Formula 1: Verstappen won in Canada and celebrated the 100th Red Bull victory

World champion Max Verstappen made sure of that, winning comfortably from pole position in Montreal. The Dutchman relegated Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin and Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes to the other podium finishes. Only four other teams – Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Williams – had previously achieved the mark of 100 Grand Prix victories.

Defending champion Verstappen extended his lead in the championship standings as team-mate Sergio Perez couldn’t get past sixth place at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. For Verstappen it was the 41st Grand Prix victory, equalizing the life’s work of three-time world champion Ayrton Senna. This season, the 25-year-old has prevailed for the sixth time in the eighth race. The other two wins are on Perez’s account.

Red Bull had contested its first season in Formula 1 in 2005, the first victory was achieved by Sebastian Vettel in April 2009 in Shanghai. “It’s a shame that he couldn’t experience it anymore,” said Helmut Marko about the Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz, who died in 2022 and who once bought the Jaguar team and redesigned it according to his ideas. “It was a big risk back then. Our expectations were that we might win a Grand Prix,” explained the former Mateschitz intimate in the ServusTV interview.

At the start, Alonso had lost a position in the first few meters, the Spaniard had to cede second place to Hamilton. The only disruption to the normal course of events was the safety car on lap 12, which had to be deployed after an accident involving fourth-placed George Russell. The Brit had crashed his Mercedes into the wall on the right side, but was able to continue. Only much later did Russell have to give up the race. When the safety car was parked again, Alonso overtook Hamilton on lap 23.

Meanwhile, Verstappen gradually pulled away from Alonso. The positions seemed cemented in place: the Ferrari pairing Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz followed Hamilton in fourth and fifth place, followed by Perez in the second Red Bull in sixth place. The distances between each were quite comfortable. It only got tighter between Alonso and Hamilton for second place, but the Spaniard stayed ahead.

The ninth race of the season takes place in two weeks at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg. Another sprint is scheduled for the day before the 36th Austrian Grand Prix in Formula 1 on Sunday, July 2nd. The first was won in Baku Perez at the end of April.