Canada GP Qualifying Report

The drivers all went out on Intermediate tires as we had been given a sprinkle of excitement from the wet conditions.  Zhou immediately had trouble with his Alfa Romeo and he finally had to park up the car, leading to the session being Red Flagged.  He subsequently got it started again, which seems like a much better solution to cars being abandoned on track than stopping proceedings.

When the race restarted, drivers came straight out to beat the times set by the Williams drivers otherwise it would have been an amazing comeback for the team.  The drivers struggled to stay on the track, with times being deleted left, right and centre.  They raced each other to cross the line in time to set a final lap, having gone round and round for a long time.  There were no surprises in the bottom group: Gasly (who had been impeded), Tsunoda, De Vries, Sargeant and Zhou.  Albon in the other Williams was comfortably through but he has all the upgrades on his car.

In the second Qualifying session, Albon was the first driver to go out on slick, dry weather tires.  Everyone got a good look at home-track-hero Stroll making a big slide off the track, in a very close rendez-vous with the wall.  The Williams led the time sheet, with other drivers taking slick tires too late and then missing the window as it started to rain.  There was frustration up and down the pit lane.  LeClerc was furious with his team as he had radioed in to ask for slick tires at the right time and was denied by them.  The nail is being hammered in to his Ferrari coffin.  Will he be replacing the increasingly hapless Perez.  Both went out in this session along with Stroll, Magnussen and Bottas.

It was raining cats and dogs in the final session, with Piastri bringing out the Red Flag as the first driver to put his car in the wall.  As conditions got so bad the drivers felt unable to continue the session came to an early stop.  This meant that Hulkenberg starts the race second, ahead of Alonso and behind Verstappen.  He had crossed the line moments before the Red Flag came out.  Albon didn't set a time at all.  Everyone seemed pleased to have made it to the end without enormous expense of ruined cars and a rush to rebuild overnight.  The race seems to be Verstappen's to lose.