Max Verstappen has claimed a wet and wild Canadian Grand Prix as Aussie duo Daniel Ricciardo and Oscar Piastri were caught up in the drama of a race that had it all.
Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both failed to finish, as did Red Bull’s second driver Sergio Perez. But as he so often has, Max Verstappen was flawless – and this time, he was lucky.
Weather and crashes turned out in his favour, despite one scary moment as he ran off-track on the 17th lap.
“It was a pretty crazy race, a lot of things were happening,” he said.
At one point, McLaren’s Lando Norris was 11 seconds clear before a safety car arrived and caught out the unlucky star, who was let down by his team’s strategy.
“That was a lot of fun,” Verstappen added.
Daniel Ricciardo started a season-best fifth but slid backwards on a manic opening lap as Kevin Magnussen of Haas surged from 14th to fourth in the opening five laps. Having fallen to ninth on the opening lap, Ricciardo fought back and ended up eighth, three places behind fellow Australian Oscar Piastri.
Verstappen cruised to his 50th win from his last 75 starts, beating Norris and the Mercedes of George Russell, who started on pole.
Russell pipped teammate Lewis Hamilton in the closing stages of the race to seal third,
“It felt like a missed opportunity, to be honest,” Russell said.
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Ricciardo lets rip in qualis, starts 5th | 01:00
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