Canadian GP: Verstappen takes pole in damp conditions from Alonso
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took F1 pole in Canadian GP in damp condition from Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.
Q1:
Post the FP3 session, rain continued to lash down at Montreal to start the F1 Canadian GP qualifying with everyone using the full wet tyres. It was indeed a tricky situation as every lap counted for the drivers in the situation where the track remained damp.
AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda (1m36.575s) seemingly took a back seat with the engine penalty he had. Having set a lap earlier, he decided to remain in the pits as he ended up last with a lap. Surprisingly, there was only one yellow flag moment in all of the session.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz went off at Turn 1 but managed to continue as he was put under investigation along with Charles Leclerc and Williams’ Alexander Albon for driving unnecessarily slowly despite the conditions they were in.
The replays also showed a moment between Sainz and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, when the Spaniard rejoined the track after his off. It was a disaster for AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly (1m34.492s) after he failed to make it out of Q1 along with his teammate.
It was same for Aston Martin where Sebastian Vettel (1m34.512s) was 17th from Lance Stroll (1m35.532s), with both the German and the Frenchman frustrated on the radio. Williams’ Nicholas Latifi (1m35.660s) was 19th from Tsunoda.
At the front, it was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen on top with a 1m32.219s lap as Alpine’s Fernando Alonso (1m32.277s) slotted in second with Ferrari’s Sainz (1m32.781s) in third.
Q2:
Just as the second part in F1 Canadian GP started, the FIA noted that Sainz’s rejoin incident from Q1 resulted in no further action from the stewards. Already ahead of the running, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc decided to not take part in qualifying.
Once the session got going, Williams’ Alexander Albon had a small off to cause a yellow flag, but he managed to rejoin. Moments later, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez had a moment at Turn 1 which resulted in a red flag after he couldn’t reverse out of the situation.
This left both Leclerc and Perez out of the session whereas during the red flag, McLaren’s Lando Norris complained of power unit issues. This kept him in the pits on green flag as drivers had the intermediate tyres in use with dry line appearing at certain spots.
Despite Norris making it out for a lap, he eventually bailed out of it due to the power unit issue which left him 14th behind Perez and ahead of Leclerc. Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas (1m26.788s) was one of the two cars to be knocked out in 11th from Albon (1m26.858s).
At the front, it was Red Bull’s Verstappen (1m23.746s) again on top with Alpine’s Fernando Alonso slotting in second from Mercedes’ George Russell after the times started to tumble towards the end.
Q3:
It was getting dry in the third part of the F1 Canadian GP qualifying but the Top 10 drivers decided to use the intermediate tyres for their first run still. Naturally, Red Bull’s Verstappen led the way provisionally with a 1m22.701s lap.
He headed Ferrari’s Sainz and Alpine’s Alonso before they started their second run. The gamble of the slick tyres was taken by Mercedes’ George Russell with the Brit switching to the soft tyres but his first run ended in an off at Turn 1 after a small moment.
Verstappen went quicker still with a 1m21.299s lap to take pole in F1 Canadian GP as a late push lap from Alonso (1m21.944s) put him in second and on the front row, pushing Sainz (1m22.096s) to third after the Spaniard had a small moment in the final corner.
Hamilton (1m22.891s) was fourth in his best qualifying of 2022, with the Haas pair of Kevin Magnussen (1m22.960s) and Mick Schumacher (1m23.356s) slotting in fifth and sixth in a good show as Ocon (1m23.529s) was seventh from Russell (1m23.557s), whose soft tyre gamble didn’t work as well.
The Top 10 was rounded out by McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo (1m23.749s) and Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu (1m24.030s), with the Chinese driver securing his first Q3 result.
UPDATE: The post-session stewards results saw Gasly and Guanyu get a driving reprimand for failing to adhere to the Race Directors’ note at Turn 9. At the same time, the likes of Leclerc, Sainz and Albon were let go for driving unnecessarily slowly.
For Sainz, it stated: “At the start of Qualifying 1 car 55 slowed on the approach to turn 13 to create a gap to start a fast lap. The driver says that he had to slow significantly behind other cars, who were also doing the same, in order to create a safe gap due to the very poor visibility caused by the weather conditions.
“Further, he says that it would have been unsafe to try to overtake the other cars in front as they would not have been expecting such a manoeuvre at this point. The Stewards consider this to have created a potentially dangerous situation but, given that many drivers ended up queueing at this part of the circuit, they determine that too many drivers contributed to the situation and therefore the driver concerned is not fully to blame.”
For Albon, it stated: “At the start of Qualifying 1 car 23 slowed on the approach to turn 13 to create a gap to start a fast lap. The driver says that he had to slow significantly behind other cars, who were also doing the same, in order to create a safe gap due to the very poor visibility caused by the weather conditions.
“Further, he says that it would have been unsafe to try to overtake the other cars in front as they would not have been expecting such a manoeuvre at this point. The Stewards consider this to have created a potentially dangerous situation but, given that many drivers ended up queueing at this part of the circuit, they determine that too many drivers contributed to the situation and therefore the driver concerned is not fully to blame.”
And for Leclerc, it stated: “At the start of Qualifying 1 car 16 slowed on the approach to turn 13 to create a gap to start a fast lap. The driver says that he had to slow significantly behind other cars, who were also doing the same, in order to create a safe gap due to the very poor visibility caused by the weather conditions.
“Further, he says that it would have been unsafe to try to overtake the other cars in front as they would not have been expecting such a manoeuvre at this point. When the driver was informed by his team that car 77 (Bottas) was approaching very quickly on a fast lap, he slowed even further and stayed off-line to the right before the entry to turn 13 to ensure he did not impede car 77.
“The Stewards accept that Leclerc did everything possible at that point to avoid impeding Bottas. However, they consider the situation to have been potentially dangerous but, given that many drivers ended up queueing at this part of the circuit, they determine that too many drivers contributed to the situation and therefore the driver concerned is not fully to blame.”
