Why Red Bull's competition shouldn't cheer too soon after closing gap with Verstappen

Aston Martin and Mercedes shouldn't cheer too soon after the Grand Prix weekend in Montreal. Max Verstappen won with a nine-second lead, which is a significant difference compared to the previous races where the Dutchman won with a lead of more than twenty seconds. The updates from Mercedes and Aston Martin are indeed effective, but the RB19 simply wasn't well-suited for the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Aston Martin and Mercedes seem to have made great strides in improving performance. Fernando Alonso finished 'only' nine seconds behind Verstappen, despite having to deal with a problem that required him to adjust his pace. However, it turned out to be a false alarm. "The sensors indicated a defect in the fuel system," writes Auto, Motor und Sport. "For fear of using too much fuel, Alonso received instructions to back off a bit earlier before the corners. That cost him one to two tenths per lap."

Mercedes has already shown good speed with the updates in Spain. "Two more upgrades will be added before the summer break. If they work as well as the first one, Mercedes is confident that it can challenge Red Bull in the second half of the season." Nevertheless, the competition needs to take a step back. The RB19 was not particularly well-suited for the layout of the fast street circuit. During the race, Verstappen had more difficulty than the competition in keeping the tires in the optimal operating window, given the cool conditions.

Ferrari also making strides

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished the race outside of the top three. According to Helmut Marko, Ferrari was faster than Red Bull, Aston Martin and Mercedes last weekend. The Italian team had a light-bulb moment after the Spanish Grand Prix, allowing them to extract more speed from the car. "Ferrari has also taken a step forward. During the tire test after the race in Barcelona, the engineers found a setup that makes the red car much more predictable in its response."