Montreal: Red Bull’s triple world champion Max Verstappen completed a Canadian Grand Prix hat-trick of victories on a wet, wild and tricky Monday morning (AEST) at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who came under attack from former champion Jacques Villeneuve in Montreal over a lack of good results, answered his critics by scoring points for RB with eighth place but only after a horror beginning.
Ricciardo had qualified fifth for the race but was hit with a five-second penalty for a false start.
He fell back to 12th after pit stops but fought back to finish eighth, which was his highest place of the season outside the sprint races.
Verstappen, who started on the front row alongside Mercedes pole sitter George Russell, stayed clear of trouble on a day of constantly changing conditions, snatching the lead from McLaren’s Lando Norris on the final pit stops.
The Dutchman then grimly hung on to claim his sixth victory from nine races this season and the 60th of his Formula 1 career.
Verstappen and Christian Horner celebrate another win.Credit: Getty Images
It was another brilliant drive from the 26-year-old who dealt with a track switching back-and-forth from wet to dry, pit stop battles and challenges from McLaren and Mercedes while wrestling with his Red Bull’s suspension.
After Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Williams’s Alex Albon came together, bringing out the safety car for a second time, Verstappen pulled away on the restart and finished 3.879 seconds ahead of Norris, while Russell won a nail-biting last-laps duel with teammate Lewis Hamilton to complete the podium.
“Not easy but we did it,” said Verstappen over the team radio. “We had to be on top of our calls and I think, as a team, it went really well today.
“I think we pitted at the right time and of course the safety car worked out nicely for us but even after that I think we were managing the gaps quite well.
Ricciardo drives on a wet track in Montreal.Credit: Getty Images
“I love it, that was a lot of fun. Those kind of races you need them once in a while.”
The win will certainly provide a confidence boost at Red Bull which has recently seen challenges to the team’s once unquestioned dominance.
In the three races before Canada, Red Bull had managed one win as the battle for the drivers’ and constructors’ titles tightened.
But the team returns to Europe back in control of both, with Verstappen opening up a 56-point advantage over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc at the top of the drivers’ standings while Red Bull moved 49 clear of Ferrari for the constructors’ crown.
Both Ferraris failed to finish on Sunday, with Sainz losing control of his car on the wet track and hitting the barrier while Leclerc retired after struggling with an engine issue.
“I knew I had to score big so the other teams don’t catch up a lot,” said Verstappen, who accounted for all the Red Bull points after Mexican teammate Sergio Perez retired.
“I do think at the end of the day as long as you keep winning, you score 25 points, even if the others finish P2, P3, you don’t really lose too much and can kind of afford these one-offs.”
Mercedes head to Barcelona for the next grand prix on June 23 with growing confidence following a stellar qualifying effort that translated into third and fourth-place results.
The podium was the first of the season for both Mercedes and Russell, who was spurred to the finish line by teammate Hamilton, a seven-time winner in Canada.
McLaren, who have now had a driver on the podium in each of the last five races, also leave Canada with a good points haul with Norris second and young Australian Oscar Piastri fifth.
‘All those people can suck it’: Ricciardo hits back at F1 great’s ‘go home’ comments
Daniel Ricciardo earlier hit back at retired Formula 1 champion Jacques Villeneuve by qualifying fifth for the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday morning, AEST.
Villeneuve, the 1997 champion now working as a television pundit, had questioned on Sky Sports why the 34-year-old Australian was still in Formula 1.
Ricciardo (left) qualified fifth for the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.Credit: Getty Images
“We’re hearing the same thing for the last five years. ‘We have to make the car better for him, poor him’. No. You’re in F1. If you can’t cut it, go home. There’ll be someone else to take your place,” the Canadian previously said.
“I think his image has kept him in F1 more than his actual results.”
Ricciardo qualified a strong fifth for RB at the circuit named after Villeneuve’s late father Gilles, but said he had become aware of the criticism only after the session and did not mention Villeneuve directly.
“I just been told. I don’t listen or read but there’s definitely some people out there who ... yeah, whatever. I won’t give them the time of day,” he said.
In another interview reported on the PlanetF1 website, Ricciardo doubled down on his comments.
Former world champion Jacques Villeneuve at the circuit named after his father.Credit: Getty Images
“I heard he’s [Villeneuve] been talking shit,” Ricciardo said.
“But he always does. I think he’s hit his head a few too many times. So I don’t know if he plays ice hockey or something.
“I won’t give him the time of day but all those people can suck it. I want to say more but we’ll leave him behind.”
Ricciardo’s time was less than two-tenths from pole. Japanese team mate Yuki Tsunoda qualified eighth. Fellow Australian Oscar Piastri will start from fourth on the grid, behind Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and George Russell.
F1 Canadian Grand Prix Lineup
- George Russell MERCEDES 1:12.000
- Max Verstappen RED BULL 1:12.000
- Lando Norris MCLAREN 1:12.021
- Oscar Piastri MCLAREN 1:12.103
- Daniel Ricciardo RB 1:12.178
- Fernando Alonso ASTON MARTIN 1:12.228
- Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 1:12.280
- Yuki Tsunoda RB 1:12.414
- Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN 1:12.701
- Alexander Albon WILLIAMS 1:12.796
- Charles Leclerc FERRARI 1:12.691
- Carlos Sainz FERRARI 1:12.728
- Logan Sargeant WILLIAMS 1:12.736
- Kevin Magnussen HAAS 1:12.916
- Pierre Gasly ALPINE 1:12.940
- Sergio Perez RED BULL 1:13.326
- Valtteri Bottas KICK SAUBER 1:13.366
- Nico Hulkenberg HAAS 1:13.978
- Zhou Guanyu KICK SAUBER 1:14.292
- Esteban Ocon ALPINE 1:13.435 (Ocon penalised 5 grid places for causing a collision at the previous round.)
Mercedes driver Russell was ecstatic, and hopeful he could win the second race of his career in Montreal, after taking a surprise pole position in a rare qualifying “dead heat”.
He set an identical time of 1:12.000 to Red Bull’s Verstappen, but took pole by virtue of the fact that he set his time on his first run in Q3, whereas Verstappen could only match Russell’s time on his second run.
The weekend marks a 10th anniversary since Ricciardo won for the first time in Formula One at the same circuit, with Red Bull in 2014, and he recognised a ‘feel-good factor’ about the track.
“I think this year hasn’t really been always a question of if I’ve still got the speed to do it. It’s just been the consistency which I haven’t been able to show week in week out,” said the Perth-born driver.
“It’s definitely been more of a struggle, more than I thought, but I know the speed’s there and it’s just tapping into it,” he continued.
“Maybe when you’re a kid you just jump in and drive and the older you get the more things that are around your life can maybe interfere.”
Villeneuve made light of his criticism afterwards when asked for a follow-up.
“He needed a bit of a push under pressure and it worked, it paid off,” he smiled.
“The car suits him this weekend and when you have a car that suits you, you drive at your best. That was one good qualifying. If he can carry on this weekend like this and do four, five, six more races like this then he’ll be fine.”
Reuters