It was misery in Montreal this weekend for Charles Leclerc and the rest of the Scuderia Ferrari at the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday, June 9, with both cars retiring from the running just two weeks after scoring a very memorable victory and double podium in Monaco.
After lining up in P11 and P12 respectively following a difficult qualifying session on Saturday, Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both struggled to make ground from the midfield as the race progressed, with Leclerc’s day being the first to go from bad to worse when his SF-24 began to struggle with an engine issue.
The Scuderia opted to gamble on a switch to slick tyres on Lap 29, despite the rest of the field remaining on intermediates amid changing, but mostly very wet conditions. The move failed to pay off and the Monegasque returned to the pits to retire the car on Lap 43 of 70.
When asked to sum up his emotions after the race, Leclerc answered: “Honestly there is not much more to say apart from the engine issue cost us everything. Then at one point we tried to go on the slicks when we knew it was going to be… more chances that it wouldn’t work, but we had to test something because, with the engine issues we had, we would have been out the points anyway, and that was it really.”
It was an equally tough day for Sainz, who found himself out of the running just a few laps later into the race after helplessly spinning at the exit of Turn 7, subsequently collecting the Williams of Alex Albon in the process.
In total five drivers did not manage to finish a hectic Canadian GP this year, which ultimately had the likely winner of Max Verstappen, the defending world champion seemingly back on form after a Monaco GP to forget for himself and the rest of Red Bull.
Lando Norris put in a big shift to get his papaya-coloured McLaren car across the chequered line in second place, while Mercedes’ George Russell was not too delighted with exchanging his pole position start for a third place finish on race day.
Russell managed to overtake teammate Lewis Hamilton for the final spot on the podium in the dying moments of the race with a very bold move, but Hamilton arguably had the better race in the end, having gained three positions since a very soggy start at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.
The next race will see the Formula 1 circus travel to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the Spanish GP on Sunday, June 23.
Featured image courtesy of @ScuderiaFerrari on X
