HONDA The Power of Dreams

Retired|Lap 23

P15

At 4:00 pm local time on May 24, the race began under difficult and changeable weather conditions, with intermittent light rain. The formation lap started in cold and windy conditions, with an air temperature of 13°C and track temperature of 17°C.

grid, while Lance Stroll started from the pit lane following the replacement of components including the Energy Store (ES). Both cars started the 70-lap race on soft tires.

Conditions remained difficult at the start, with some teams opting for wet-weather intermediate tires. After the initial formation lap, one car encountered a problem on the grid, resulting in an additional formation lap. As the affected car had still not been fully cleared, a second extra formation lap followed, reducing the race distance to 68 laps.

With teams starting on different tire compounds, the opening laps featured major position changes throughout the field. Alonso managed the early chaos effectively and climbed rapidly to P14 by the end of Lap 1. As several cars that had started on intermediate tires pitted early for slicks, Alonso moved up to P10 after two laps.

He later began to lose positions as the race developed and pitted for fresh tires on Lap 20 while running in P14. After returning to the track, Alonso reported an issue with the car and returned to the pits again at the end of Lap 23. The car was then retired in the garage.

At his home Grand Prix, Stroll started from the pit lane and endured a difficult race pace throughout the event. Despite the challenging conditions and a race featuring multiple retirements, he continued consistently and gradually moved up the order while focusing on reaching the finish.

Although he ultimately finished four laps behind the race winner, Stroll completed the race in P15.

“We had a good start and we were fighting into the top ten positions. We made the right call starting on the Soft tires, with a few others opting for Intermediates and then having to pit early. Unfortunately, we had an issue with the seat in the race, so we decided to retire the car.

“We seemed to be faster here than we were in Miami with the same package. We need to wait for performance to come with our upgrades around the summer break, but we will look to keep optimizing this package until then.”

“It's been a difficult weekend in Montréal. We couldn't get the temperatures we needed into the tires and we were struggling for grip throughout the race. We didn't have the pace we needed on the straights either. The car performance isn't where we need it to be and there's still a lot of work to do to get us there.”

“We made a decent start to the race with both drivers making up ground in the opening laps. But it was difficult to stay there, especially with the threat of rain reducing. Fernando's race ended early due to a seat problem, making things uncomfortable in the cockpit, so we chose to retire the car on Lap 24. Lance's race was a conventional two-stop race [Soft-Soft-Medium] finishing in P15 ahead of Bottas. Unfortunately, we do not have more pace at the moment and this is our position.

“Separately, I would like to congratulate our colleagues at Honda for the pole position and win in the Indy 500.”

“We haven’t had any major power unit issues again on both cars today, with Lance completing full distance at his home grand prix. Unfortunately, we couldn’t finish the race on Fernando’s side, but everything was going smoothly from a power unit perspective.

“Overall, during the Canadian Grand Prix, we have confirmed positive signs on driveability so that is a good thing to take forward to the next race in Monaco as this is a key characteristic there. Still, there is a gap between driver demand and our achievements, so we will keep working to improve driveability for the season now we know the direction to go in.”