Max Verstappen won a wet and wild Canadian Grand Prix, while Australian duo Daniel Ricciardo and Oscar Piastri were caught up in the drama of a race that had everything.
Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both failed to finish, which was a nightmare for the Marinello team, as did Red Bull's second driver Sergio Perez and two other drivers. But as is often the case, Max Verstappen was flawless – and this time he was lucky.
The weather and the crashes worked in his favor, despite a scary moment when he went off the track on lap 17.
“It was a pretty crazy race, a lot happened,” he said.
After his brilliant qualifying which earned him fifth place on the grid, Daniel Ricciardo endured a nightmarish first lap: he made a tiny false start, lost four places and dropped to ninth place in the opening corners in wet conditions.
“Did he?” said Martin Brundle on Sky Sports as he watched the replay.
Ted Kravitz added: “I have to say, it looked like the lights went out and then he started moving.”
Ricciardo received a five-second penalty for this rule violation and dropped to 12th place after the pit stops. However, he fought back strongly to finish eighth, three places behind fellow Australian Oscar Piastri.
Eighth place was Ricciardo's strongest result of the season – outside a sprint race – and a particularly promising result as his teammate Yuki Tsunoda finished outside the points in 14th after a late-race slip on the grass.
Canadian Grand Prix from Monday 4am AEST. Every qualifying session and race of the 2024 FIA Formula One World Championship™ LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Start your free trial today >
Verstappen too good at slippery Canadian GP | 03:17
The leading group of Russell, Verstappen and Lando Norris started well and held their position despite the chaos behind them until Russell dropped to third place after a serious mistake that cost him the lead.
But Verstappen got away on lap 17 and Norris soon overtook him to take second place behind pole-sitter George Russell. Norris shot into the lead before the safety car arrived at exactly the wrong time when Logan Sargeant crashed his Williams.
The McLaren star was surprised and disappointed by his team's strategy and left the pits in third place. Then the heavens opened again after the race started in the wet and the order was again shuffled as drivers pursued different strategies on dry or wet tyres.
When the rain stopped, Russell and Verstappen pitted for dry tyres before Norris opened up an 11-second lead on the leaders, but he took too long to switch back to dry tyres and cost himself the win.
Verstappen took the lead while Norris fought his way past Russell into second place.
Australian Oscar Piastri was right in the thick of it, moving into third place ahead of the Mercedes starter, but then more chaos followed when numerous drivers ended up in the wall after a series of accidents.
Piastri almost became one of them after colliding with Russell at the final chicane. Russell went off the track and dropped to fifth place, but fought back brilliantly on fresh tyres, overtaking first his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton and then Piastri to secure third place behind Verstappen and Norris.
“Honestly, it felt like a missed opportunity,” Russell said.
To make matters worse, Piastri was later overtaken by Hamilton.
“Definitely some frustration,” said Piastri. “It was a very, very tricky race where I was just trying to keep the car on the track.”
For Verstappen, it was his 50th win in his last 75 starts and he extended his championship lead on a day when Ferrari suffered a real collapse.
“It was great fun,” said Verstappen.
Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon collided towards the end of the race, but Charles Leclerc had to abandon the race due to persistent engine problems.
“I lost 1.2 (seconds) on the straights, which was extremely frustrating… it was such a frustrating race… there was nothing we could have done better,” he said.