2023 Canadian Grand Prix - Sunday

MARIO ISOLA - MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR      
 

“It was a very interesting race, the most closely balanced so far this season, as can be seen from the results sheet, with four drivers from four different teams all finishing in the space of under 20 seconds. Yesterday’s prediction that a two-stop strategy was the best option was confirmed as the top three all went down this route, even if they each managed it in different ways. However, the one stop proved to be a valid alternative, as demonstrated by the two Ferrari drivers: Leclerc and Sainz went to over half-distance on the Mediums without any significant degradation in terms of tyre performance, a sign that their car is making progress on the set-up front.

Temperatures were lower today than on Friday and that contributed to reducing the risk of overheating the tyres. Another factor that played an important role in tyre management was the fact the track rubbered-in very quickly during the race, even though it was initially very dirty after it had rained for almost all of Saturday.

Personally, it was an honour for me, on behalf of Pirelli, the race’s Title Sponsor, to hand over the winning constructors’ trophy to Adrian Newey, someone who has contributed so much to the history of this team and of our sport and indeed, who continues to do so, on the very day when Red Bull celebrated its 100^th win.”

THE RACE FROM A TYRE POINT OF VIEW

• Max Verstappen won the FORMULA 1 PIRELLI GRAND PRIX DU CANADA 2023. It was his 41^st victory, which puts him level with Ayrton Senna in fifth place on the all-time winners list which is headed by Lewis Hamilton on 103.
• This was Red Bull’s 100^th win from 355 Grand Prix starts. Its first dates back to 19 April 2009 when Sebastian Vettel won in China. Red Bull is the fifth team to have reached a century of wins in a category headed by Ferrari (242), followed by McLaren (183), Mercedes (125) and Williams (114).
• Of the top ten finishers, six drivers stopped twice with only four making just the one stop. However, it is worth noting that Perez’s second pit stop, just two laps from the end was carried out purely to allow him to pick up the extra point for setting the fastest race lap.
• 16 drivers opted to start on the Mediums: three of the remaining four – Perez, Bottas and Magnussen – chose the Hard tyre, while only Gasly preferred to start on the Softs.
• As expected, the C5 was the least used compound in the race, completing just 12 laps: ten of those were in Gasly’s first stint and two with Perez at the end of the race.
• The most used compound was the C3 (70.4% of all laps completed) but a significant number of laps (28.7%) were run on the C4.
• In terms of stint length, the standout performance came from Albon, who is no stranger to this feat, running 58 laps on a set of Hards. He finished in an impressive seventh place. Leclerc drove the longest stint on Medium tyres doing 39 laps.

FERRARI CHALLENGE NORTH AMERICA

Apart from Formula 1, the Ferrari Challenge North America competitors were racing in Montreal. In Saturday’s race in the one-make series for which Pirelli is the sole tyre supplier, the overall winner was Martin Burrowes (Ferrari Quebec) who fought off the advances of Roberto Perrina (Ferrari of Seattle) and team-mate Carlos De Quesada. On Sunday, the top step of the podium was occupied by Matt Kurzejewsky (Ferrari Beverly Hills) while Perrina and De Quesada were again second and third.

NEXT UP FOR OUR F1 TYRES

The next race takes place at the Red Bull Ring from 30 June to 2 July. The Austrian Grand Prix will be the second round of the season, after the one in Azerbaijan, to be run to the new F1 Sprint format. Qualifying for the main race takes place on Friday afternoon, while track action on Saturday is entirely given over to the Sprint. First, there’s the Sprint Shootout, with the short 24 lap race following later in the afternoon. In Spielberg, drivers will use the same compounds as in Montreal: the C3 as Hard, C4 as Medium and the C5 as Soft. As with all F1 Sprint weekends, each driver will have just 12 sets of dry weather tyres available to them instead of 13.