Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc reflect on their issues during F1 Canadian GP but still scoring well, as Frederic Vasseur adds to the weekend talk.
Already on Saturday, it was a setback for Ferrari’s Leclerc with the moment in Q3 which derailed his qualifying and he was only eighth. Teammate Hamilton did better in fifth and started well on Sunday too. But it didn’t take long for the Brit to drop behind Oscar Piastri.
He lost a lot of time thenafter which included loss against Lando Norris and teammate Piastri, who started behind him and were on different strategy. Hamilton tried the one stop as well, which didn’t work as a delayed first stop only helped the other two to stretch a good lead.
During the closing stages when Hamilton sounded downbeat, his race engineer revealed of him carrying an issue. Only after the race, it was ascertained that the Brit hit a groundhog at the exit of Turn 9 and approach of Turn 10. The onboard showed him going through the animal in the middle of the track.
The impact was at the center point which damaged his front wing and floor. He lost 20 points of downforce as Vasseur noted, who added that Ferrari has been sensitive to aero losses and any small amount lost, the car is slower to drive and move around.
He kept the rest of the pack at bay to end up seventh but was promoted to sixth due to Norris’ retirement. Even Leclerc gained a place to be fifth in the end. He had decent pace and wanted to go for one stop, only to be denied by the team, which led to some radio exchanges.
Immediately after the race, Leclerc was adamant on his stance, but wanted to understand if one stop was really possible. On the whole, he reckons he lost out on Saturday itself, which cost him a chance to fight for the podium, as the car looked much better in 2025 than 2024.
What happened with groundhog –
Hamilton: “Someone said it was a groundhog. I didn’t know what it was, I just felt something. I think it was Lap 12 or something, right at the beginning. [It] just destroyed the front right of the car. I was just slow, I was just lacking a lot of performance. I think it was over half a second, so just going backwards.”
Vasseur: “First, it’s true that we had a small kiss with a marmot. I don’t know how you call it in English, a marmot. It was lap 8 or 9 [11-12] at the beginning of the first stint and we damaged all the front part of the floor. It’s something like 20 points. Hopefully, we didn’t have a big change in balance, but it was a lot of performance. We will send flowers to the marmot.”
Race, weekend –
Hamilton: “I think, yeah, my qualifying was better, I was holding on up until the damage. I was kind of holding on to Piastri, I think with the damage then I started to drop off from Piastri and then we probably should have stopped around the similar sort of time, but we for some reason stayed out and then I lost a ton of time and came out behind a bunch of people and then I was stuck behind people so then I just ended up in no man’s land. But to still come away with sixth is a positive. I think if everything was perfect, if we had done everything right and we didn’t have any problems, maybe we would have a fourth.
“Well, I mean, I finished 6th, so it would have been 7th if it wasn’t for a crash up ahead, which I was grateful for. So the positives, Montreal never fails to amaze. And I think the crowd was incredible this weekend, so a big thank you. It was also great to see, I’ve been coming here for 18 years and the support that I’ve had has been amazing. And to see my people that were with me follow through and come out in red this weekend has been really cool to see.”
Leclerc: “I don’t really want to speak with ifs at the end of the day. I didn’t put everything together. I think Mercedes probably had the upper hand this weekend. Red Bull is consistently there. McLaren was a little bit more on the back foot. I think we were there with them. Then where we would have ended up, I don’t know. At the end of the day, I didn’t do the job.”
Vasseur: “I think the analysis is the good one, that we showed by the moment that we were into the pace that the lap of Charles is purple sector 1, it was the weak point all over the weekend and the last lap it was purple sector 1. I don’t want to say that we would have done the pole position, but at least we would have been in a good shape. But I think we made too many mistakes collectively from the beginning with the crash in FP1, with the mistake in quali, with the marmot in the race. And at the end the fight is so tight, I’m not speaking about lap time or race time, I’m speaking about that you can change the position for almost nothing from one weekend to another one, that if you don’t do the perfect weekend, it’s a good lesson also from Mercedes.
“They were nowhere the last three weekends and they were able to have the two cars on the podium this weekend. I’m not sure that they changed completely the car, it’s more than from the beginning of the weekend, from lap 1 on Friday morning, they were there, they did a good job in the preparation and so on. And honestly this weekend, for different reasons, the focus was not always there. No, I don’t think so. But I think that as now the teams are close, and so that if you have an issue with a part of the car for two or three points of downforce, this is making a huge difference. It’s not in terms of lap time, but in terms of position. And at the end of the day we are paying attention only on position.
“It’s true also that in the past that you are bringing upgrades, you are bringing 10 points three or four times into the season, and even if the delivery of the upgrade was one or two points down, it was not a big drama. Today we are not in this situation anymore. And when I say execution, it’s also the quality. As soon as you have something going wrong, I’m not speaking about the Marmot, but as soon as you have a hit on the aero, you are paying the price directly. I was just going to throw it forward to the next race.”
Car adaption –
Hamilton: “I think mostly just me adapting, but I think this track really highlighted the weaknesses of the car and I’ve never had a car understeer so much at low speed here. It just doesn’t want to turn through Turn 2 and Turn 10. So yeah, definitely not my most favourite weekend, but I hope the next one will be better.”
Strategy call –
Leclerc: “There was obviously a bit of discussion around to understand what was the right call. We were aligned at one point, and then the team decided to converge on a two-stop, which I did not agree [with] at that moment, but eventually I think the team has more information than I do on the pit wall. But the whole review, because I was pretty sure of what I felt, what I had seen around me, that the one-stop switch was the right call.
“But again, I think the poor result of today is more down to my mistake in FP1 and the traffic in quali. I don’t think the strategy would have made a big difference. I think the starting position is eventually what holds us back. I rate my first pass this season very high. I’ll probably say that this weekend I probably didn’t extract the maximum out of our car, because I think the potential was good.”
Vasseur: “I assume we didn’t hear all of it, we just heard the usual colourful bits. They are a bit vocal and I discussed with Charles after the race that where he’s right is that we had not that much to lose when you are behind the pack and we can take some risks, but it was for us a bit too optimistic to do one stint of 50 laps with the yard in terms of life before performance. We were missing probably also some laps during the weekend to estimate it.”
Here’s F1 Canadian GP panned out
