Can Lance Stroll have a positive weekend at his home race?
Lance Stroll’s 2023 season so far has been a mixed bag. He looked good at the start of the season but struggled massively in both Miami and Monaco before he had a positive Spanish Grand Prix weekend. Lance is coming into his home race looking for a positive result and it’s fair to say he does well at this track as he’s finished in the points in 3 of the 4 races he’s been here (he DNF’d on the first lap in 2018). That’s a pretty impressive record given and he’ll look to continue his impressive run of beating his teammates in Canada (besides 2018) this weekend.
Will Yuki Tsunoda get some luck this weekend?
Yuki Tsunoda has arguably been one of the surprises in 2023 when it comes to his performance levels. Some people (including myself) expected Yuki to struggle again and finally get booted out of Alpha Tauri, but that hasn’t been the case as he’s shown a tremendous amount of pace that hasn’t really been seen before. However, Tsunoda’s only got 2 points to his name right now and he’s currently only 16th in the Drivers’ Championship due to a plethora of 11th-place finishes. He actually came across the line in the points in Spain, but ended up dropping outside the top 10 after the race due to a time penalty! If luck finally arrives for Yuki Tsunoda, expect him to be in the points.
Where are McLaren?
Out of all of the teams on the 2023 Formula 1 grid, McLaren are by far the hardest to predict. They had a positive weekend in both Australia and Monaco whilst they were absolutely awful in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Miami. There’s also been races (Piastri in Saudi Arabia and both drivers in Spain) where they’ve qualified superbly, but have then gone on to completely drop down the order in the race. Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are quick racing drivers so it’s not really their fault that they’re only 6th in the Constructors’ Standings with just 17 points (most of the time).
What is Valtteri Bottas doing?
Valtteri Bottas currently finds himself 14th in the Drivers’ Championship which isn’t bad and he’s also got 4 points. However, all of those 4 points came in the season opener in Bahrain and besides a positive Monaco Grand Prix (after a poor Qualifying), he’s been nowhere. Bottas has finished 18th or lower 3 times in the last 6 races and he finished 11th out of 12 finishers in Australia (he only finished P11 because of a penalty for Carlos Sainz). For a guy that’s won 10 races and is meant to be the team leader of Alfa Romeo, he’s really not doing very well at all.
Can Mercedes build from Spain?
Before the last race in Spain, Mercedes had only scored 1 Podium finish all season (Hamilton P2 in Australia). However, Mercedes tripled their tally as Lewis Hamilton and George Russell secured a double Podium for the team. Mercedes also find themselves 2nd in the Constructors Championship which is the best they can hope for right now and the big question is whether they can build from Spain and secure more double Podium finishes in the future. I think they can, but I also think everyone has to remember that Mercedes showed good pace in Spain in 2022 (Russell finished 3rd whilst Hamilton finished 5th after being last at the end of Lap 1).
My Predictions for Canada Qualifying:
Max Verstappen
Fernando Alonso
Sergio Perez
Lance Stroll
George Russell
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