Fast facts from the 2023 Canadian Grand Prix

As the chequered flag fell in Montreal, the team were celebrating their biggest points haul at a single grand prix in 41 races.

It was a mixed weekend across both sides of the Williams Racing garage, with Logan Sargeant’s early retirement a disappointing note on a largely positive visit to Canada.

Alex Albon’s timesheet-topping slick tyre strategy in Qualifying was just the appetiser for his masterful drive on Sunday, bringing his upgraded FW45 home in P7.

Here are some fast facts from the weekend that was the Canadian Grand Prix just gone.

Saturday brought wet conditions, traditionally a great leveller in motorsport. However, by the time the race against the stopwatch began, the rain had started to ease and a lot of team radio chatter was dominated by how close the time was to dry tyres.

Alex finished Q1 in P6, safely through to the second stage. As the remaining drivers all ventured out to set their first laps, Alex hung back and was the last of the 15 to hit the circuit, but crucially the only one on slicks.

As other teams were indecisive as to which tyre to go on, Alex set three consecutively quick laps to put himself on the top of the timesheet.

And as he crossed the line at the end of his third push, the rain started to fall heavier and no one could eclipse Albono’s 1:18.75 – the fastest lap of anyone in all three qualifying sessions.

As Alex himself said on Saturday evening: “Hopefully that’s the first P1 with more to come in the future.”

This was the first time a Williams Racing driver had topped any qualifying segment since Felipe Massa was P1 in Q1 at the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix.

Sunday’s result might have been Alex’s fifth top-10 finish whilst in Williams Racing colours, but it was his highest so far.

A P9 in Miami last season had been his previous best, but that was comfortably surpassed on the weekend.

In one fell swoop, Alex surpassed his 2022 points total of four, with six earned in Montreal added to his single point from Bahrain.

But just how did he do it?

We can all remember Albono’s heroics from Melbourne 2022 where he took a set of hard tyres from the start to the penultimate lap to earn his first point for the team.

On Sunday in Montreal, after boxing during the Safety Car period, it looked certain to those watching that he had committed to a two-stop strategy.

However, Alex just kept going and going, with those who pitted at the same time as him pulling in for a second stop from Lap 35-42. Our No23 stayed out, now committing to the one-stop.

And, as we know, he made it work with a mix of masterful defending and a cool head behind the wheel.

He took his tyres 27 laps further than the average Hard C3 stint length.

We all know the characteristics of our FW45 by now, it’s pretty slippery in a straight line.

So it should be of no surprise that the No23 was the quickest through the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve speed trap, clocked at 343.0km/h (213.1mph).

To put this into perspective, that’s a whole 3km/h faster than the next quickest car through the speed trap, the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu.

For those immediately behind him in the final 30 laps, he has a noticeable advantage. At their fastest, George Russell was registered at 334.6km/h and Esteban Ocon at 324.5km/h.

Quite rightfully, you all voted Alex as F1’s Driver of the Day as the race came to a close with 28.7% of the ballot going his way.

Our Thai driver didn’t put a foot wrong all afternoon, under immense pressure when even the slightest of lockups would have seen him tumble down the order in a matter of seconds.

Fans were watching on at home as his intense battle with Ocon became the focus of the world feed, and we were all treated to his joyful team radio shortly after he crossed the line.

It’s just the fourth time in Alex’s F1 career that he has been awarded this fan-voted accolade that was first introduced in 2016. His previous three came at the 2019 Chinese and US Grands Prix plus the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix, the venue we look forward to visiting once again next week.