he ran down the curving acceleration zone between Turns 7 and 8. He pulled off into the big runoff area at that point and, because his car then needed to be recovered, the virtual safety car was activated.

Although it was unclear how long the VSC would last as Verstappen approached the pits on lap nine, Red Bull called him in to switch to the hards. Ferrari, which had heard Sainz informing race engineer Riccardo Adami his “tyres were good” and suggesting the mediums had gone through the graining phase, ordered him to do the opposite to Verstappen and stay out.

That meant when green flag racing returned, the gap between the pair was 6.4s. Verstappen, who had rejoined behind the also not-stopping Alonso, quickly caught and then easily passed the Alpine with DRS running down to the final corners on lap 15 – while at the same time cutting Sainz’s lead down to 5.7s.

“We banked the pitstop,” Horner said of the call to give Verstappen a VSC service. “At that point, you are committing to a two-stop strategy as your fastest race. And it would have been interesting to see how that would have played out, because Carlos was obviously then committed to the one-stop.”

Sainz gained the lead after Verstappen pitted under the first virtual safety car

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Over the next four laps, Verstappen chipped away at Sainz’s advantage by around 0.3s each time, but the Ferrari driver was still generally producing strong times in the high 1m17s. But then a deja vu moment occurred, which impacted how the one- versus two-stop strategy would play out and erased the 10s time gain Red Bull had made by stopping under the first VSC compared to a stop with rivals doing racing speeds.

Another car pulled up in the Turn 8 runoff – this time it was Mick Schumacher’s Haas. The German driver’s miserable run continued as his car’s engine shut down with Zhou Guanyu coming alongside out of Turn 7 on lap 19 and he then coasted to his eventual stopping point.

Now Ferrari acted to bring Sainz in while the race was suspended – telling him that the degradation on the hards Leclerc had started on down the order was less than it expected and so its preferred one-stop plan was still on.

Like Red Bull with Verstappen earlier, Ferrari too had to tell Sainz he could only pit if the final pre-pitlane flag board at the end of the penultimate straight was displaying the VSC activation. It was and so he duly came in, but the race went back to racing speed just as he was approaching his pitbox.

This meant Alonso cycled back in front of his compatriot, with Sainz getting by again with ease using DRS into Turns 13/14 the tour after his out-lap. Despite having to chase and then pass the Alpine, Sainz’s gap to Verstappen remained stable at 9.4s and once he was back in free air he began cutting into the leader’s advantage. He did so at 0.125s each tour over the next 11 laps to get down to 8.1s behind.

But just when it seemed Verstappen had stemmed the time flow, he began to creep back up towards the top end of the 1m17s and it came down faster, with Sainz lapping at the lower end of that bracket.

At the end of lap 42, Verstappen’s lead was down to 6.1s and so at the end of the next tour, Red Bull called him into take the second of two new sets of hards with which he had come into the race.

“I expected to have a little bit more pace,” Verstappen said of his battle with a Ferrari he had barely seen to this point in proceedings, but which was nevertheless close. “We seemed to lack a little bit compared to Carlos. But we did our strategy and I think for us it worked. Like that was the right one to do.”

Verstappen's pace wasn't so dominant against Sainz which kept the race finely poised throughout

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

What it meant for Verstappen was that he had to close a 10.8s gap in 26 laps, with Sainz set to try and go the distance to the finish and requiring a 50-lap run on the hards. The Ferrari driver reckoned “we could have made it to a flag” but knew he would have had a fight on his hands late in the race.

This was because Verstappen was indeed eroding Sainz’s lead – by 0.762s over the next four laps and “all the metrics we have showed he would have caught and passed with about 10 laps to go,” explained Horner. “But you never know…”

And indeed, F1 never did get to see how that ending would in fact play out because of yet another race interruption.

On the leader’s 48th lap, Yuki Tsunoda, who had just pitted from 12th for fresh hards, “pushed too much on pit exit” and paid for it massively. The AlphaTauri’s front right locked and he slid straight on into the Turn 2 barriers, breaking both front corners.

“I felt without the safety car, he wouldn't have caught me easy. I think it would have been a good battle at the end. [Even] with him catching up on me, I was ready to hang it out there until the chequered flag” Carlos Sainz

This time, the safety car was sent out and that call came just seconds before Sainz arrived at the pit entry behind the final corner. He dived for the pits at the same time as Adami telling him to do so – with Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto later calling for “sharper decisions [by race control]” because “we had only one second to react and we reacted within one second” as “the team was very good in reacting to come into the pits and the driver himself as well”.

“It's difficult to judge,” Binotto said of Sainz holding on to the lead if the one-stop strategy had played out to the finish uninterrupted. “We know that in order to defend he should have been very fast on track – at least a 1m17.4s, 1m17.3s [every] single lap because Max was very fast behind. It would have been very close… He was certainly as fast if not slightly faster than Max.

“If anything, the quali was not perfect from Carlos [and] that cost him a bit maybe [in the race]. Because being ahead or chasing, certainly it's a different matter.”

Sainz's second pitstop, under the safety car for Tsunoda's crash, switched him from the hunted to the hunter

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“It's a shame,” Sainz reflected on his second stop, even though it left him with a six-lap tyre-life advantage on his second set of hards compared to Verstappen. “I felt without the safety car, he wouldn't have caught me easy. I think it would have been a good battle at the end. [Even] with him catching up on me, I was ready to hang it out there until the chequered flag.”

Instead, that was Verstappen’s job to the finish, with the race getting back under way at the start of lap 55.

The leader had weaved at slow speed for the duration of the penultimate straight before finally blasting back up to full speed when he attacked the final chicane. Sainz, opting not to weave and risk being dropped, therefore had to cope with colder hard rubber on what was a tough compound to switch on all weekend in Canada. Verstappen’s canny tactics ensured he restarted with just enough advantage for there to be no chance of Sainz looking to pass into the first corner.

The stage was set for a 16-lap shootout to settle what had previously been an engaging strategic race, with Sainz pushing hard to ensure he remained within DRS range of Verstappen once the system was reactivated on lap 57.

Verstappen, aware that “if I made a tiny mistake, Carlos would gain a tenth on me and that might have been enough to then get closer in the first DRS zone” down the penultimate straight, knew he had to be inch-perfect even while “pushing to the limit” to the flag.

Behind, Sainz was “risking everything – over the kerbs, close to the walls” and having “a few moments out there in the dirty air”. But he couldn’t get close enough to try a move.

He reduced Verstappen’s lead to under 0.4s twice, and twice moved to try and put the Dutchman off going into the final chicane with a look to the inside, but it was to no avail. And, although the RB18’s slippery low-drag nature was aiding Verstappen, there was another key factor in his successful rear-guard action.

“It was the traction out of the Turn 10 [hairpin] that was vital,” reflected Horner, after Verstappen had come home to win by 0.993s – his gap boosted by Sainz locking his right-front at the hairpin on the final lap and dropping slightly back. “But Max could never break the magic second.”

Verstappen fended off late pressure from Sainz to clinch his 26th career victory, putting him ahead of Jim Clark and Niki Lauda on the all-time list

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Verstappen’s sixth win of 2022 gives him a 46-point lead at the head of the standings. That is over Perez, with Leclerc a further three back. The Ferrari star’s deficit could have been even more had it not been for the Monegasque’s drive up the order following the decision to introduce a totally fresh engine for this race, which Binotto said was a call taken “very soon after Baku”.

Although a fifth-place finish is not to be sniffed at given Leclerc had started down in 19th, Ferrari’s lead driver in the championship endured a frustrating race well behind his usual rivals.

Sources have suggested that Ferrari opted to fit what was its only newly updated rear wing to Leclerc’s car to give him an even better chance of overtaking the cars ahead of him on the grid thanks to its additional drag-reducing profile compared to the wing Ferrari had first introduced in Miami (it also worked with a new beam wing further down Leclerc’s rear end here). But even that didn’t make like easy for him as he started his march on the pack – aided by getting Nicholas Latifi around the outside at the first chicane on the opening tour.

Leclerc then successively passed Pierre Gasly and Lance Stroll over the next two laps, but by the time of the Perez VSC had only reached 13th – something of a surprise given Alonso had warned after qualifying that Ferrari’s proven 2022 pace advantage over all rivals bar Red Bull might be enough to get Leclerc back to fourth come the race’s conclusion.

"Esteban had new tyres and so out of Turn 10, that's where you need the tyres and he had much more grip than I did, so I struggled to follow him there and that was very frustrating" Charles Leclerc

“It was just everyone had DRS so I couldn't do anything,” Leclerc later explained of his stymied progress.

After taking three laps to pass Lando Norris, Leclerc then chased Valtteri Bottas closely for a further eight tours – during which Zhou Guanyu pitted out of his way with a Schumacher VSC stop that Leclerc also couldn’t take because he’d started on the alternative strategy of starting on the hard tyre. After finally clearing Bottas with a delightful late-on-the-brakes, outside line attack into the final chicane on lap 21, Leclerc homed in on Esteban Ocon’s Alpine, but here he got firmly stuck.

“I had quite a big problem of traction [at this point],” said Leclerc. “But that was only because Esteban had new tyres and so out of Turn 10, that's where you need the tyres and he had much more grip than I did, so I struggled to follow him there and that was very frustrating.”

Leclerc's charge through the field was held up by being stuck behind Ocon

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

On lap 28, Alonso finally stopped for the first time and was running behind Leclerc, the Alpine’s race heavily compromised by an engine air leak starting eight tours previously that robbed him of straightline speed and sent his engine temperatures rocketing. Alonso nevertheless used his fresh hards to close up to Leclerc and surround the Ferrari with blue – a situation the Scuderia ended by finally bringing its driver in at the end of lap 41.

But here, Leclerc endured more pain, because a slow left-rear change meant his service took 5.3s. When he rejoined the action, he came out behind another DRS train featuring Stroll, Zhou, Tsunoda and Ricciardo.

“I got back behind four cars again with the DRS train and I had to be a bit more aggressive after that to come back,” he said of taking six laps to clear this gaggle and reach where Ferrari had envisaged he’d be with a smooth stop.

Bottas pitting for the only time in the race under the safety car period meant Leclerc was then the one threatening Alonso for the final chase to the flag – the Spaniard and Ocon up ahead running the new mediums they’d both taken as safety car stoppers.

On the fourth lap after the restart, Leclerc dived by Alonso at the hairpin. It was a move he successfully repeated on Ocon two laps later, but only after an attempt on the outside line at the final chicane on the previous tour had gone awry, Leclerc scampering across the runoff and temporarily losing the fifth place.

Although he closed a little on George Russell, dropped by team-mate Lewis Hamilton post-restart, the Ferrari driver ran out of laps to make any further progress.

“Considering all of this, P5 was the best,” Leclerc concluded. “[Without the slow pitstop] it would have changed quite a bit. I think the thing about the middle stint [chasing Ocon], there was nothing we could have done better there, it was just the situation we found ourselves in. Obviously, the pitstop cost us quite a bit.”

Following Leclerc’s Baku retirement, the additional result of dealing with the fallout of that engine failure means he dropped another 15 points to Verstappen in Canada. But he insists the gap “motivates me” with 13 races remaining.

“Because of course I know the pace is in the car,” said Leclerc. “I'm not worried, I'm just extremely motivated to finally have a clean weekend and show that we are here and we are strong. So yeah, at Silverstone [next time out] hopefully we can do that.”

Leclerc lost further ground to Verstappen in the title race and needs to strike back at the British GP

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images