MONTREAL – Lewis Hamilton led teammate Jenson Button to McLaren-Mercedes’ second straight 1-2 finish of the Formula One season at the 41st Canadian Grand Prix.
The 25-year-old Brit won from pole position for the second consecutive race to put the crowning touch on the grand prix’s return to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Ile Notre Dame after a one-year absence.
“It’s been a tremendous weekend. It has been fantastic,” said Hamilton, who notched his 13th career win two weeks after having orchestrated a sweep of the top-two podium spots at the Turkish Grand Prix, at the time the second such finish of the season for McLaren.
“I got here Wednesday and things have gone so well,” said Hamilton. “I’ve had incredible support from the fans, with so many Brits out here, which is great to see.
“It was one of the toughest races so far, but that’s what you want,” he added. “The team did an excellent job. I’m very happy and proud of the team.”
The victory in the season’s eighth of 19 races gave the 2008 world champion the lead in the drivers’ standings, three points up on Button (109-106) and six more than Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber, who found himself and teammate Sebastian Vettel knocked off the podium for the first time in 2010 after the team failed to qualify on pole for the first time this season Saturday.
McLaren also picked up 43 points in the constructors’ world championship and leads Red Bull 215-193 after coming into the weekend where the former’s margin was a single point.
Hamilton scored his maiden F1 victory here in 2007, winning from pole as well. He took the pole again in 2008, but failed to repeat with a win because of a pit-lane crash with then-Ferrari driver, Kimi Räikkönen, after only 19 laps. But he more than made up for things Sunday in arguably the season’s most exciting race where extreme tire wear became a huge factor, affecting race strategy for all.
What surprised many was the absence of the safety car which has a tradition of being part of races here, but only appeared once, before the completion of the first lap, following some minor incidents with a few back-of-the-grid entrants at the start. Only five of 24 cars failed to finish the race.
Hamilton completed the 70 laps around the 4.361-kilometre street circuit in a time of one hour, 33 minutes, 53.456 seconds, averaging a top speed of 195.079 kilometres per hour.
Button, the reigning world champion who unlike in Turkey didn’t attempt to tamper with Hamilton’s run to the finish line, was a little less than 2.5 seconds back, finishing in 1:33:55.710. Fernando Alonso brought Ferrari home in 1:34:02.670 for third.
Vettel and Webber completed the top-five, in 1:34:31.273 and 1:34:32.747, respectively.
Webber, who led the championship coming in, continued his streak of having scored points in every race this season, but he was the biggest loser Sunday beginning with the fact that after qualifying second on Saturday, he was relegated to start from seventh because of a five-spot penalty for having to replace his car’s gearbox before the race.
He also held the lead from Lap 28, when Hamilton pitted, until Lap 49 when the harder tire compound he opted to start the race on deteriorated to the point it cost him a 20-second lead. He was forced to pit on Lap 50 where he was obligated to use the even less resilient super-soft compound for the first time in the race, meaning he had little chance of duking it out with Hamilton, Button and Alonso at the end.
“We knew it was going to be a bit like that here today,” Webber told the BBC immediately after the race. “Tires playing a huge role in the race, also, when you’ve obviously made the pit strategies that we did, I think in the end we did the best that we could do.”
Hamilton led for the first six laps before pitting on the seventh to shed the super-softs he had to start the race with after having used them to his advantage to dominate qualifying. Vettel led the next seven laps until he pitted and Hamilton regained the lead on Lap 15 with Alonso running second.
Hamilton and Alonso nearly tangled coming out of pitlane, having made their first pitstops at the same time. He eventually was able to pass the two-time world champion shortly after returning to the track.
“I think I came in quite a bit ahead of him, but clearly did not have the best pitstop,” said Hamilton. “I saw him being released and as he pulled away I saw him in my blind spot. All of sudden he was there with me, so we raced to the first corner and he got ahead. He had a great pace.”
Hamilton held the lead until pitting again on Lap 26 and after chasing Webber for a while, he regained it on Lap 50 and never looked back.
Button nipped Alonso for second on Lap 56 and would only have been happier had it been him who led Hamilton in a 1-2 finish as was the case in China, the fourth race of the season.
“It was a great race, very enjoyable and pretty tough,” said Button, who started fourth on the grid. “It was a really fun race and it is very difficult to judge when to push on the tires. I think I probably kicked in a bit early in the last stint, but it got me (second), so a big thank you to the whole team.
“This guy,” he said, nudging his teammate, “was phenomenal. I couldn’t touch him in qualifying. It’s good to finish close to the race and good to get some points.”
Button was denied his third victory of the season, after winning in Australia, and said the weekend-long drama over tires made the race all the more dramatic.
“It was an exciting race from that point of view,” he said. “It was fun, and for the viewers it was a great race, down to the tires being a bit more different than normal.”
Alonso posted a podium result for the first time in three races and noted it was a good day for Ferrari, third in the constructors’ championship with 103 points, despite missing an opportunity to win again this season after taking the season-opening race in Bahrain in mid-March.
“It was a good day, the car was very competitive here in Canada,” he said. “I had a good opportunity to win today, fighting with Lewis…we overtook him with a fantastic job in the pitlane.
“It was a race decided by small details, but overall we did a good job,” said Alonso. “The team did a perfect race for strategy, pitstops which were very, very quick especially the first one to overtake the McLaren. So overall I think we our job today, finishing on the podium.
“Maybe not too many people were thinking before arriving in Canada that we’d be on the podium at the end of the race, but we proved again that we are strong."
Hamilton, who’s obviously feels at home here, was at a bit of loss to explain why.
“I don’t why I go well here. It’s a great track. A fantastic city with great food, great people and amazing support for me,” he said. “The weather was great today, too, and we saw such a great turnout. I think for me, this is one of the best races of the whole season.
“I don’t why I’m able to dial my car in. Maybe I feel the car a little bit better here than other places,” Hamilton added. “But we’ve got a long season ahead of us and they’ll be good races and bad races. I just hope there are more good ones than there are bad.”
rphillips@thegazette.canwest.com
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