Max Verstappen finishes second behind George Russell in Canadian Grand Prix
Max Verstappen finished second at the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday. The reigning F1 world champion came just short of passing the race winner George Russell in his Mercedes. Russell’s teammate, Kimi Antonelli, finished third and got the first podium place of his career in the race, which finished behind a safety car.
Verstappen closed the gap on leader Oscar Piastri from Australia, who finished fourth, with the 18 points that he gained in the race. He has earned 198 points this season. Verstappen is third in the season rankings with 155 points. Second place Lando Norris crashed out of the race in the final phase after a battle with his teammate and remains on 176 points.
The Dutch driver started the race in second place, and he also remained behind the Mercedes after the start of the race. Antonelli was able to pass Piastri after the start and took over third place.
At first, Verstappen was pushing Russell to the limit, but he had to give in to the British driver several laps later. This while Antonelli had gotten a lot closer to the Red Bull driver. Verstappen was the first driver to go into the pits to prevent a takeover from Antonelli. Both Mercedes drivers did the same in the following laps.
Despite the switch to hard tires, Verstappen was still slower than Russell and Antonelli. Again, he was the first out of the drivers to change his tires for a second time but then had to drive another 32 laps on another set of hard tires.
McLaren was the fastest after the pit stops, with Piastri in fourth place and Norris in fifth, and they were catching up to Antonelli, but he did not budge and successfully defended his third place.
Norris launched an attack on Piastri in the closing stages of the race, but the Australian driver would not give up his fourth place. The English driver then drove into the slipstream of his teammate's car on the straight, costing him the race and at least 10 World Championship points.
The next race is the Austrian Grand Prix on June 29.
Reporting by ANP
