MADRID, 16 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Dutch driver Max Verstappen (Red Bull) will try to maintain his current dominance in the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship season at this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix and further open his lead over his pursuers in a race that will measure the mood of a downcast Ferrari from Montmeló and a much more lively Fernando Alonso (Alpine) after a good run.
There are no longer as many smiles in Maranello as there were after the first stage of the championship. The ‘F1-75’ shone on the tracks of Sakhir, Jeddah and Melbourne, and boosted Leclerc to a solid lead. By then, it was already sensed that the ‘RB-18’ were going to fight, but what no one expected was surely the collapse of the ‘Scuderia’.
Since his triumph in Australia, the Monegasque driver has only had one more podium in the next five Grands Prix, Miami, but he had to retire due to mechanical problems in Barcelona and in Baku last week, with the addition that he had great options of victory in both, and Ferrari has gone from joy to depression because the other car, Carlos Sainz’s, has also suffered three retirements.
Red Bull has not let it pass and has chained five consecutive wins, four of them through Verstappen, who has been in the lead with 150 points, 21 more than his teammate, the Mexican Sergio Pérez, winner in Monte Carlo and who He has completed three other doubles.
In this way, the ‘Czech’ is now the current champion’s main rival because Leclerc is 34 points behind and needs to react as soon as possible, starting this weekend at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and its well-known ‘Wall of Champions’, a scenario that returns after being absent in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic and gave the ‘Cavallino Rampante’ one of its few joys in recent years with the victory of Sebastian Vettel in 2018.
Then you have to go back to Michael Schumacher and 2004 to see Ferrari’s previous victory in Montreal, a place that has normally been the preserve of Mercedes, which is somewhat reinforced in its spirit after George Russell’s third place and Lewis Hamilton’s fourth. who suffered unspeakably with the ‘porpoising’ in Azerbaijan, although they seem to be a step behind their two rivals.
Verstappen has not been too good either, who can only boast of a third place in 2018, although given the current potential of his car he is emerging as the favorite along with a Leclerc who is dominating with a firm hand on Saturdays ( four ‘poles’ in a row) and that he hopes to do it again and then hope that the mechanics accompany him to battle with the Dutchman whose car performs better on Sundays. It must be remembered that since 2015, in the Gilles Villeneuve the fastest wins in qualifying.
SAINZ LOOKS FOR A CHANGE OF LUCK, ALONSO, FOR THE ‘TOP 10’
For his part, Carlos Sainz arrives in Canada also wanting to be in front again after a hydraulic problem ruined his race in Baku shortly after the start of the race, in what is a third abandonment that has withdrawn him, except for a miracle, of the title fight.
“You have to try to be positive, think that there is still a lot of championship left and days like this are going to come to others,” said the Madrid native resigned after an abandonment that already leaves him 67 points behind Verstappen in fifth place overall. Now, he will try to recover on a track where his best position is eighth with Renault in 2018.
More lively is Fernando Alonso, who in the last Grand Prix not only became the driver with the longest career in the World Championship but also achieved it with an excellent seventh place and a third consecutive race scoring points.
The Asturian is managing to get the potential out of an Alpine team that is now being more reliable than at the beginning of the season and that has allowed him to beat his teammate Esteban Ocon in the last two rounds. Now, the double world champion will want to settle in the ‘Top 10’ of the general classification with another good performance in a Gilles Villeneuve that he only conquered in 2006 and of which he does not have good memories of his last two visits with McLaren.
–CANADA GRAND PRIX SCHEDULES
-Friday.
20.00-21.00 Free 1.
23.00-00.00 Free 2.
-Saturday.
19.00-20.00 Free 3.
22.00-23.00 Qualification.
-Domingo.
20.00 Carrera.