Ferstappen quicker than Saint and Alonso in Canada’s first tests

Most notably, Fernando Alonso, unlike all other riders – as well as Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc who followed him into the top five – reached year three with the center eraser on the four edges of the Alpine A522 while everyone else trimmed the rest with the soft best.

Of course, times are not yet indicative and will fall as the tarmac on Our Lady of Montreal Island – which hosted Formula 1 cars for three years – is being paved with rubber. The weather will also play a role, as the thick clouds over the track – if they don’t rain – will definitely lower the temperature of the asphalt.

Ferstappen was in the lead for long stretches of the first free stages of this year’s 9th race. He traded it several times with fellow RBR Sergio Perez and then Ferrari’s Carlos Sainte.

Drivers typically collected laps and data on the medium eraser for the first half hour, but after about half an hour they hit the track on the soft tires. Ferstappen returned to the pits after his first outing with a problem in an RB18 suspension reverse beam, but upon returning to the track he knocked Saint down with a relatively cautious lap at 1’15.441 from the front.

No one could win that time in midfield back then, of course not even when the teams then devoted themselves to the round meetings in midfield to prepare for the playing conditions.

With one of those sets, Alonso scored his fastest lap ahead of Perez and Charles Leclerc, who never threatened the front in that hour-long process. Monegasque had a new heat engine (V6 turbo) but an old turbo after leaving Azerbaijan and perhaps for that reason his start in Montreal was cautious.

The six was closed again by Mercedes’ George Russell, ahead of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin, who – using the same powerplant – closed it by half a tenth! Perhaps the upgrade to Spain of the AMR22, which has been written about so much for its similarity to the Red Bull RB18, is now paying off.

And it is striking that Stroll, driving the other Mercedes W13 (which also has another experimental new bottom in Montreal and Baku), clocked exactly the same time as Lewis Hamilton, while Sebastian Vettel followed in his footsteps, a tenth and a half behind. The McLaren finished with Daniel Ricciardo in the top ten, at a time when a mechanical problem with Lando Norris’ MCL36 sent the Brit into the pits early.

Two of the weird things that happened in Montreal were the fire on the brakes of Esteban Ocon’s Alpine due to gravel getting into the air ducts, but also the classic crossings of the track by the demons and luckily quite lucky marmots.