The final 15 laps of the Canadian Grand Prix left everyone holding their breath, thanks to the duel between Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz.
The Red Bull driver and the Ferrari driver fought until the last lap for victory at the Montreal track, in which the Dutchman ended up winning.
During the race, it seemed that Sainz had better race pace than Verstappen, but also that the speed on the straights of the RB18 allowed the world champion to defend himself until the checkered flag.
At the end of hostilities, and once they reached Parc Fermé, Verstappen confirmed the suspicions, stating that if Sainz had managed to pass him, then there would have been nothing left for him to do.
“Luckily this year we are very quick on the straights and that helps us. Ferrari was very strong in the race and if they had overtaken us it would have been very difficult to get back into the lead, but our strategy worked.”
Sainz, the second involved, painted a picture similar to Verstappen’s about what happened. According to the Spaniard, his F1-75 was faster than the RB18, but only by a few tenths. This minimal difference was not enough to be able to pass the current world champion, and achieve what would have been his first victory in F1.
“The opportunity to attack Max and win the race was there. It would have been interesting to see what could have happened without that last Safety Car. I’ve spoken to Max and he thinks he wouldn’t have caught me if the Safety Car hadn’t intervened.”
“I think I was making a good pace at that moment. After the Safety Car I can say that I gave it my all. I want my first victory much more than all the fans and all the people at home”, confessed the Madrid native.
“I have given everything, I have risked everything, but to overtake a Red Bull you have to have a lot of speed. Today we were faster than the Red Bull, but not enough to overtake on the track.”
If the two protagonists of the duel agreed on the version given to the press, a few hours after the end of the race a voice was raised outside this choir, quite recognizable and scathing. It was that of the usual Helmut Marko .
The Red Bull adviser claimed, albeit with somewhat sibylline words, that the reason Ferrari was faster than the Austrian car was due to technical problems affecting the RB18s.
Sergio Pérez, the second Red Bull, was forced to retire in Montreal with a gearbox failure, which seems to reinforce this theory of the Austrian. Verstappen, meanwhile, had difficulties with radio communications, but his car seemed to have no problems.
“Yes, the Ferrari had better pace than Max,” Marko confirmed to Motorsport.com. “The Ferrari was a bit faster. I think our team knows why this has happened. But it’s a small thing. If some small factors are not perfect, then the opponents are immediately attacked…”
When asked if these words were related to some problem in Verstappen’s RB18 and not to the increased performance of the Ferraris after the latest updates, Marko replied: “No, it is a problem of our technical department, but I can not give more. information about it…”
