VERSTAPPEN CONQUERS MONTREAL

Story by Jeff Pappone

Abouttwo-thirds into the Canadians Grand Prix and just after his final pitstop, a radio communication between Red Bull’s pit wall and its leading driver Max Verstappen pretty much summarized the Formula 1 action at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 2023.

“There’s a bit of a race behind, so people are pushing a lot more than you at the moment,” the team said, making it clear that a cruising Verstappen had more than enough speed in his pocket to fend off any would-be challengers.

In the end, Verstappen doubled his lead on the field in the last 27 laps and crossed the line 9.570 seconds ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso with Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes third another 4.598 seconds behind.

“It was not a very straightforward race because the tires were not really getting in their window. It was very cold today compared to Friday and we were sliding around quite a bit. But still, to win by nine seconds, I think shows that we have a great car,” said Verstappen, who equalled the late Ayrton Senna’s 41 Formula 1 victories and scored Red Bull’s 100th Grand Prix win with his sixth triumph of 2023.

“When I was a little kid driving in go karting, I was dreaming about being an Formula 1 driver and I would have never imagined winning 41 Grands Prix. To tie with Ayrton is something incredible, and of course I’m proud of that, but I hope it’s not stopping here. I hope that we can keep on winning more races.”

Red Bull Continues Domination With Eighth Straight Win To Start The 2023 Formula 1 Season

With Verstappen starting from pole and leading every lap despite Aston Martin and Mercedes adding significant updates to their cars, the Dutchman will keep winning. The reigning two-time world champion left Montreal with a commanding 69-point lead over teammate Sergio Pérez. As of the British Grand Prix, he added two more wins and stretched his lead to 99 points.

Verstappen’s victory also meant that Red Bull remained unbeaten in 2023 with its eight consecutive victories to start the season. McLaren set the record of 11 consecutive wins to start a season in 1988, which Red Bull can match in Hungary after winning its tenth in a row in Britain.

Qualifying did serve up some excitement as Haas driver Nico Hülkenberg took full advantage of the changing conditions and snagged a front row spot on the grid, only to be bumped to fifth after a penalty for driving too fast under a red flag. That put Alonso second and Hamilton third on the grid and set the stage for a good fight for second between the former two world champions, who offered up the ‘race behind.’

Hamilton jumped Alonso at the start for second, but the Aston Martin climbed all over his tail until the drag reduction system allowed the Spaniard to muscle past at the final chicane on Lap 21. When asked about his quick start and pass on Alonso in the postrace television interviews, Hamilton poked some fun at his rival.

“His reactions are a little slow because he’s older now,” said a laughing Hamilton, loudly right next to the 41-year-old Alonso. “It’s an age thing.”

Canadian Lance Stroll started 16th following a three-place penalty for impeding Alpine’s Esteban Ocon in qualifying but drove a spirited race to climb seven spots to ninth by the end of the 70 laps. The Aston Martin driver pipped Valtteri Bottas by 0.030 seconds for tenth after passing the Alfa Romeo driver on the sprint to the finish line after the final chicane. A five-second penalty to Lando Norris for unsportsmanlike conduct pushed the McLaren driver down to 13th and put Stroll ninth.

Although the Canadian continued to under perform compared to his two-time world champion teammate Alonso, Stroll drove the first six races of 2023 nursing a broken wrist and other injuries suffered in a cycling accident just before the season began. He said he really didn’t feel close to 100 percent in the car until Monaco, something compounded by watching testing from the sidelines.

“I missed a lot of seat time just figuring things out and getting into a groove before the season,” he said. “I’m getting more and more comfortable with the car, and I think every race I’m just kind of understanding more of what I need from the car and its strengths and weaknesses. I mean, every lap in the car helps.”

Aston Martin team boss Mike Krack insisted that Stroll’s determination to be in the car at the start of the season only confirmed what he already knew about his driver, but felt it showed the outside world “a side of Lance that was maybe not known.”

“He’s a fantastic fighter. It would have been easy to stay away three races, and then come back” he said. “But the fact that he really tried hard to get back to the car, despite all the pain – and I can assure you, there was a lot of pain – shows what kind of fighter is. I think it was 12 days after the incident. I’m not sure people are aware of what kind of performance that was, and I was quite happy that he also disclosed the pictures of what he went through.”

The promoter reported a record crowd for the three-day weekend with the 345,000 fans pouring through the turnstiles topping the 338,000 last year. Some of those fans needed to twiddle their thumbs for a few hours on Friday after a glitch in the close-circuit television system halted the first practice session after only four minutes of the scheduled hour and prevented the support series cars from taking to the track. The organizers added 30 minutes to the second practice session to compensate for the lost time.

Alex Albon Impresses

Although Alex Albon finished a distant seventh in the Canadian Grand Prix, the Williams driver earned his six points after fighting off a menacing gaggle of cars for the final 25 laps on well-worn tires.

Albon made one stop under a safety car on Lap 12 and then went 59 laps on hard Pirelli tires to score his best-ever finish in Montreal and take driver of the day honours for his defensive heroics.

“It was tough. I remember getting the call that there were 30 or 40 laps left and I was like ‘What?’” Albon said with a smile after the race. “It’s not fun to drive around on old tires, but we made it work: The tires were lasting, they were staying cool, and I could afford to push on them. We were just quick enough to stay in front.”

The Williams driver first fended off George Russell until the Mercedes driver retired with brake issues before he put on a defensive driving clinic to keep six cars behind for the final third of the race: Esteban Ocon (Alpine), Lando Norris (McLaren), Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), Oscar Piastri (McLaren), and Pierre Gasly (Alpine). Only 4.436 seconds separated the seven cars at the finish line.

Several aerodynamic upgrades on Albon’s Williams played a key role in helping keep the train behind but they also added to the weight on his shoulders as he delivered the team’s best finish in the first 10 races of 2023.

“We actually fast-forwarded the upgrades, and everyone sacrificed their weekends to get this car ready.” Albon said. “I felt a bit of pressure because I was like: ‘My god, they’re really putting everything into this weekend. And it’s all on my car. Don’t crash it and try and survive.’ I’m just so happy we got points.”

Standing out in Montreal continued the 27-year-old’s resurgence after a disappointing stint with Red Bull Racing. Albon started nine races in 2019 for Red Bull after bring promoted halfway through the season from the “B” team, Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri). He struggled to adapt and failed to match future world champion Max Verstappen’s pace. A year later, he scored only two podiums in 17 starts before Red Bull demoted him to test driver and put Sergio Pérez in the race seat.

“With the Red Bull, I didn’t really understand what the car needed to be quick but, at the same time, I couldn’t get natural driving the car. The car was driving me rather than me driving the car,” he said.

“It’s very hard to judge a driver by one stint in one team, especially if they’re inexperienced, because it’s very hard for them to understand how to get out of that situation.”

A move Williams last year proved to be a godsend. Albon quickly showed he still could peddle a car as he out-shined his teammate, Canadian Nicholas Latifi. The return to form essentially came down feeling much more confident behind the wheel, even though the Williams really didn’t suit his driving style.

In 21 starts last year, Albon delivered points three times with average finish of 13th in the worst car on the grid. As of the 2023 British Grand Prix, Albon scored all of Williams 11 points this season.

Now in his second season with Williams, Albon feels he’s found a home where he can start to exert his influence on and off the track.

“I’m involved very early in the stages of next year’s car and in every upgrade, every update, every week that the car is changing,” he said. “I’m driving that car to make sure we’re focusing on the key areas that the car needs to be improved.”

PIRELLI’S HERCULIAN TASK

With ten teams pulling in different directions and a governing body throwing new rules in the mix every few years, life with no competition often gets complicated for Formula 1 tire supplier Pirelli.

Not only does Pirelli need to bring constant tweaks to its existing offerings to meet the teams’ expectations and ensure a level playing field, but it also needs to be about two years ahead of major regulation changes.

“It’s difficult,” said Mario Isola, head of Pirelli Motorsport. “We must find a tire that works for all the teams and every season we have to keep developing the tires because the cars are changing, even if the technical regulations don’t change. We always must adapt our tires to the new level of performance the teams expect. That’s the normal situation.”

That happened at the British Grand Prix where Pirelli brought a new tire construction to respond to the increased speed and loading on the tires seen since the start of the 2023 season. Pirelli became the sport’s sole tire supplier in 2011, replacing Bridgestone which served in the same role for four seasons. From 2001 to 2006, Bridgestone and Michelin waged tire competition to F1.

Several major changes in the regulations tested Pirelli’s ability to adapt, including the introduction of the hybrid power unit along with wider tires in 2014, new tire rules in 2016 which demanded three compound per race, wider tires in 2017, and then the move from 13-inch to 18-inch rims last year.

“Usually, it takes about a year to develop of the tire for the following season,” Isola said. “We start in March, in September define the construction, and in December define the compounds, but if there is a big change it’s useful to anticipate a little bit. With the 18 inches, we started a bit in advance.”

Pirelli will begin working on the specification to respond to the major changes slated for 2026 in the second half of next year, assuming it wins the tender process for the next tire supplier, which should conclude in the fall.

If Pirelli continues, it will start by working with the teams to determine the desired tire characteristics before moving to simulations and data collecting with the teams. Once that’s done, Pirelli designs a model for the teams to test and crunches more data before moving to the development of a physical prototype.

Although the process minimizes the risk of getting things horribly wrong, the results aren’t always perfect. For example, despite the new 18-inch tires meeting its expectations, Pirelli worked on a few tweaks to respond to real-life results.

“The new cars have understeer at low speed because the new aerodynamic package is completely different compared to the older package, where most of the downforce was coming mainly from the wings. We also had a part of the tread where the wear was higher than the rest and that needed an improvement,” Isola said. “That’s why we adapted our 2023 specification. I would say it was 90 percent in line with our expectations, but you always find something that you have to fine tune to get to 100 percent.” IT