The free practice day for the Canadian GP ended with Max Verstappen leading the way - the Dutchman had not closed Friday in front since Imole, when he took pole for the sprint race. Red Bull was able to make the world champion comfortable in the RB18, and this was reflected in the grid. Meanwhile, Ferrari continues to suffer the consequences of unreliability
Friday's free practice sessions at the Canadian Grand Prix only reflected Max Verstappen's current form this season. The leader of the standings and favorite for the title, the Dutchman is already a strong candidate for victory on Sunday. Not only because of Red Bull's excellence on a track like the Gilles Villeneuve circuit, but because Ferrari is already imposing a new drama on Charles Leclerc. Despite the 0s081 gap to Verstappen, the Monegasque is far from grid contention because of the engine change. Therefore, Max is the pace setter in Montreal.
Still, the RB18 of the world champion seemed very well tuned in his hands. This time, the driver did not fight so much with the front exits and could focus on the race performance - which continues to be impressive. On a single lap, the performance remains solid as well. The biggest question will really be tire management. "It was a positive day, of course there are always things you can look at to try to find a better balance, but overall I had a good start to the weekend," said the owner of the #1 car.
The best time of 1min14s127 was made with a soft tire, which, in Verstappen's view, is the most difficult to provide a good lap, but he still remains favorite for pole. However, it is the race that stands out. Red Bull worked well on the medium tires, while Ferrari focused on the soft, but it is the Taurinos who lead the performance. "We had a competitive car, which is good. In the long run, it's a nice start, but it's hard to get the tires right around here, so we have some things to work on."
And yes, there is work, because Sergio Pérez has not been able to reproduce the same performance as in recent weeks. The Mexican found it more difficult than his teammate to find the ideal setup. "Unfortunately, there's not much to read in today's sessions. To really work on the car, you need to have a good pace and then work from there, which I couldn't do today," explained 'Checo'.
"We had a problem with the setup on our pace with low fuel, but luckily we were able to figure it out. And the long stints were a little more representative, but we still had a problem. Hopefully tomorrow we can sort it all out," he added.
The dilemma is only about the weather. The qualifying session is supposed to be run on a wet track. However, even rain does not take away Verstappen and Red Bull's potential.
And Ferrari?
It is very likely that Leclerc already knew of his misfortune at the Canadian GP amid the smoke at the end of lap 20 of the race in Azerbaijan. There it was clear that Ferrari had tinkered with its power unit - frayed at the behest of Mattia Binotto, a confessed fan of performance over reliability. That's at least 10 grid positions, and counting.
The quality of the Italian team from the beginning of the season has faded since Spain, and from then on, Leclerc has suffered. If there was hope for a title race, the discourse now is different, to run without pressure, almost to see what happens. But it doesn't. The Monegasque cannot repeat the defeatist speech of the boss that the goal of the season is to be competitive. Ferrari didn't give up on 2021 to take care of this car in every detail to come up with this bedtime story.
So Leclerc has to go into Saturday's qualifying in Montreal Leclerc style: focus on pole. So that he starts at least 11th and seeks a recovery that will again minimize the damage. Canada is prodigal in surprises that can throw him to the heads. The point is that coming from behind was not the best experience for Charles this year: in Emilia-Romagna, Leclerc was in third place and was excited by the possibility of passing Sergio Pérez; he made a mistake, crashed, still managed to get back into the race, dropped to ninth and saved a miserable sixth place.
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