Postcards from… Montreal

There's a sense of inevitability about what's coming, given how the season has gone so far for Max Verstappen. This time, his Canadian win set another historic milestone, with the Dutchman claiming the 41st victory of his still young career; equalling the total of Ayrton Senna. Max seemed to take it all in with a degree of nonchalance: not for him the tears shed by Michael Schumacher at Monza in 2000; the year in which the German famously sealed an identical achievement. But behind the cool exterior, there must have been some emotion inside the Red Bull driver's helmet when he crossed the finish line in Montreal.

After the race, Verstappen commented: “The only thing I can say is that when I was just a kid racing in go-karts, I only dreamed of becoming a Formula 1 driver one day and I would have never imagined that I might win 41 grands prix. So, equalling Ayrton's total is something incredible. I'm proud of that, but I'm hoping it doesn't stop there.”

With Max having won 20 of the last 27 races, he won't need much more time to catch up with the victory total of grand prix legends Alain Prost (with 51 wins) and Sebastian Vettel (53). That could even happen this year already. But overtaking the totals of Schumacher – 91 wins – and Hamilton (103 wins) might have to wait for a while longer…

Montreal is now not only part of Verstappen's history, but also that of his illustrious Red Bull team. Sunday's win was the 100th for the Anglo-Austrian squad, which now joins the exclusive club of teams that have won 100 races or more, including Ferrari (242 wins), McLaren (183 wins), Mercedes (125 wins), and Williams (114 wins). The Milton Keynes squad opened its victory account in China back in 2009, shortly after beginning its fifth season, and has only endured one winless season since, in 2015. So it was only fitting that the manufacturer representative claiming the trophy for Red Bull on the Montreal podium was Adrian Newey: the father of all the Red Bull cars, with their varying degrees of success. Newey, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko constitute the triumvirate of visionaries who were able to transform a marketing concept into a super team able to take on the established giants of Formula 1. And the results of their work are clear to see.

The Gilles Villeneuve circuit witnessed a new chapter in the duel between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, right at the track where the Englishman won his first grand prix back in his debut season of 2007, when him and Alonso were team mate for the first (and only) time. Of course seasons and moods change, so anyone meeting them for the first time now might assume they are best of friends, but in truth there's always been a healthy rivalry between them – at least on the track. One of the things that marks this season out is how some drivers are consistently getting the better of their team mates: Hamilton has scored 37 points more than George Russell (6-2 being the score so far in the races) while Alonso has bagged 80 more points than Lance Stroll, with the Canadian having finished in front of his Spanish team mate only once. Both Fernando and Lewis harbour a more significant ambition though: being the first to defeat Red Bull in 2023.

It's a formidable task as the overall performance gap to the reigning world champions is still big. In the meantime, they'll continue to try and beat each other, entertaining both themselves and everyone who is lucky enough to watch.

“There's light at the end of the tunnel,” said Ferrari's Fred Vasseur after the Canadian Grand Prix, where Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished fourth and fifth respectively. That wasn't the best result of the season though – neither in terms of points nor positions – as in Baku Leclerc claimed a podium, which together with a strong result in the sprint race netted 36 points in total. But at Montreal, the SF-23 showed itself to be a bit closer to Verstappen's all-conquering Red Bull: the gap between Ferrari and the fastest Bull was in fact smaller than last year.

Unfortunately for Ferrari, their weakest day in Canada was Saturday – which up to now has been the Maranello squad's biggest strength, being the only team to disrupt Red Bull's run of pole positions. Once the red team is able to put together a consistently solid weekend from Friday to Sunday, then it can perhaps challenge for the podium once more on a regular basis – and maybe even something better. With aerodynamic updates and a better understanding of their car, Maranello is making progress but as can only happen in this fabled team, the internal and external pressure, along with expectations, are huge. Fourth and fifth places isn't enough to make them happy.

Alex Albon was delighted with his Canadian Grand Prix – and with good reason. The Anglo-Thai driver brought his Williams home in an excellent seventh place; a car that's somewhat towards the back of the grid in terms of overall competitiveness. But thanks to some great strategy as well as his own talent, Alex nonetheless topped Q2 on Saturday by taking advantage of the only window of opportunity to run slick tyres.

When it came to the race, Alex demonstrated his tyre management skills once more. His Williams got underway from P9 on a set of used medium tyres, and Albon made his first and only stop on lap 12 when the race was neutralised after Russell hit the wall. He then managed the hard tyre perfectly for 58 laps to the flag, successfully keeping a few more competitive cars behind him, such as Esteban Ocon's Alpine and Stroll's Aston Martin.

It was an excellent achievement from Albon but not the first time he has displayed such prodigiousness. In Australia last year, Albon waited until the 58th and last lap to make his mandatory pit stop, eventually finishing in a point-scoring 10th place overall.