In Canada, Mercedes showed the clearest sign yet of becoming regular victory contenders for the first time under the current rules.
That can’t come soon enough for Lewis Hamilton, who has already smashed his own longest win-less streak. His dearth of success also has another measure – this is the longest he’s ever gone without even leading a lap of a race.
His team mate George Russell became the sixth different driver to lead a race this year as he headed the field for 20 laps on Sunday – more than he managed in the whole of last season. But Hamilton has yet to do so.
Hamilton last led a grand prix 13 rounds ago, at the Circuit of the Americas. This is the longest run he’s ever spent without leading a race – a measure which looks even worse when you consider he was disqualified from the last race he led.
Another driver not among the half-dozen lap leaders of 2024 so far is Sergio Perez. His team mate Max Verstappen has led the most of all with 326.
Verstappen led and won again on Sunday, racking up his 60th win. Since his first victory in the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix he and Hamilton have won the same number of races, though the Mercedes driver has taken none during the course of Verstappen’s last 41.
Russell took the third pole position of his career, having previously started there at the 2022 Hungarian and Brazilian grands prix. According to F1, this was his second pole position, as the series officially considers Kevin Magnussen the pole winner of the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix. Russell started that race from pole position, while Magnussen took pole for the sprint race.
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Three drivers on the grid now have three pole positions – Russell, Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez. Jose Froilan Gonzalez, Tony Brooks, Dan Gurney, Jean-Pierre Jarier, Jody Scheckter, Elio de Angelis and Teo Fabi also recorded three during their careers.
Verstappen matched Russell’s pole position time to within three-thousandths of a second. This was the 16th time in F1 history more than one driver has set a time quick enough for pole position, and only the third occasion in the past five decades, as timing to three decimal places was introduced in the eighties.
In another sign of Mercedes’ gains, the team set the fastest lap for the third race in a row. Hamilton did so on this occasion, as he did in…
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