2022 Canadian GP Raceday Update and Tips – JP
2022 Canadian GP Raceday Update
The racing starts a bit later than usual today and in plenty of time, James Punt has a 2022 Canadian GP Raceday update. You can check out his outright preview here.
2022 Canadian GP Raceday
The wet qualifying session did produce a mixed up grid and it makes this afternoon’s race all the more interesting.
Max Verstappen starts from pole position and he has looked very much in control all weekend. His main two rivals are in trouble and so long as his car remains reliable and he gets a clean start, the race is his for the taking.
Pole position man has won three of the five races here in the turbo hybrid era and crossed the line first four times. Max has only started from pole once this season and went on to win that race. He has of course, won five of the eight races in 2022 and four of the last five.
We backed him ante post at 19.1 for 2 points and he will start the race at a best priced 1.40. We are ahead of the curve for the race winner market and can move on from that.
Alonso On Front Row
The grid sees Fernando Alonso starting second. We have backed Alpine to have a double points finish at 2.40 and with Ocon starting from seventh, that bet is still live. Alonso says his target is to finish in the top 5 and he has finished each session so far, in the top 5.
His finishing rate in 2022 isn’t great and his best finish so far, two seventh places. He thinks that the performance gap between them and Red Bull/Ferrari is so big, that Perez and Leclerc will finish ahead of him, despite starting 13th and 19th respectively.
That means Alonso is likely to be racing Lewis Hamilton for that 5th place. Hamilton qualified fourth having been complaining that his car is undrivable. However, in the slow, wet conditions of qualifying the playing field was a little more even. He has finished fourth twice in 2022, both times when two of the big four had retired.
Hamilton opted for a smaller, lower drag wing before qualifying which may play some dividends today, but his big problem will be the bouncing. Like Alonso, Hamilton is likely to be playing for a top 6 finish if Perez and Leclerc make their way up the order.
Haas Surprise
One of the biggest surprises was to see the two Haas qualify 5th and 6th, the team’s best ever qualifying result. Magnussen had shown good wet weather qualifying pace at Imola and clearly the car loves the wet. Today is going to be dry, wall to wall sunshine and 20 degrees. That is likely to bring the two drivers back into the midfield, but they will be hoping to get one car home in the points.
Ocon and Russell fill the fourth row. Ocon has six top 10s in 2022 and hopefully he can convert his second best qualifying position into another. He has two top tens from two starts here already.
George Russell took the gamble to try his last qualifying lap on slicks yesterday. It was worth a try, but it was losing bet. However, he has bettered his grid position in every race this year and always finished in the top 5. That might be harder this weekend with Leclerc and Perez coming from behind, but he has the pace to beat the two Haas and he is 1.57 to finish in the top 6. Those odds look about right.
Ricciardo in 9th
After the fourth row we have a right old mixed up rabble, Danny Ricciardo starts 9th, only his fourth top ten start of the season. He has only finished top 10 twice, but says he is starting to get more confident with the car. He is 1.67 for a points finish but that looks short enough with faster cars behind him. If he can beat the two Haas, then he can do it and he has looked better this weekend.
Guanyu Zhou starts in tenth and like Ricciardo, he will struggle to stay there. He hasn’t finished in the top ten since his tenth place in the opening race in Bahrain, but this is the first time he has started higher than 13th. He didn’t show any great pace in practice and is a beneficiary of Leclerc and Perez’ woes.
Lando Norris is out of position thanks to a power unit problem robbing him of the chance to run in Q2. He has only failed to finish in the top 10 twice this season and once in the last seven. The team are still looking into the issue which caused Lando’s problem and while he is tempting @ 2.00 to finish in the points, if the problem returns, he is toast.
Valtteri Bottas ended up 11th and he is another who generally goes better in the race than in qualifying. Reliability is always a worry with the Alfa Romeo, but if he finishes, he looks a reasonable bet to do so in the points, and he is something of a track specialist.
Perez And Leclerc Poorly Positioned
The two cars most out of position are Sergio Perez in 13th and Charles Leclerc in 19th. Perez’ two worst grid positions before this weekend, was a 7th at Imola and 5th at Barcelona. He finished both in second place. He hasn’t looked very comfortable this weekend after a couple of good races and his odds of 3.00 are not enough to tempt me. Montreal is not a track on which he has gone well at.
Charles Leclerc has an all new power unit to give him a few more horses, and should it hold together and he gets a break or two, a podium is not out of the question on this track. It would be suitably ironic if he were to finish back on the podium, starting from the backrow, when he has failed to do so in the last three races from the front row.
