|F1 2022 Canada GP| race analysis:
Verstappen survives late Safety Car to beat Sainz to Canadian GP victory
The key maneuvers at the base of Verstappen’s success
The final of the Canadian Grand Prix was experienced with high tension by fans and fans of Red Bull and Ferrari, especially as regards the fight between Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz for the victory. The Dutchman, who then came first under the checkered flag, was in fact called upon not to make the slightest mistake with the constant pressure of the Spaniard behind him, who could count on a Ferrari which, as admitted by the number 1 of the Red Bull, however, had a higher pace than his own car.
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Despite the constant threats, the reigning world champion kept the coolness necessary for the conquest of the sixth success of the season, thus not allowing Sainz to realize the dream of his first career success. Hours after the celebrations, one of the most frequently asked questions remains the one concerning how Super Max managed to build its success on the track, and what were the main maneuvers that allowed him to get on the top step of the podium : one above all, the exit from the hairpin, where Verstappen went away in traction and acceleration compared to Sainz.
In this regard, the Dutch driver explained the key points behind his statement, especially those applied during the last few laps:
“Of course you always have to make sure you know where the DRS was and that you have a good exit at the previous corner – said Verstappen – but it was just a matter of pushing hard and not making any mistakes in general. I knew that even in the first sector, if I had made a small imperfection, Carlos would have gained a tenth on me, and that would have been enough to get closer to the first DRS zone, as well as to the second. So yeah, it was a real race, a real push. I had my moments where I oversteer, but then I looked in the mirror and Carlos also had the same problems. So, it was really at the limit, but it’s nice to see ”.
“In general, the race was difficult – commented Verstappen – I hoped the car had more pace, but the Ferrari seemed very strong. Of course I could only compare myself to Carlos, but it was hard to match his lap times. Even after the last stop I was coming back under on the new tires, but I wasn’t sure it would be enough to catch him at the end. Then the Safety Car came out, but I said to myself that this wasn’t going to be that good either. I had already done a few laps pushing hard on the tires and he was behind me on fresh tires. Both scenarios weren’t ideal, but I had to take the race home ”.
In the final laps I pushed to the maximum, but at the same time I couldn’t even afford to make a mistake, so it wasn’t very easy – he explained – however, I succeeded. Today they had more pace than us. There are lessons to be looked at as to why this happened on a low grip track. In one race we seem the strongest, in the next they seem to be the strongest. We are two teams with very similar values ”.
READ: HOW F1 DRS WORKS?
Sainz’s regret: “We could have used the soft”
The most important obstacle for an athlete and a team at the highest levels is to build a winning mentality. Which means getting used to victory, facilitating it, almost attracting it to oneself, with attention to detail, the prediction of every eventuality that can decide the fate of a clash. Max Verstappen built it over time, thanks to the talent and support of a phenomenal team, used to years of intense battles with Mercedes. Ferrari, on the other hand, has not yet reached this dimension, especially with Carlos Sainz, a driver who has yet to find his first success in Formula 1, at ease when it comes to setting up a pace race, more in difficulty when you need the game that shuffles the cards. One of these could have been the use of soft rubber instead of hard in the final phase of the Canadian Grand Prix.
READ: DOWNFORCE AND GROUND EFFECT EXPLAINED
Smooth Operator, taking advantage of the Safety Car, fitted new hard tires, without however thinking of a possible compound advantage over Verstappen. In retrospect, the regret is evident:
“The Safety Car was out for a bit longer than the team and I thought. When the green flag returned, there were only 16 laps left, it was the right number to try to put on the soft and try to overtake Max in the warm-up phase of his hard tires. Now, it’s easy to say. At that moment, we still had about twenty laps to go and the hard tire was certainly the fastest option to get to the finish line, especially knowing that it was a fresher tire than Max’s “, these are the rider’s words. Ferrari in the press conference following the Canadian Grand Prix. “It’s a shame. Even without the Safety Car, like Max said, he wouldn’t have beaten me easily, I think it would have been a good fight in the end. “
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Race results – after the race: Canada GP F1 2022
Porpoising and FIA directive: the positions of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull
The die is cast. The technical directive issued by the FIA last Thursday brought Ferrari and Red Bull to attention, absolutely unwilling to leave Mercedes any advantage or unforeseen possibility of circumventing the problems that have plagued the W13 since the beginning of the season. Both Christian Horner and Mattia Binotto obviously found themselves aligned in defining the technical directive through which the FIA intends to put a stop to porpoising for safety reasons as non-feasible.
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“One aspect of the regulation is not being clarified, the rules are being changed through this technical directive. If the FIA wants to change the rules for safety reasons, it must do so through the World Council which must ratify this new regulation “, the clarification of Mattia Binotto that would have unleashed the wrath of Toto Wolff, who underlined how several drivers suffer from ache back, blurred vision and mild concussions.
“Toto was very theatrical, perhaps he was practicing for a part in the film that Hamilton is producing – the words of Christian Horner reported by the German newspaper Auto Motor und Sport – quite simply this technical directive seems to want to try to help only one team that could simply raise the ground clearance of the car. If it is safety that we are talking about then the FIA could simply display the black flag in the race against Mercedes. Toto said that all the riders complained about the rebounds, mine certainly didn’t do it though ”.
Unsurprisingly, Horner drew heavily on the source of the provocation, but the arguments of Binotto and the number one of the Red Bull wall are more than acceptable. Arousing even more than a suspicion about a technical directive on which Mercedes proved to be very well prepared was the second tie seen in action in Canada on the Mercedes W13 as early as Friday, or a few hours after the technical directive was issued. “Toto said they mounted them in the night, I can only say that we would not have been able to,” said Binotto, supported by Otmar Szafnauer of Alpine ready to lodge a formal protest as the placement of these tie rods can be carried out accurately only after several calculations made on the computer.
Mercedes was therefore prepared on the technical directive and here the suspicions already anticipated by Binotto in Baku about the arrival in the FIA of Shaila-Ann Rao – former member of the Brackley team – take shape as Secretary General for Sport and Executive Director of F1, replacing Peter Bayer. The additional tie rods were then removed from the Mercedes in subsequent sessions, but the opponents’ suspicions do not vanish with their removal – quite the contrary. Now another confrontation between the FIA and F1 teams is awaited before Silverstone. Resolving or mitigating porpoising would be a relief for the drivers, but above all a not insignificant assist for Mercedes in the Brackley team’s pursuit of effective competitiveness against Red Bull and Ferrari. Which, of course, will fight with all their might to oppose deliberate technical shortcuts this season.
READ: DOWNFORCE AND GROUND EFFECT EXPLAINED
Marko mocks Hamilton: “To get on the podium he got out of the car quickly”
The discussions about the health effects of the vibrations given by the hopping of the single-seaters seen in Baku evidently had a key moment in the physical difficulties faced by Lewis Hamilton. The British Mercedes champion all weekend in Azerbaijan suffered from a nagging back pain, which clearly worsened over the course of the race, so much so that the seven-time world champion visually struggled to get off his W13, with images of his problems that have gone around the world. The Federation, after having consulted the pilots and the specialized doctors, has decided to intervene and soon plans to set numerical parameters of jumps beyond which it will not be allowed to go. Obviously the choice of the FIA generated a lot of controversy and in the Montreal paddock there were moments of tension between the different team principals.
But it was in Canada that Lewis Hamilton probably had his best weekend of the season, qualifying in fourth position in qualifying under water and taking third place at the finish line at the end of the race. Visibly satisfied, the Mercedes champion told reporters that he had not had any physical problems on the track dedicated to the memory of Gilles Villeneuve. A circumstance that did not go unnoticed by Helmut Marko, director of Red Bull, who was waiting for the British at the gate:
“It seemed to me that Hamilton got out of the car quickly today. When you have to go to the podium it is much easier “, the former Austrian driver made fun of the Germans at F1-Insider.
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Hamilton and the porpoising unknown: “Max doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Carlos yes”
At the ninth race of the season, in what – for the results he has achieved in his career – can almost be considered his second home track, Lewis Hamilton has finally managed to get back on the podium. After the third place in Bahrain, the seven-time world champion was never able to get into the top-3 again, a feat that his team-mate George Russell succeeded on three occasions. In Canada this negative streak finally broke, thanks to an ‘old-fashioned’ weekend in # 44, which was finally effective both in qualifying and in the race. It is no coincidence that at the end of the day, speaking at the press conference, Hamilton appeared in a good mood as he had never seen during this season. The Englishman particularly wanted to give credit to the work done on the reliability of the W13 by the men and women of Brixworth and Brackley. While Ferrari and Red Bull continue to collect k.o. in fact, Mercedes has always brought both cars under the checkered flag.
Of course, speed is lacking, which is no small detail, but Hamilton finally seems to see something good in the work done by Mercedes in this 2022:
Friday I wasn’t lost – he declared, referring to the difficulties encountered during free practice – it’s just that we tried two different roads and the one I was taking was very bad. When you run an entire race, on the other hand, you discover many things about the car and the relationship you have with it, the data, and so on. So, there is a lot of good to be taken in this case. A really positive aspect is that we have excellent reliability. This is due to the excellent work done by all the teams in both factories “.
Silverstone? We are probably better in the medium and high speed corners than in the low speed ones – said The Hammer – but there is porpoising and I don’t know what it will be like to face the Copse and all those corners. Max doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but Carlos knows what I’m saying. It will be interesting to see how we manage there “.
The next GP for Hamilton will really be the return home, at Silverstone. The idol of the British public would aspire to replicate the Montreal result, but the unknown factor for Mercedes is always the same: the management of porpoising.
F1 2022 Canada GP World Championship points
DRIVER STANDINGS@Max33Verstappen is sitting very pretty at the top 📈#CanadianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/56VCwyeGPs
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 19, 2022
TEAM STANDINGS
Big points for the top three teams in Montreal 💪
Alpine sneak up on McLaren, while Aston Martin pip Haas for P8 🔀#CanadianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/c3QvtoHuWU
— Formula 1 (@F1) June 19, 2022
