Posted on 13th June 2016
Lewis Hamilton holds off a fighting Vettel to win the Canadian GP for the fifth time in his career
At the Canadian GP in Montreal,Lewis Hamilton claimed his second victory of the season, his fifth at the event and the 45th win of his career ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas in a race that saw plenty of action and saw Hamilton close within nine points of Rosberg for the Drivers' Championship.
It was announced before the race that Carlos Sainz Jr would have to take a five place grid penalty after the Toro Rosso team had to change his gearbox following his accident in Qualifying on Saturday.
The start of the race saw Sebastian Vettel make a perfect start from third on the grid to pass both Mercedes drivers on the short run to Turn 1,but a poor getaway for Pole Position man Lewis Hamilton saw him boxed in between Vettel on the inside and Rosberg on the outside, with the Ferrari able to comfortably claim the apex and take the lead while Hamilton was preoccupied with his team-mate’s advances.
As Hamilton ran deep into the corner he made light contact with his team mate Nico Rosberg, which sent Rosberg into the run off area at Turn 1. As he rejoined the track, Rosberg split the two Red Bulls, allowing Max Verstappen to complete a pass on Daniel Ricciardo while Rosberg struggled for traction and dropped down the order to tenth place
At the front, Vettel set the opening lap at a blistering pace to take advantage of Hamilton’s first corner issues, but in his haste skipped the final chicane at the end of the second lap, cutting his early lead to under a second at the start of Lap 3.
The battle at the front was shaping up nicely until a Honda engine failure inadvertently shook things up on Lap 10.
On Lap 10 of the race, Jenson Button had no option but to retire after suffering an water leak in his McLaren-Honda that forced him to stop on the circuit.
Race Control made the call to bring out a Virtual Safety Car, prompting a quick decision from the Ferrari pit wall to pit both cars.
Vettel came in from the lead and switched to super-soft tyres, but in doing so it meant he had to make a second stop to put on the mandatory soft compound later in the race. The logic behind the decision was clear as Vettel lost just 11.3s to Hamilton thanks to the Mercedes driver’s slower pace under the VSC.
However, the downside was that Vettel lost track position to Hamilton with both requiring one extra stop to put on the softs.
Lap 16 saw Jolyon Palmer officially retiring from the race with water pressure problems in his Renault and put an end to an awful weekend for him and also for the Renault team.
Hamilton’s sole pit stop for softs came on Lap 24 and saw him return to the track 13.2s behind Vettel. From that point onwards the pace of the Mercedes on the soft compound was very impressive. On paper according to Pirelli, the soft requires high temperatures to offer its optimum grip, but on Hamilton’s car it seemed to switch on in sub 15C conditions.
Lap 35 saw Felipe Massa officially retire from the race due to problems with his Mercedes engine overheating. At this stage of the race, Hamilton was able to maintain the gap to Vettel on the faster, less temperature-sensitive, super-softs and when the Ferrari pitted on Lap 36 Hamilton retook the lead.
Vettel rejoined 7.4s behind Hamilton but managed to close the gap to less than 5.0s by lap 50. Hamilton was on 13-lap older tyres but they never really dropped off and as Vettel pushed harder each lap to try and manufacture a win, mistakes started to creep in.
On Lap 56. Vettel straightlined the chicane for the second time, extending the gap again and ultimately signalling the end of his charge for victory. Behind the front two, Bottas kept his Williams out of trouble while matching the pace of the Red Bulls when it mattered.
With Red Bull deciding two-stop strategies for both Verstappen and Ricciardo saw Bottas take track position and make use of a one-stop strategy to take third, with Rosberg on his tail until Lap 51, when a slow puncture saw him slow and pit for new tyres.
Despite the second setback of his race, Rosberg managed to work his way back up to fifth behind Verstappen and was attacking the Red Bull in the closing stages of the race.
As he approached the final corner on the penultimate lap he appeared to have the move complete when his rear tyres locked under braking and he spun off. He recovered to finish just over a second ahead of Raikkonen who finished in sixth.
But it was Lewis Hamilton who claimed his second consecutive victory of the 2016 season at the Canadian GP and his fifth at the event ahead of Sebastian Vettel in second place who was 0.062 seconds behind him and ahead of Valtteri Bottas who finished in a superb third place.
Max Verstappen ended the race in a solid fourth place ahead of Nico Rosberg in fifth place, Kimi Raikkonen in sixth place, Daniel Ricciardo in seventh place, Nico Hulkenberg in eighth place, Carlos Sainz Jr in a brilliant ninth place and Sergio Perez who rounded off the top ten finishers.
Fernando Alonso finished the race in eleventh place ahead of Daniil Kvyat in twelfth place ,Esteban Gutierrez in thirteenth place, Romain Grosjean in fourteenth place and Marcus Ericsson in fifteenth place.
As we head into the latter stages of the grid, Kevin Magnussen finished the race in sixteenth place ahead of Pascal Wehrlein in seventeenth place, Felipe Nasr in eighteenth place and Rio Haryanto in nineteenth place. Felipe Massa, Jolyon Palmer and Jenson Button did not finish the race.
The classification for the Canadian GP is as follows:-
1.Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1.31:05.296
2.Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 5.011s
3.Valtteri Bottas, Williams-Mercedes, 46.422s
4.Max Verstappen, Red-Bull-TAG Heuer, 53.020s
5.Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1.02.093s
6.Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1.03.017s
7.Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull-TAG Heuer, 1.03.634s
8.Nico Hulkenberg, Force India-Mercedes, 1 lap
9.Carlos Sainz Jr, Toro Rosso, 1 lap
10.Sergio Perez, Force India-Mercedes, 1 lap
11.Fernando Alonso, McLaren-Honda, 1 lap
12.Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1 lap
13.Esteban Gutierrez, Haas Ferrari, 2 laps
14.Romain Grosjean, Haas Ferrari, 2 laps
15.Marcus Ericsson, Sauber-Ferrari, 2 laps
16.Kevin Magnussen, Renault, 2 laps
17.Pascal Wehrlein, MRT Racing, 2 laps
18.Felipe Nasr, Sauber-Ferrari, 2 laps
19.Rio Haryanto, MRT Racing, 2 laps
20.Felipe Massa, Williams-Mercedes, Not Classified
21.Jolyon Palmer, Renault, Not Classified
22.Jenson Button, McLaren-Honda, Not Classified
Nico Rosberg still leads the Driver's Championship with 116 points, Lewis Hamilton is in second place with 107 points, Sebastian Vettel is in third place with 78 points, Daniel Ricciardo is in fourth place with 72 points, Kimi Raikkonen is in fifth place with 69 points, Max Verstappen is in sixth place with 50 points, Valtteri Bottas is in seventh place with 44 points, Felipe Massa is in eighth place with 37 points, Sergio Perez is in ninth place with 24 points and Daniil Kvyat is in tenth place with 22 points.
Mercedes still lead the Constructors Championship with 223 points, Ferrari is in second place with 147 points, Red Bull is in third place with 130 points, Williams is in fourth place with 81 points, Force India is in fifth place with 42 points, Toro Rosso is in sixth place with 32 points, McLaren is in seventh place with 24 points, Haas is in eighth place with 22 points and Renault is in ninth place with 6 points.
Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa
