Max Verstappen is starting to make things look easy, earning his sixth win of 2022 and the 26th of his career as he put together a drama-free drive to claim victory at the Canadian Grand Prix. While Verstappen found himself in a tighter race in the last 15 laps than he had the previous 55, the drama never heightened to a point that would suggest he was not in control.
Carlos Sainz finished second, his fourth second-place finish of the year and a showing that he is a formidable driver when not recording DNFs. Lewis Hamilton earned just his second podium finish of the year in a solid drive where he out-performed his teammate for second time of the season.
George Russell continued with his amazingly consistent year. He has yet to finish outside of the top five and his fourth-place result in Canada kept him fourth in the standings. Charles Leclerc, starting 19th after power unit penalties, grabbed fifth on the day.
The Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso finished in sixth and seventh, respectively. Valtteri Bottas maintains his surprising performance for Alfa Romeo by earning eighth with teammate Zhou Guanyu again earning points by taking ninth. Lance Stroll, racing at his home GP, managed to score the last points-paying position in 10th.
*Note: Alonso was given a five-second time penalty after the Grand Prix by the stewards, dropping him from seventh to ninth
The Race
After scooting away cleanly at lights out, Verstappen built a three-second lead by lap 6. With reliability not seeming to be a factor for Red Bull, the race already appeared to be over.
Early drama came in the form of Kevin Magnussenʻs front wing suffering damage on the start by colliding with Ocon. Forced to pit for a new wing by the race director, Magnussen fell from sixth to 20th. He then moved up a spot when Sergio Perez endured a hydraulic failure and recorded a DNF on lap 10, bringing out a virtual safety car. For Perez, the DNF came on the heels of crashing in qualifying and starting in the 13th position.
Mick Schumacher dropping out on lap 20 seemed to be an attempt to create drama, bringing a virtual safety car and differing pit strategies. The shake-up did little to bring about any drastic change as Verstappen again took to the lead and by lap 30 had pushed out to nearly 10 seconds over Sainz.
The highlight came in the form of watching Leclerc drive from 19th through the field. By lap 30, he held the sixth spot and was dogging Ocon for fifth. Not long after, he…
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