Hamilton triumphant in Canadian chaos.

After Monaco you may of felt a little apprehensive about F1. After all the last race report I wrote wasn’t really a race. More choreographed and anti climatic event. Whatever your stance on Mclarens “Team Strategy” there’s no escaping the fact it was a dull race. The fact that most the field finished the race and there were zero overtaking moves didn’t help ether.

But on to Canada where an unexpected result can be thrown up from time to time. Where you can also see overtaking and a proper race. The battle for the championship had heated up with Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton tying at the top Ferrari’s Felipe Massa 5 points behind and Kim Raikkonen losing touch after a poor Monaco race in 4th. Ferrari needed to strike back after Monaco where it was clearly shaded by Mclaren. Honda was hoping for better things with updates on their car. Bmw were also in the mix and Renault trying to prove that they were getting back on the pace with the troubled R27.

Qualifying was a battle for the front row exclusively for Mclaren drivers only. Ferrari never really looked a match for them as Lewis Hamilton took his first pole in F1 from Alonso who had been quickest until he made a mistake on the final chicane. To make matters worse for Ferrari Nick Heidfeld in the Bmw put a superb lap in to take 3rd on the grid knocking Kimi Raikkonen to 4th And Massa to 5th. Mark Webber in the Red Bull taking a fine 6th Nico Rosberg in 7th for Williams And Robert Kubica 8th in the other Bmw. It had been a good qualifying for Takuma Sato in the Super Aguri in 11th bit a shocking one for Williams Alex Wurz in 20th and Renaults Hekki Kovalainen who qualified 19th after several crashes during practice and smashing his rear wing off during Q1 and limping back to the pits. Not forgetting he had an engine blow up too which meant he would drop 10 places to replace the destroyed unit dropping him dead last. Things can only get better for the rookie...

To the race and on the grid before the parade lap And the Spyker of Adrian Sutil was pushed into the pit lane with gearbox troubles and would start from the pits. The Spyker team would effect the race but not in the way they would hope. At the green light everyone shot off to the first corner, except Jenson Button who’s Honda had decided it didn’t want to race today. As for the rest of the filed shooting off was exactly what Alonso did, not in the lead but overdoing it at the first corner running on to the grass and messing up his race at the first corner for the second time in three races. This dropped him to third as he got back on the track having to avoid hitting his team mate Heidfeld also taking full advantage of Alonsos mistake. Rosberg getting past Raikonnen who also dropped behind Massa. Raikonnen also touched the back of the sister Ferrari slightly damaging his front wing that would not make it an easy race for him. Lewis immediately began pulling out a lead on Heidfeld while Alonso wasn’t making much of a impression on the Bmw driver. Lap 4 Webber spins at the first chicane trying to make his way up the field dropping him down to 15th place. Meanwhile Scott Speed tried an opportunistic move on Wurz which broke the Torro Rosso’s front suspension. The impact also savaged the side of Wurz’s rear wing . The lower part of the right hand rear wing being ripped away. This didn’t help but the Williams team let the driver carry on confident the wing wouldn’t fail.

Back at the front Alonso seemed to be having issues with turn 1 on lap 15 he went off on the grass the did it again 4 laps later letting Massa through to 3rd. Then on lap 20 Heidfeld pitted from 2nd the following lap Lewis pitted, As Lewis is on his out lap further round the track Sutil in the Spyker smashes his car into the wall bringing out the safety car. Alonso and Rosberg pit but due to the new ruling the cars are not allowed to pit under the safety car until the race director allows them to. This would earn both drivers 10-second stop and go penalties. Once the cars were allowed to pit a flood of cars entered the pits. Including both Ferraris Kimi being forced to wait for his teammates stop. Then Massa and Fisichella left the pits while the red light was on. This would earn them the black flag and have them kicked out of the race. Badly damaging Massa’s title hopes. Robert Kubica on the other hand saw the red light and managed to stop in time rejoining the race behind Jarno Trulli.

The safety car pulled in and Lewis got on with the job of pulling away again having lost his 20 second lead behind the pace car. Towards turn 10 things were to go horribly wrong for Robert Kubica, he clipped the rear of Trulli’s Toyota this forced the front wing under the wheels which speared him into the wall at a frightening 170 mph. Kubica then rolled along the grass speared in to a guard rail on turn 10 coming to rest on his side. The safety car immediately was redeployed while the medical crews quickly attended to Kubica. The on board footage of Luizzi’s car who was following the Bmw showed bits of carbon n fibre and suspension/wheels flung off from the car and flying down the track. The fact that Kubica survived with only mild concussion and a sore ankle is testament to all the hard work the FIA and teams have done in providing strong safe cars. Look at a picture of the destroyed Bmw once its come to a rest, look at the nose cone and you’ll see kubicas feet; such was the violence of the impact.

Once the safety car had returned Lewis once again began to build his lead up from Heidfeld, behind them was Alonso, Rosberg, Davidson who had managed to get into the points in his Super Aguri, And Ralf Schumacher. Raikkonen went off track letting Sato through into 10th whilst Alonso and Rosberg took their penalties on lap 36. Alonso sets the fastest lap on his way back up the field, but once again going off the track at turn 1 and rejoining for a 4th time ideally he needed another safety car. This was granted on lap 48 when Albers Spyker bounced across the grass shedding its front wing all over the track forcing another appearance of the safety car, which at this stage must of needed a fuel stop of its own! Albers managed to take the wrecked car back to the pits to retire, Luckily Lewis had pitted whilst the Spyker was ripping itself apart and was back on track once the safety car was deployed. Massa and Fisichella had come into the pits to retire after getting the black flag, Safety cap pits Lewis once again goes to rebuild his lead. But only for a lap as Luizzi smashed his car into the wall of champions the final turn of the circuit. For the 4th time the safety car came out again. Trulli pitted once cars were allowed to but as he drove out the pits he had a bizarre accident and just slammed into the tire wall at turn 1! Most embarrassing for the Italian.

Once the racing restarted Lewis just kept his head down for the last 9 laps of the race. Meanwhile an inspired Sato who once again had got his Super Aguri in the points passed Ralf Schumacher for 7th he then began attacking 6th place Alonso who by now must of really wished the race would end soon. With two laps to go Sato out braked the double world champion on the outside of the final chicane, Making Alonso’s miserable race somehow even more worse. Lewis went on to take the flag from Nick Heidfeld in 2n A brilliant drive from Wurz to finish 3rd from the back of the grid, Behind him was Kovalinenen who after all the drama of qualifying and practice had a quiet race to 4th 5th was Raikkonen after a poor showing from the Ferrari driver, A best ever result for Super Aguri in 6th, A fed up Alonso in 7th and Ralf Schumacher taking the final point in 8th.

The Canadian race then was one that was lead all the way by Lewis Hamilton to take his first victory in F1 on his 6th ever F1 race. It gives him an 8-point lead at the top of the standings From Alonso. Alonso’s race was scruffy at best, His move at the first corner left a lot to be desired then he went off at the first corner a further 3 times after that. The way he acted out of the race was a bit disappointing too. He said that the safety had ruined his race and that Lewis was lucky. He also said that he has never been completely comfortable at Mclaren and the team favour Lewis because he is a British driver in a British team. This prompted Team boss Ron Dennis to say that the drivers were treated equally in the team. The British media also went for the kill on the Spaniard one paper reading the headline “Big baby Alonso”, I find it surprising that he has said these things. For one he’s clearly forgetting what happened in Monaco letting him win the race and not letting Lewis challenge. I also doubt that Ron Dennis will put up with too much more of Alonso saying things like that. He may of defended his driver saying that Alonso saying the media were making a story out of “an innocent remark” But I doubt he would be happy if Alonso continually citizens the team.

Also it may seem that if this trend continues it will be the two Mclaren drivers fighting for the title on there own. Ferrari didn’t show an upturn in speed and Massa getting the black flag hurt his chances too. Kimi still seems to be struggling with the car after surviving to 5th place. Bmw had there best result with 2nd but there worst nightmare with Kubicas crash. Renault seems to be solid mid field runner’s still and red bull still hasn’t sorted the reliability with Coulthard retiring early on. Honda not only has a slow car but slow Brains on the pit wall it seems. Barrichello was running as high as 3rd and could have been on for the teams first points. But the team kept him out when the safety car was on track and didn’t pit him even when the pit lane opened. Instead they waited until the race got going again dropping him down to the back of the grid some 20 seconds from the next car.

So with all the on track tension seemingly building between the Mclaren drivers it’s on to the Indianapolis Grand Prix in a weeks time and it’ll be interesting to see how Alonso responds.