F1 Canadian Grand Prix Notes and Numbers: How Max Verstappen Took Control of Championship

Max Verstappen took another giant stride toward retaining his Formula 1 title with victory in the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Autoweek rounds up the key talking points from from the F1 Canadian Grand Prix that saw Verstappen win for the sixth time. Ferrari's Carlos Sainz Jr. and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton completed the podium.

Verstappen left Montreal with a commanding 46-p0int lead in the championship over his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez.

How Verstappen Picked Up Season Win No. 6

Max Verstappen’s sixth victory of the season, and his fifth from the last six events, was relatively straightforward, if not ultimately comfortable, and it gives him a commanding buffer in the world championship.

Verstappen and main challenger Carlos Sainz had slightly offset two-stop strategies and the Ferrari driver remained within DRS during the closing stages, but was never close enough to seriously challenge Verstappen. The reigning champ remained cool and collected despite losing radio communication with the pit wall partway through the race.

Teammate Sergio Perez retired early due to a sudden loss of power, which means Verstappen’s lead now sits at a fairly comfortable 46 points, effectively almost two races clear of the opposition after nine of 22.

“It’s still a very long way, and I know course the gap is quite big, but we know it can switch around very quickly. Race 3 I was 46 behind, so we just need to stay calm, we need to focus, we need to improve as today we were not the quickest. It swings a bit. Last weekend it looked good in the race, now it didn’t look as good but we still managed to win and I think that is also a quality.”

For Sainz it was his 11th career podium but his wait to stand on the top step of it goes on.

“It was a tough intense battle with Max, I think I had five to six laps fresher tires but to overtake him you need more than those two or three tenths (advantage Sainz had),” he said. “I gave it all, was risking everything, close to the wall, got close enough a couple of times but not close enough to throw a move down the inside anywhere, but I was pushing.”

Hamilton Back on the Podium

Lewis Hamilton has had a rough run of races but he returned to the podium in Canada, 15 years after his maiden victory at the same venue. Hamilton qualified fourth but overhauled Fernando Alonso to have a relatively lonely run to third spot, which marked his first podium since the season-opening round in Bahrain.

“It’s given me and the team a lot of hope that there is more to come from this car,” said Hamilton. “The potential is truly there if we can get the set-up right. I think that’s been the most difficult thing this year, trying to optimize the set-up window. For this car, it’s much, much smaller than any other car we’ve experienced. I’ve not been on the podium for a long time! Especially as I had my first win here 15 years ago, to be back up there and get to experience the energy from the crowd, it was very reminiscent of that first year here. I’m so, so happy with it.

Hamilton was in a downbeat mood after Friday practice, in which he ran experimental components as part of Mercedes’ long-term bid to understand the W13, but the performance was significantly better come Sunday.

“We tried two different avenues and the avenue I went down was dreadful,” said Hamilton on Friday’s lack of pace. “We collated all the data we had and we made drastic changes to the set-up and it was much, much, much nicer—more in line with what it anticipated. It was good, when you get a full race distance in you find a lot of things out about the car and the relationship you have with the car and data, so there’s a lot to take from today. One really great thing is we’ve got really good reliability, which I think is a real tribute to all the great work all the team are doing at both factories.

“I really hope moving to Silverstone, it’s such an important race for us, and for me. I just want to be in a battle with these guys.”