Max Verstappen says that if he cannot win any race this year, he would like to see Fernando Alonso win it instead.

But the Dutchman said: “If you ask me one driver who I would like to see win a race, it’s him.”

Verstappen, who leads the drivers’ championship by 53 points, said Alonso “deserves it – he is a real racer”.

Alonso, a two-time champion with Renault in 2005 and 2006, last won a race for Ferrari in 2013. He spent four uncompetitive years with McLaren from 2015-18, stepped away from Formula 1 for two years to compete in endurance racing and at Indianapolis, before returning with Alpine in 2021 and then moving to Aston Martin for 2023.

He is third in the championship and has finished on the podium in all but two races so far this year.

Verstappen said: “I like him. He never gave up and you can see he loves the sport. Sometimes, after so many years of only having a car that is capable of driving in the midfield, maybe you lose a bit of that love but he is a real racer. He is an animal.”

Alonso said he was optimistic that Aston Martin would be more competitive in Canada this weekend than they were at the last race in Spain, when they had their weakest performance of the season.

“It should be a good weekend,” said Alonso, who qualified his Alpine second on the grid in the rain in Montreal last year, with wet weather predicted again for Saturday.

“But we also had expectations in Barcelona and we didn’t perform that race. We have a couple of new parts. Hopefully we can be a little bit more competitive than Barcelona.”

Verstappen is hot favourite to win on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Sunday and a victory would be the 41st of his career, drawing him level with Ayrton Senna’s total, with just Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton ahead.

Verstappen said it was impossible to compare the two achievements.

“People always have different kind of careers,” he said. “Maybe some drivers get into a race-winning car sooner than others. Nowadays, we have more races than back in the day so I never really look at the number but as a kid I would never have imagined to be in that list. It is an amazing career for sure but you can’t compare it.”

Verstappen said he understood why those watching F1 would be finding his domination of the sport a turn-off.

“It is nice sometimes to have good competition,” he sad. “For the sport in general, I understand of course if people get a bit bored if only one team is dominating. We have seen it also in the past with Mercedes and Ferrari and Red Bull.

“For sure, I hope that more teams can get together. At least then, even if you have a little issue or whatever or you can’t get the set-up fully at 100%, there is another team to win.

“It is all about hard work. I appreciated what they were doing. It was super impressive at the time. I never really felt you had to stop that. It was all about trying to work harder and catch up.

Hamilton hoping for more progress

Hamilton is the equal all-time record-holder at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, tied with Michael Schumacher on seven wins.

Mercedes had their most competitive weekend of the season in Spain two weeks ago after introducing a major car redesign at the previous event in Monaco, and Hamilton said the team were “buzzing back at the factory”.

He said the performance had given Mercedes confidence they were finally on the right car development direction to return to competitiveness after struggling since the introduction of new technical regulations in F1 in 2022.

“The whole team has this new energy and feel like we have a north star and how to get there,” he said.

“Excited coming here. We don’t know whether this track suits our car and characteristics but the weather may change that.”

Rain is predicted for the weekend, conditions in which Hamilton and team-mate George Russell usually go well.

Russell said he was not expecting an especially strong weekend from the team.

“If we are second fastest here, it would be a real confidence boost,” he said.

“It is all low-speed corners, bumpy and kerbs; I wouldn’t say it would suit our strengths. We expect Aston Martin to be quicker around here.”

Hamilton said he had met with team principal Toto Wolff to discuss a new contract since the Spain race but “there is nothing else to say at the moment”.

Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez has fallen 53 points behind the Dutchman in the championship after two error-strewn weekends in Monaco and Spain, and said he was looking forward to recovering the performance that saw him win two of the first four races of the season.

“I want a restart – go again,” the Mexican said. “I am looking forward to getting back on the form we had earlier in the season.

“I cannot afford to have any bad weekends any more. I have had two or three in the season and I really have to get rid of those and keep the consistency high because he has been really good and consistent throughout this period.”