Canada GP Race Report

The mood in Montreal was definitely to cheer the under groundhog, Alonso.  He'd come out with some fighting talk about overtaking Verstappen as soon as possible and everyone wanted him on the top step come the end of the race.  It was a good day for the Alpine sponsors.  Fernando was like an adorable grandfather at his teenage daughter's 21st birthday party, lapping up the attention.

Everyone pretty much got away clean at the start with a little front wing damage for the high-starting Magnussen coming into contact with Hamilton.  When DRS was enabled Sainz was straight past Alonso.  There was overtaking up and down the field as drivers out of place moved up and some took unusual pit stops.

9 laps in and Perez lost power, the pendulum has swung back from Red Bull starting the season with reliability issues to Ferrari and now back again.  He considerately parked it near a gap in the barriers to be moved swiftly.  There was a Virtual Safety Car, which many teams chose to pit under, including Verstappen which left Sainz in the lead.

Then Lap 20, Schumacher suffered a power unit failure and parked up.  Virtually out came another Virtual Safety Car and all those that didn't pit last time, pitted this time.  Apart from Alonso, so Verstappen passed him for the lead with Sainz in third.  Hamilton was in front of his team mate Russell, albeit with fresher tires for the fresher driver, so things could get nicely spicy for the Mercedes drivers.  I don't know if team orders were in play but nothing came of it unfortunately.  LeClerc also chose to stay out and take track position.  McLaren Ferraried things up by double stacking the drivers and then taking extra long to do each.

Hamilton overtook Alonso, who then took a regular pit stop, bringing him out in 7th.  The Big Question, as always though, is how are Ferrari going to ruin their race?  LeClerc was stuck behind Ocon for many many laps with Alonso behind him in the other Alpine.  Eventually, the team agreed to pit him.  However, they decided to go for a slow stop, which brought him out behind a long train of traffic in 12th.  They're ingenious and imaginative that team.

Meanwhile, Verstappen was complaining about his tires on the radio, so Red Bull pitted him from the lead.  Only to bring him out right next to Hamilton, who immediately overtook him.  The Dutchman was immediately on the radio swearing at his team.  Not to worry though, as Hamilton was in the pits the next lap, giving Russell third place on a different strategy.  Or was it?  One lap later and Russell was in.  By this point Ocon is running in 5th and Alonso in 6th, showing just how badly Alpine got their strategy wrong.  Just as Sainz and Ferrari had decided to wait for Safety Car to pit, Tsunoda put his car into the wall and ta-da...a Safety Car.  Now it was just a question of a fresh tire overtake at the restart - the biggest test of the Spaniard to far in his career.

In the closing laps, it became clear that Sainz did not have what it takes to take the lead.  Alonso asked for team orders to overtake Ocon but was refused.  LeClerc finished a creditable 5th behind the Mercedes but it's not saving his championship hopes.  The whole weekend showed that it doesn't matter too much if you choose an outstanding up and coming young driver or an old, experienced world champion, if you don't get the strategy right, you may as well employ Latifi.