Linus O'Howell
- Jun 10
- 4 min read

2024 Canadian Grand Prix Race Review

Verstappen Keeps Calm to Take Key Victory in Canada

Max Verstappen kept his cool in tricky and ever-changing conditions to take a massive victory which firmly puts him in control of the World Drivers’ Championship (yet again). Lando Norris managed to come home in a great second place for McLaren whilst Mercedes’ George Russell rounded out the Podium after an eventful afternoon.

The Biggest Talking Points

At the start of the Race, George Russell managed to hold off Max Verstappen into Turn 1 in the tricky wet conditions whilst Sergio Perez and Pierre Gasly came together further down the field. To start with, the track was actually more suited to the full Wet tyres which meant the Haas’ of Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg were flying through the order, with K-Mag even making it up to P4 at one point! However, when the track dried out a little, the Haas cars were forced to pit and they ultimately didn’t really gain anything. DRS was then enabled and this helped Lando Norris breeze past Verstappen before he overtook Russell to take the lead of the Grand Prix. George ultimately made a mistake that cost him a place to Max in all of this too and Lando was running away with it out front until a crash from Logan Sargeant (he had 2 during the Race) caused a Safety Car. This meant everyone was able to pit, but Lando Norris was ultimately too quick for his own good and it meant he got held up by the Safety Car and came out behind Max and George when he made his pit stop.

When the Race got back underway, the focus turned to Charles Leclerc who had put Dry’s on during the Safety Car phase, but this turned out to be a horrendous call and this mixed with power unit issues resulted in Leclerc having a pretty horrendous afternoon before he ultimately retired. The track then started to dry up to the point where slick tyres were possible, but the nature of the pitlane meant you actually lost a lot of time with the undercut. The person who noticed this was Lando Norris as Lando tried to go a couple laps longer than everyone else, and it nearly worked, but he just failed to jump Verstappen due to a lack of grip on the outside of Turn 2. Sergio Perez, who was having a pretty bad Race, decided to spin his car into the wall at the start of Sector 2 and completely wreck it before just a lap later, Carlos Sainz lost the car and ultimately took Alex Albon out in the process, resulting in another Safety Car that saw the Mercedes drivers pit for fresh rubber. When we got back underway with 12 laps to go, Verstappen led Norris as George Russell tried to overtake Oscar Piastri, but the two made contact at the final chicane which resulted in Lewis Hamilton making it through before he cleared Piastri to get into the Podium places. However, George wasn’t done yet as he cleared Oscar for P4 before he made a brilliant overtake on Merc teammate Hamilton to take his spot on the Podium back! Elsewhere, Lance Stroll was able to clear Yuki Tsunoda for P7 in what was a good Home Race for Lance before Tsunoda lost the car completely and tumbled well out of the points!

The Standout Drives in the Race

I’ve given out three 10’s for this year’s Canadian Grand Prix and the first one is obviously for Max Verstappen. Whilst Max was slightly fortunate with the timing of the Safety Car, he kept it cool when he needed to and proved why he is the best driver in Formula 1 (and has been for the last 4 years now). The second driver I’ve given out maximum points to is Lando Norris because I don’t think Lando could’ve done much more here and I think P2 is another strong result for him and McLaren. Could Norris have won the Race, potentially, but I think Lando is the type of person that will just move on and continue to perform well. And the final driver I gave a perfect 10 to is Daniel Ricciardo, and say what you want about Danny Ric, but I don’t think he could’ve done much here. He got a penalty that shouldn’t have been a penalty, and yet he still managed to get himself past cars and up into P8 which is a very impressive drive that deserves a lot of praise! I also thought both Alpine’s of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon had great Races to score points whilst George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, and Fernando Alonso all had pretty good outings (even though you do feel like George could’ve finished higher).

Drivers Who Had a Shocker

In total, I’ve given out three 1’s for yesterday’s Race, and the first one is for Carlos Sainz. This is by far the worst weekend I have seen Carlos have in a long time, he simply had no pace and made a very uncharacteristic error that ruined another driver’s Race. It’s unfortunate, but I can’t give him anything higher. The second driver I’ve given out the worst possible grade to is Sergio Perez because Checo was so poor, he literally had no pace, made contact with Gasly on the first lap, and just spun himself into the wall in another impact that will cost Red Bull a lot! This simply isn’t good enough from someone with the experience of Sergio! The final driver I’ve given a 1 to is Logan Sargeant who after Qualifying well, locked up into the wall early on before he then binned not too long after. This has simply happened far too often in Logan’s career. I also thought Yuki Tsunoda and Zhou Guanyu had poor days respectively (Yuki threw away some good points) whilst Charles Leclerc also had a day to forget, even if some of the things weren’t his fault.