Race debrief the canadian gp in 5 key moments

1 Was McLaren undone by Lando’s first or second stop?

Max Verstappen has now won 50 of the 75 races held since the beginning of 2021, giving him a win ratio of 66 per cent. His triumph in the Canadian Grand Prix was considered by some as payback for Miami, in which the inopportune deployment of the Safety Car cost him victory. In Montréal, race leader Lando Norris fell foul of a Safety Car intervention. But was it that or a subsequent pitwall decision to delay moving to slicks which cost Norris victory?

Canada was a race in which the strategists on the pitwall needed brains as sharp as the supernumerate contestants facing the numbers game on Countdown. The Montréal weekend was constantly interrupted by storm cells which bubbled up over the St Lawrence seaway, delivering short, sharp showers before blue skies emerged from behind the angry, black clouds.

The fickle Québécois climate led to the race starting wet, then drying, before another cloudburst. Within this cycle the relative pace of the frontrunners kept changing, which resulted in an unpredictable, edge-of-your-seat spectacle. Despite the familiar winner, the result was far from a foregone conclusion.

In the first stint, third-placed Norris dropped to nine seconds behind polesitter and initial race leader George Russell and Verstappen as he delicately managed his first set of intermediate tyres. As the track began to dry his tyres were in better shape, and his McLaren came alive. On lap 14 Lando circulated the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve two seconds faster than the frontrunners. As soon as it was dry enough for DRS to be activated, he passed Verstappen (crucially before Max picked up DRS from Russell) and then the race leader.

By lap 24 Norris had scampered off into the distance with a 5.8-second advantage. Then the Safety Car was scrambled after Logan Sargeant spun his Williams into the Turn 4 wall.

The challenge for the strategists was the fact the radar showed another rain cell of unknown intensity was about to hit the Île Notre-Dame. Norris was approaching the pit entrance when the SC boards emerged. In the absence of an instruction to pit, he stayed out – and caught the Safety Car at Turn 5. When he pitted at the end of the lap he emerged back behind Verstappen and Russell, who had dived for the pi