Starting grid: penalties for Sainz, Hulkenberg, Tsunoda and Stroll

F1 Grand Prix, GP Canada, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

Drivers will line up quite differently at today’s 52nd Canadian Grand Prix compared to how they ended up in the rain-soaked qualifying session yesterday.

Double world champion Max Verstappen secured his third consecutive and 25th career pole position yesterday in challenging conditions. The Dutchman narrowly beat Haas racer Nico Hulkenberg, who put in a great effort to secure his third career first role starting position.

However, the German lost his second place for a red flag infringement after the FIA stewards found out that the Haas driver failed to stay above the minimum lap time during a red flag following Oscar Piastri’s crash in Q3.

The stewards stated: “He was at T1 when the red flag was displayed, however at that point he was already 1.5 seconds over his delta time. He claimed this made it extremely difficult for him to come below the delta in the next sector. He also admitted to confusion about the beep signal in his headset, and therefore at one stage thought he was going too slow.

"Comparison of telemetry with that of Car 31 showed that in general for the rest of the lap he was approximately the same speed as Car 31 which complied with the delta times in each mini-sector. We regard this as a mitigating circumstance.

"However, the regulation is very clear and whilst there is no question of the driver acting dangerously or driving unsafely, there was a breach and thus a penalty has to be imposed. The normal penalty for failure to slow under red flags is 10 grid positions however in view of the mitigating circumstance, a lower penalty is appropriate. “

The Spaniard was found guilty by the stewards of impeding rival Pierre Gasly in the final stages of Q1 in qualifying with the incident forcing the Frenchman to go off track to avoid Sainz at the final chicane.

“The driver of Car 55 [Sainz] stated that he was surprised that the driver of Car 22 [Yuki Tsunoda] overtook him into Turn 13 and as a result he accelerated late to start his fast lap,” said the stewards' report.

“The driver of Car 10 [Gasly] stated that the driver of Car 55 could have and should have gone earlier. Telemetry showed a significant speed differential between Cars 55 and 10. Although the overtaking move by Car 22 took the driver of Car 55 by surprise, it is our determination that the driver of Car 55 was predominantly to blame and [that he] unnecessarily impeded Car 10."

Elsewhere, AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda will lose three spots from his 16th-place qualifying position for impeding Nico Hulkenberg in the first qualifying segment.

Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll will also drop three positions from his 13th-place result after having been found guilty of impeding Alpine rival Esteban Ocon.