Verstappen Dominates 2023 Canadian Grand Prix

Max Verstappen secured Red Bull’s 100th F1 win with victory at 2023 Canadian Grand Prix.

Verstappen led from lights to flag to record Red Bull’s 100th race victory in F1 and equal Ayrton Senna’s total of 41 victories to go joint-fifth on the all-time wins list.

Fernando Alonso recovered from a slow start to finish second after he overtook Lewis Hamilton on Lap 22, as the Brit finished third.

Mercedes’ George Russell retired on Lap 54 with a brakes issue caused by damage from a shunt with the outside wall at Turn 9 on Lap 12.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz made one-stop strategies work to finish fourth and fifth for Ferrari ahead of Sergio Perez, Alex Albon, Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll and Valtteri Bottas who rounded out the top ten.

In the drivers’ standings, Verstappen extended his lead over teammate – Sergio Perez to 69 points after the latter snatched the point for fastest lap, whilst Alonso sits in third place with a 15-point lead over Hamilton.

At lights out in much drier conditions than yesterday’s wet Qualifying session, Verstappen made a clean start as Hamilton leapfrogged Alonso into second as Russell stayed fourth, whilst Nico Hulkenberg slipped to seventh as Ocon and Piastri managed to get past him.

Sainz meanwhile briefly lost 11th position to Perez at Turn 10 but recovered position into Turn 12 which led the Mexican to unintentionally brake test Kevin Magnussen, who luckily took evading action and narrowly avoided the outside wall as both drivers escaped a high-speed shunt.

Everyone soon settled down with Hulkenberg leading a DRS train from seventh position downwards, whilst Williams’ Logan Sargeant retired on Lap Seven with a technical issue which caused a brief Virtual Safety Car.

Up front, Verstappen comfortably led Hamilton and Alonso with Russell not far behind in fourth until he clipped a sausage kerb at Turn 9 on Lap 12, which caused him to clatter into the barriers on the exit of the corner and cause a Safety Car as he crawled back to the pit lane.

His actions also led several drivers to pit except for Leclerc, Sainz, Perez, Magnussen and Bottas who improved to run in positions 4-8, as the race restarted at the end of Lap 16 with Verstappen sprinting away unchallenged to victory.

Alonso however kept Hamilton within sight until he managed to use DRS to make the pass for second place on Lap 22, from which the top three were set to the checkered flag despite Hamilton unsuccessfully trying the undercut on Lap 41 only for Alonso and Verstappen to pit on next two laps.

Perez meanwhile was the first of those who had remained out under the Safety Car to pit at the end of Lap 37 as he tried to undercut Sainz and Leclerc who ran fifth and fourth respectively, but the latter pair covered the Mexican off to settle their positions to the checkered flag.

Albon made an one-stop strategy pay off to finish a surprise seventh for Williams ahead of Ocon who fought off Lando Norris on the line, although a five-second time penalty for slowing under the Safety Car dropped Norris to 13th as Stroll and Bottas took ninth and tenth respectively.

F1 now heads to Austria across weekend of 30 June – 2 July for Red Bull’s home race, which also sees the return of Sprint Saturday on 1 July.

Position	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	70	1h 33m 58.348
2	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	70	+ 9.570
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	70	+ 14.168
4	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	70	+ 18.648
5	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	70	+ 21.540
6	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	70	+ 51.028
7	Alex Albon	Williams	70	+ 60.813
8	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	70	+ 61.692
9	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	70	+ 64.402
10	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	70	+ 64.432
11	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	70	+ 65.101
12	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	70	+ 65.249
13	Lando Norris	McLaren	70	+ 68.363
14	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	70	+ 73.423
15	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	69	+ 1 Lap
16	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	69	+ 1 Lap
17	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	69	+ 1 Lap
18	Nyck De Vries	AlphaTauri	69	+ 1 Lap
RET	George Russell	Mercedes	54	Brakes
RET	Logan Sargeant	Williams	6	Technical