The race Sainz should have won? What the Canadian GP data shows

In the lead, with what appeared to be the fastest car on track, Carlos Sainz may have thought that Montreal would finally be the moment of his debut Formula 1 win.

There was no threat from his team-mate, who had started 19th, nor Sergio Perez who retired early on. And Max Verstappen seemed to have his work cut out after pitting early.

It was a golden opportunity for the Spaniard to claim victory, and yet — after pitting under a safety car and trading track position for fresher tyres — he trailed Verstappen by 0.9sec at the flag.

Was he the victim of unfortunate timing, or should he really have won the race? Let’s see what the data shows.

Chart 1: Race Story, cumulative delta plot

A wet qualifying session brought an opportunity for Sainz to set himself up for the race, with his team-mate out of the way. He was looking good for a front row start until he got over-eager and out of shape in the final corner, compromising his lap. Sainz relinquished his claim to P2 as a result, with Fernando Alonso taking the accolade and advantage.

But although he started on the second row of the grid, Sergio Perez’s error, which saw him out of qualifying in Q2, put him out of play to interfere with Sainz’ campaign. The cards were in Sainz’s favour to mount a serious challenge.

As the race got underway, Verstappen had a clean and unchallenged getaway, with Alonso focusing on his defence against fellow compatriot Sainz. This defence would be short-lived, with Sainz clearing his former idol in a few laps and making his pursuit towards the championship leader.

You can see his early progress in the graph above by following the solid red line that represents his cumulative pace. The chart plots drivers’ average lap time over the course of the race, dividing their total race time by the number of laps completed. This is compared with the average 1min 18sec lap time of the leader.

However, Sainz faced some early graining on his medium tyres, stalling his progress as the gap to Verstappen remained relatively stable until Perez ground to a halt on lap 7.

The ensuing virtual safety car provided a chance for a cheap pitstop and Verstappen took the opportunity, solving his own graining issues with a set of clean and robust hard tyres.

Ferrari elected to keep Sainz out and the Ferrari driver took the lead. The decision was sensible, as mirroring the strategy would reduce the battle down to a straight fight on pace. The advantage would then seem to lie with Verstappen based on earlier weekend running.

This way, Ferrari’s strategy gamble could yield benefits from a tyre offset.

Chart 2: Tyre strategy

Two virtual safety cars (VSC) in the first 20 laps, followed by the full safety car later in the race, skewed team tactics so that Pirelli’s three recommended strategies, shown at the top of the chart, had to be adapted.

Sainz was able to work through the graining phase and significantly extend his first stint on the yellow-walled medium tyre – gaining an 11 lap advantage against Verstappen as shown above.

He didn’t lose time in the pitlane by staying out during the first VSC period either, as a second VSC, caused by a mechanical retirement for Mick Schumacher, neutralised Verstappen’s earlier advantage.

This also gave Sainz licence to extend his stint and shorten any subsequent stints on different tyres. It afforded Sainz the tyre offset advantage at a cost of about six seconds compared with Verstappen’s first 20 laps, with 50 laps remaining in the race. It looked like advantage Ferrari at this stage.

Chart 3: Lap Times Compared,  Sainz vs Verstappen

The solid lines above show the laptime trends of both Verstappen and Sainz, minimising anomalies caused by traffic and errors. The middle part of Chart 3 highlights how the tyre offset gave Sainz the opportunity to push harder on his tyres relative to Verstappen and therefore extract more pace.

After lap 30, Sainz’s lap times begin to get more volatile, while Verstappen is able to find a narrow range in performance. Despite this, Sainz’s trend pace is still better than that of Verstappen’s but not good enough to put a meaningful dent in that six-second gap as shown in Chart 1 – with little change in the relative position between both drivers.