Three things you may have missed at the Canadian F1 2019 GP

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Amid all of the furore surrounding a certain race changing penalty awarded to Sebastian Vettel there has been little coverage of a number of stories that would have been big news after any other race. Let’s have a look at three big stories that nobody is talking about.
Renault Renaissance
This weekend in Montreal Renault scored as many points as they had in the previous six races. With Daniel Ricciardo qualifying in an impressive fourth place and finishing in an almost as impressive sixth following some exciting racing with Max Verstappen and Nico Hulkenburg who managed to qualify seventh and hold on to his starting position to the end of the Grand Prix. The big question is was this some sort of fluke or quirk of the Canadian GP? The good news for Renault is that this may well be a representative result. Renault announced that they would be bringing a significant back log of upgrades to Canada as well as an engine upgrade halving the deficit to Mercedes. This certainly seems to have worked with all of the Renault powered teams making it into the final session of qualifying although they were helped by Kevin Magnussen’s crash.
Lance Stroll Impresses In Front Of Home Fans
Having failed to make it out of Q1 again you could have been forgiven for writing Lance Stroll off in the race, but an impressive stint on the hard tyre then switching to the medium brought his race alive. There was some genuinely strong driving from Stroll at his home race where he was keen to impress his fans who had their own grandstand. He managed to keep the faster Red Bull of Pierre Gasley behind him for his first stint and a great pass on Sainz who had well-worn tyres showed what he is capable of. Lance Stroll will need more races like this if he is going to convince the critics who say he only has a seat as his daddy owns the team but this will have to help boost his confidence going into an important phase of the championship.
What Might Have Been For McLaren
In a weekend that could have seen the McLarens mixing it up with the Renaults in the points McLaren must be asking themselves what could have been. Lando Norris managed to qualify in eighth and his teammate Carlos Sainz made it into Q3 only to have to take a three place grid drop for blocking Alex Albon. In the race Lando Norris looked to have some serious pace before his brakes overheated and destroyed his suspension arms ending his race and things did not go well for his teammate either. Sainz had to take a very early pit stop to have a visor tear-off strip removed from his brake duct and did well to last out on the hard compound to secure ninth. Whilst the team will be very disappointed with the race I suspect their analysis of the data from the weekend will take some of the sting away. It looks like the competition for ‘Best of the Rest’ is heating up and we watch on with interest.
Images: F1.com

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