The Canadian Grand Prix lived up to Badger’s slogan more than any other race this season – it was a supreme grand prix, packed full of overtaking, racing, pit stops, strategies and battles on and off the track. What we saw today was a closely fought grand prix without any pesky safety car interruptions and Lewis Hamilton proved he’s here to win the title again as he now leads the championship. Ferrari fired a warning with Alonso coming home a strong third as Red Bull had no answer to either of them today.
Here’s the full result and how it happened:
The start – Lewis leads the way
As predicted the Canadian Grand Prix was a tad unpredictable – there wasn’t a safety car but there was everything else. Liuzzi and Massa came together but both continued. Petrov jumped the start and lost control, collided with the luckless De La Rosa but both survived.
Up at the front Hamilton led from pole position, but was being attacked by Vettel and Alonso who also had Kubica right behind him. Button, like Hamilton was struggling on the soft tyres, creating a bit of a train, until Webber finally found a way past.
Lotus had a cracking start with Heikki up in 12th and Jarno not far behind before any pit stops took place.
The first half – pit stops-a-plenty
We wouldn’t normally say it’s a race of two halves but the Canadian GP was so packed with action that ther’s no other way to look at it – so, before half distance we had Alonso, Vettel, Webber, Hamilton and Buemi all leading the race at some point.
After Hamilton and Button changed for hard tyres, they gave the lead to the Red Bull duo with Vettel in the lead. Alonso pitted at the same time as Hamilton and inevitably this ended with the pair of them side by side leaving the pit lane. Alonso took the lead around the first corner, but was harassed continuously by Hamilton.
Kubica and Schumacher had an iffy moment with Robert looking to get past Michael who forced them both off onto the grass – a classic clever, borderline dodgy Schumacher move.
Massa took the fastest lap away from Alonso at the mid point on lap 35 where the order was: Webber, Hamilton, Alonso, Button, Vettel, Kubica, Rosberg, Buemi, Alguersuari and Schumacher for the top 10.
It’s worth pointing out that at this point both McLarens and Vettel had no more hard tyres and were aiming to complete the race on their current tyres while Webber, although leading was still to use the soft tyres. The other five top drivers were looking to stay out. The different strategies was brilliantly confusing as the race entered final 35 laps.
Calm after the storm – surely not?
With 25 laps left the Lotus of Jarno Trulli failed – a great shame after a super start. The man in real trouble though was Mark Webber who originally had a 12 second lead only to have it go down to only a few seconds as Hamilton and Alonso caught him. He was struggling due to his hard tyres finally wearing out with him yet to use the soft tyres. By lap 50 Hamilton took Webber for first and Webber pitted for his final stint of 19 laps on the soft tyres.
This left Webber down in 5th with Hamilton leading Alonso from Button and Vettel in 4th. Elsewhere, further down the field, Massa was having a busy afternoon battling with the Force India cars down in 12th – not a great day for the Brazilian.
The Lotus team will be chuffed with Heikki Kovalainen who kept his good run off the line and now had 16th ahead of Petrov and the rest of the new teams. Virgin Racing still had both cars running and Hispania’s sole remaining car continued in 19th.
Race for the flag – Webber loses out
Button made a move on Alonso to line McLaren up for a 1-2 finish. Hamilton was under pressure from the chasing duo of Button and Alonso with Red Bull looking to settle for 4th and 5th. These gentlemen remained as they were and Vettel struggled home with a ‘car problem’ for 4th ahead of Webber. Again the German didn’t look happy after the race – the 2010 season isn’t working out as well as he hoped.
He won’t be the most upset German though – for Michael Schumacher had a shocker of a performance today with a dodgy move on Massa after a previous dodgy move on Kubica and then in the final lap was over taken by both Force India cars to classify 11th and out of the points. Was it still a good idea to come back Michael?
Well done to McLaren today, their gamble came off well and the Canadian Grand Prix was yet another action packed episode in Formula 1 2010.
