Verstappen soaks up late-race pressure to win in Canada

With the race back at full speed, Verstappen swiftly dispatched Alonso to run in P2 and only 5.5s behind Sainz, who elected to stay out in the full-course yellow flag period. However, the Ferrari driver had a second chance to swap tires nine laps later. Mick Schumacher joined Perez on the retirement list after his Haas engine gave up. This second VSC saw several drivers who didn't pit during the first period dive in for new tires, including Sainz.

With the race back under green flag conditions, Verstappen led from Alonso, who curiously did not take a pit stop, and Sainz, then Hamilton, in the top four. Unsurprisingly, Sainz and Hamilton didn't take too long to scythe past the Alpine on its old medium tires as Alonso tried to make a contrary strategy work and the middle portion of the race became a gradual gap-closing process for Carlos Sainz. The Ferrari driver was the only one of those in the podium places to have pitted in the second VSC and thus have more grip.

The difficulties in running on the older rubber soon became apparent as Max Verstappen began complaining to his team about the tire wear by Lap 34. Two barometers for tire life were Alonso and Leclerc, who managed to get to Lap 29 and Lap 34, respectively, before taking their first trip into the pit lane. It wasn't long until another Verstappen radio message – "Tires are really starting to struggle, mate" – came over the airwaves, and Red Bull pitted the leader on Lap 43.

Verstappen returned to the track behind Hamilton, who himself pitted one lap later, as those running their Pirellis since the first VSC could not make a one-stop strategy work. However, if either had waited for another few laps, they could've saved themselves a lot of time. The race director called for a Safety Car to take to the track after Yuki Tsunoda drove straight into the barriers after pitting.

Knowing that Verstappen was on much fresher tires behind him, Ferrari didn't hesitate to bring in Sainz from the lead during the slowdown to put him on a new set of rubber, too. The decision was the right one, and he queued up behind the Dutch driver behind the Safety Car, with tires that were several laps newer than Verstappen's and ready to take the fight to Red Bull.

The final 15 laps of running were frantic with Verstappen and Sainz slogging it out for the race lead. Sainz opted to recharge his battery on alternating laps and push forwards in between. Verstappen couldn't put a wheel wrong, else he would see the Ferrari race past him, but he drove faultlessly to retain the lead, crossing the line only one second ahead of Sainz in P2.

The result marks Verstappen's fifth win in six races and demonstrates how in control of the 2022 championship he is. Sainz will have to wait for another day to take his first F1 victory, but another podium will quiet down some dissenting voices. Hamilton's critics will also be at bay after he took his first silverware since the season-opening Bahrain GP, while Leclerc recovered to P5 and Alonso slipped to a disappointing P9. F1 returns at the start of July for an intense four-race month, where Verstappen will look to continue this impressive run of form.