Max Verstappen (Red Bull) won this Saturday the pole position of the Canadian Grand Prix, the ninth race of the Formula 1 World Championship, with the best time at the Gilles-Villeneuve circuit, in Montreal, in 1m21.299s. The Dutchman will therefore start alongside Fernando Alonso (Alpine), who surprised Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) to secure a front row seat after a decade.
Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) will line up on the last row of the starting grid – alongside the Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), for the same reasons -, following the penalty imposed for the exchange of the ECU and engine of the F1-75. The Monegasque driver thus faces an even more demanding challenge in the fight for the Drivers’ Championship, led by Max Verstappen, in which he could still lose ground after retirements in Barcelona and Baku.
At AlphaTauri, in addition to Tsunoda’s penalty, news from Pierre Gasly, who will keep his place in 2024, which did not prevent the Frenchman from being eliminated in the first qualification, along with the two Canadians (Nicholas Latifi and Lance Stroll) and Sebastian Vettel, who in free practice had been in the spotlight, in addition to holding the last two »polesin Canada in 2018 and 2019.
Vice-world leader Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) encountered some difficulties and narrowly escaped elimination. But a runway excursion would even end up taking the Mexican driver out of the pole position. Qualifying for the top ten was halted with nine minutes remaining, with Red Bull due to be withdrawn.
Due to mechanical problems, Lando Norris (McLaren) was unable to take advantage of extra time and was also eliminated, the big surprise being the two Haas, Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen, entering the top ten.
Also the Chinese Alfa Romeo, Guanyu Zhou, secured a place in the last qualifying round of the Canadian GP. Schumacher even managed to take sixth place on the grid, after Magnussen, taking advantage of the start of Russell’s Mercedes, which risked everything on slicks to try to “pole”.
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