Brought to you by TheJudge13 contributor Mattpt55
Ambient 20° Track 39° Humidity 27% Wind 12-14 kmh
Results
The 2015 edition of the Canadian GP had something for nearly everyone. Crashes, overtaking and at least one silly spin, from Raikkonen, in the process of giving away a podium position to the Williams of Bottas. Plenty of attacking from the back but as expected up at the front most of the action was centered around the pit stops.
Fuel warnings for Hamilton in the last third of the race kept it mildly interesting but sadly the race actually ended about 8 laps too late as the cat and mouse between Rosberg and Hamilton was done about lap 63. Grosjean was the Lotus doing the crashing this time, into a Manor. The stewards were not impressed and dinged him for a 5 second penalty as Stevens was as far out of the way as possible and the excitable Frenchman entirely misjudged his move.
Maldonado drove a fairly pedestrian race and as a result gained his first points of the year. Alonso had a hissy fit and in a development that will surprise no one, neither McHonda finished the race.
*********Stay tuned for the Race Review*************
Prelude
It was a sparkling day in Montreal, a jewel in the crown of Canada. With a rash of penalties to apply and several key runners out of place, much excitement was promised by the grid. Nevermind the fairly large amount of flat out guessing that had to be done to fill the huge data holes generated by the epic washout that was called FP2.
Summary
Act I
AS yr faithful correspondent struggled to recover from an unexpected comnputer crash as the cars formed up on the grid, Hamilton lined up clearly to cover off his teammate into T1, as if that was the only concern that he had that afternoon. He accomplished that with aplomb the moment the lights dropped and it was Raikkonen and Bottas side by side through the exit of T2 before Kimi got the better of his compatriot and took sole possession of P3. Staggeringly, as the Mercedes pair led the field through the first lap no one disintegrated their car into a pile of carbon fibre trying desperately to get to P17 from P18.
Vettel was first to throw a surprise as he fetched up behind Massa and Ericsson, opting to pit on Lap 7. His clever strategem was dashed as his left rear tyre was stuck and it left him with it all to do again as he exited the pits, having lost 6.6 seconds.
Massa kept at Ericsson and evewntually made it by the recalcitrant Sauber as the rest of the race settled into it’s usual routine, with gaps of 2-3 seconds between the leaders and then a larger one back to Grosjean, who had maintained his P5 from the start of the race. Despite being overtaken at the start by Hulkenberg, Maldonado, too was driving a clean race.
Alonso and Vettel provided the early entertainment, but that was mostly due to Vettel locking up into the hairpin on an attempted pass and giving Alonso more room to ruin his race. Massa and Verstappen continued to carve their way through the field, though it was Massa who had the much more sustained charge, having cleared the field up to Ricciardo by Lap 15 and into the championship points. Up at the front Bottas informed his engineers that he felt that the tyres would last another 15-20 laps, which was hard to believe. Lap times were dipping into the 1:18’s for the frontrunners and Hamilton was already beginning to lap the backmarkers as the Mercedes men continued to ruthlessly clear their pit window.
Again, having made up for his pit stop snafu (look it up, NSFW but it’s from WWII so it’s OK) the unstoppable force that was Vettel encountered the immovable object that was Alonso (because Honda engine, get it) and once again fireworks ensued. First Alonso forced Vettel wide onto the grass and it didn’t take a student of F1 to remember the exact same thing being done to Fred in Monza. Then, in a passive aggressive attempt to exact vengeance for having stolen his car, Alonso swung Vettel into the chicane and over those nasty sausage kerbs so beloved of the increasingly punitive Charlie Whiting.
Whilst the telly was covering that, Massa made his ever efficient way past Kvyat and the sad looking Red Bull. Maldonado pitted as well during that interval a fact that was only obvious when one noticed he suddenly dropped to P13 on the app for no apparent reason. He ripped past the Saubers and was rapidly into P11 as behind him Vettel followed suit.
Up at the front, Hamilton was lapping his old teammate Button whilst it was all getting ready to go sideways for Fred, as he got the call lap 25 to save fuel, to which he replied “no fuel no power what do you expect me to do” except with his accent it was ever so much more dramatic. Perez snuck through the pits to cover off Ricciardo who’d boxed the lap before and Sergio was successful, emerging in front of the hapless Aussie before rocketing off into the distance.
Act II
The middle part of the race began with a Frenchman complaining, make of that what you will. Grosjean was on the horn. bitterly making the complaint that the blue flags everyone ignored were being ignored by everyone. Neglecting, perhaps, the fact that the drivers have 3 corners to give way and generally are smart enough to try not to ruin their own race by getting in the way of someone else’s.
Nevertheless the real action was Raikkonen being first of the leaders to pit, out in P4 and back in the hunt for a podium, but not for long as he went for a deep spin at the hairpin, allowing Grosjean past as he lost some time sorting out which direction he out to be heading. AS Kimi complained bitterly that the issue was one that was similar to his problems of last year, Bottas, sniffing opportunity like it was lutefisk gone off (is that possible) railed into the pits and snatched P3 firmly away from the Ferrari.
Whilst gripped by the drama on track at the sharp end Hamilton and Rosberg turned it up to 3.5 and put in a savagely fast lap in preparation for their stops.
Both came off without a hitch and as Hamilton emerged P1 it was announced by Sky that he had now led more laps than any Englishman. Naturally he celebrated by flatspotting his front tyres. But it was Rosberg who benefitted most as he emerged within 2 seconds of Lewis and gradually began shutting down the gap. Until it hit around 1 second, that is, and then Lewis would eke it back until the team told him to lift and coast, when the pendulum swung back to Rosberg again. Except for the brief interval when Rosberg was told his brakes were critical, this game of cat and mouse would continue until lap 63, when Nico let the gap run out to 4 seconds and it was all over but the checkers.
Slightly farther back Massa had continued his advance, getting all the way to P5 before his tyres (he had started on the primes) began to slowly give up.
Lap 36 saw Vettel catching up to the back of the little train Felipe had created and again opted to pit rather than get involved. 2 laps later Massa followed suit and was going to very much be on the limit for getting the Options to go to the end of the race.
Act III
Massa made it back out in the points still, P9 and began making hay. Meanwhile, Raikkonen had deviated from the leading 1 stop strategy and boxed lap 41 to take on a pair of Super Softs, whether to try and have a chance at Bottas or simply because he had left most of his tyre life all over the exit to the hairpin it was hard to tell. Regardless it was done and it was back into P4 with an additional 17 seconds or so to make up for the phlegmatic Finn.
Vettel had latched onto the back of Hulkenberg and as might have been expected was having difficulty getting past the Mercedes powered car, B spec or no. Eventually Sebastian got him properly lined up and as they entered T1 side by side, both men took avoiding action, with Nico coming out the worse for wear as he hit the inner kerb and spun as Sebastian was immediately on the radio suggesting no contact was made, and wanting to know where Hulkenberg was as having cut the outside of the turn he normally would have had to give the advantage back.
Instead, the best contact of the race was to be reserved for a Lotus driver, but, confounding expectations, it was Grosjean who was the offending party this time round, perhaps trying to turn back the clock. Having caught up with the thoroughly offending Stevens, who, flouting all tradition, pulled all the way to the outside edge of the track and gave Romain a rather large amount of room, Grosjean repaid him by slashing over the moment he thought he was past. Sadly, Grosjean wasn’t, and in addition to puncturing his own rear tyre, Romain removed a rather large chunk of Stevens front wing in the process. It was a rather surprised Lotus pit crew that saw Grosjean rock into the box and sit there, whilst they fished around for some spare boots then launched their man back into the fray, where he was able to preserve and pick up a single championship point at the end of the day, along with a 5 second penalty.
By lap 63 the die was indeed cast and there was not much in the last 7 laps. so congratulations first to Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes for maintaining their Death Star like dominance of the 2015 season and secondly, condolences to Pete Bonnington and his family. Bonnington is Hamilton’s engineer, as news emerged during the GP that he had lost his father the previous week. Hamilton dedicated his win to Bonnington’ father, whilst praising his professionalism under obviously trying circumstances.
AS far as the rest of the race, well, when you have excellent ingredients and a terrible meal it is traditional to blame the chef. It is clear that whatever F1 might be trying to achieve, customer cars dead, refueling ruled out, at the end of the day the manner and way in which they are regulating their sport is rapidly leading to yet another stretch of increasingly boring races. Whilst the ins and outs are up for debate in the comments(please, politely but do enjoy) to this observer it appears that the current regulatory regime have completely lost the plot and that at a fundamental level, what is regulated and how these regulations are written need a fundamental revisit.
Hopefully the next race will bring more excitement but in the meantime, consider these facts including Lewis reporting his non-token upgraded engine is thirstier than Rosberg’s; Nico reporting that Mercedes now get 2 laps of full ERS before their battery is flat; and the sheer genius of Grosjean complaining that Stevens hit him while Will was moving in a straight line. Enjoy and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks, sooner if you watch the Podcast livestream.
Kimi SUCKS!!!!
Because the car spun him round?
Because each week he keeps f*cking up my GP predictor. Had him down to finish 3rd.
They should name that hairpin Kimi….
Hehe.
The race was in my time zone, podium 1/2 Finnish, top four 5/8 Finnish and I can’t muster will to give Fortis a virtual kick in the butt.
Oh dear Kimi, you really disappointed us today.
Congrats Valtteri, but the British have polished you to the degree that you come as Finnish as a Swedish sauna.
You know F1 is done when they manage to make Canada boring…
It was dull at the pointed end of the grid(always will be when the leading pair have so much of an advantage) but Seb did a damn fine job coming through,that made my race
Agreed, I would add Massa did a fine job as well, some nice moves. There’s life in the old dog yet 🙂
I think Lauda on SKY summed it up when he said: “We are ahead, the others are nowhere, just as we want it.”
Exactly FH. This is one of the few races I get to watch during the day, as I live in the western US; 11:00 am start time for me instead of 5:00 am. So what do I finally get? A bore-fest. I rate this one a 3 or 4. Lewis and Nico were both on about 98 kg of fuel usage and were both driving for mileage; time to change the rules a bit.
Yeah, such a race won’t get people excited in the States. I’m not suggesting that running on an oval for hours at full speed is more fun…but man, this was such a painful one to watch. NBC will love the ratings I’m sure.
Problem is, on an oval we’d have eight Mercedes powered cars up front and then a huge honking gap. And the Renault and Honda powered cars would be lapped by lap 5. Ovals are perfectly suited to spec series’.
Agreed, but maybe we would get more Grosjean moves when lapping cars…now, that would be fun. Tongue firmly in cheek here.
In all honesty, I’ve never watched an entire oval race in my life, but considering the current state of F1, I might soon take the plunge…:)
I felt the same way about oval racing, but it’s worth giving it a try.
Watching your first full oval race is a bit like when your wife/partner sticks that finger in your back passage for the first time. You wonder how you got there, your not entirely impressed, at first, but you slowly get into the groove of it. The race slowly builds to what ends up being a final 10 lap climax, and BOOM, we have a winner. Then you find yourself wanting more, and soon you’re an oval racing addict.
Give it a go… Just don’t think about it too much.
😉
It’s very interesting as with the onboards it looks really *really* fast. I saw a bit of the Texas race and those cars were closer to the walls than in Canada and they were all well over 330kmh when they were that close. It’s a completely different thing but looked a lot more like racing to me.
PMSL
Vettel with a senna move. Go for a gap and let them decide if they want to crash.
To be fair not sure if Senna would have cut the chicane at the end to avoid contact 😉
Agreed. That was vettel’s sensible side
But Massa’s move on Ericsson was great. It took him3 or 4 laps but it was a great move.
Yes, it was really great, and what makes it special was that those two are not exactly known to be best in car control, I was sure it end badly, but no, kudos to both of them.
@bruznic
I’d call it a naughty Vettel move… He wanted to force passage one way or another, and possibly to provoke the other driver into making a nasty mistake. Job done. But I’m not sure he was entitled to go into the corner the way he did, given that Nico had claim on the apex…
The Dutch regularly spam our polls whenever Verstappen does exactly the same. Do we want processions or do we want racing. I wished Rosberg had shown some of that spunk against Lewis at Bahrain and Hungary last year. Ricciardo and Verstappen get quite a bit of praise for such moves.
*dont know what you’re talking about.*
#youwillbeassimilated
🙂
In fairness to Verstappen (and to an extent Ricciardo), he was usually diving up the inside which at least gives the other driver room and time. Vettel came from the outside, then cut across to the inside to such an extent that Hulkenberg had to basically crash to avoid being crashed into. Equally, Verstappen and Ricciardo generally make the corners when they’re overtaking too, although as we all know Vettel’s not particularly bothered by the notion of track limits 😉
Forgot to add before, but Vettel’s attempt at the Verstappen Bomb™ on Alonso into turn 11 didn’t exactly go to plan either – big lock-up, ran massively wide and didn’t make the move stick. Considering the speed advantage the Ferrari had over the McLaren and the reasonably long straight after the turn 11, it seems surprising he didn’t play it safer into the hairpin and made sure he had the best possible drive out of the hairpin to try and make that speed advantage count on the straight before the last chicane. Still, he’s pretty young and inexperienced so I’m sure with a few more years under his belt he’ll – wait, applied the usual Verstappen Bomb™ critique there, my mistake.
Rules question: I thought I heard Lewis engineer talk about how he was doing on fuel/brake temp versus the other car (Rosberg), somewhere about midpoint, then when Rosberg asked about Lewis fuel at the end he was given the “can’t comment”. Did I mishear the former conversation? Just wondering if someone can clarify what info may be passed , had me a bit confused.
According to Sky Germany Mercedes got reprimanded for coaching Lewis, that’s why Rosberg’s engineer was so tight-lipped – to avoid a repeat offence that would most likely have caused a penalty. Wolff was practically squirming when Sky cornered him about that ‘double standard’. My guess is they wanted to make amends for Monaco and overshot the target a bit.
Stop guessing…..
But I like to guess. I missed SpannersReady’s quiz last week because I was in hospital.
Glad to see you back, hope everything is ok with you now.
Thanks for that Hippo, very interesting to hear.
I have been critical of Lewis in the past but today he drove a faultless race. I hold a champion higher than other drivers and given the little hickup two weeks ago I did think he would have had a problem this weekend but this year we have seen a more measured driver. I don’t think anyone will touch him unless something really gets mixed up
“The stewards were not impressed and dinged him for a 5 second penalty as Stevens was as far out of the way as possible and the excitable Frenchman entirely misjudged his move.”
I was a bit surprised. Wasn’t it Stevens’ job to back down properly, and make sure he was out of the way if Grosjean wanted to retake the racing line? He was being lapped after all…
Stevens was as far off the racing line as you can be without ending up in Nova Scotia. The mistake was 100% Grosjean’s
Grosjean was at fault with this one. When he made the move, he was looking to his right whilst moving to his left without checking if he had cleared Stevens
I only wished they had done the same to Button in 2011..
F*ck my computer
Ahhhhh………no thanks; I’m married.
“Okey dokey…” – Lewis Hamilton
#JeSuisFortis
Had a ticket, albeit a free one, and I didn’t bother going. PVR’d it and didn’t even watch it to the end. The friends I would have gone with left before the race ended to avoid the rush to the metro. The race was a dud. It’s been almost completely sanitised and without rain has little excitement. A couple more Canadian GP’s like that and the promoter may have wished he didn’t sign a new 10 year deal. When anyone asks why I’m no longer an F1 fan I’ll send them this race on a flash drive.
You had a free ticket and didn’t go? If that was me I’d have gone even if they had announced the winner before the race! (far fetched, i know). A lot of fans would kill to go to a race but can’t due to prices, yet there you are with your free ticket but didn’t bother going. Unbelievable. Something tells me you’re not really a true fan going by that, but also how you claimed to have been a lifelong fan of the sport only last year on this site to say you were never going to watch a race due to merc race fixing. Yet here you are again, claiming to no longer be a formula 1 fan. Again.
A guy dumps his steak in the garbage in front of hungry plebs and complains that the kobe beef is not as tender as it used to be.
You’ve become old and bitter… Time to start whacking the kids with the ol’ walking stick methinks Mr. Rampante.
“When I was a boy, we used to go to the cinema to watch the new Charlie Chaplin picture with a nickel, and then still have money left over to make a mortgage payment for papa…” *cough cough, splutter splutter*
So, for all the Verstappen lovers out there…the kid could not get past Ericsson. Ericsson! And yes I realize this was a Renault vs Ferrari battle at an engine track, but still.
Oh, and his teammate finished ahead of him. Oh, sure, he had to serve a penalty, blah, blah, blah, but tt the end of the day, he was out qualified by his teammate and beat to the finish line.
Let’s see the poll results next 🙂
Ericsson made life difficult for Massa in a much better car, so why would you expect Verstappen do better in a Clio?
Too many Ericsson put downs.
Well, ask our Dutch friends…they would expect him to do better because he is the new best thing since sliced (Dutch) bread. As far as putting down Ericsson? Not really a put down. he actually made his car as wide as possible and that was the best he could have done on this track.
My highlight of the race was Alonso’s pit-radio rant. So much for ‘I’m happy about the new challenge’ 😀
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to. Already I have big problems now driving with this, looking like amateurs, I will race and then concentrate on the fuel.”
Mine too, did the LOL thing, had a mental image of a 4 year old samurai, made me fell all warm and fuzzy inside.
I’m surprised we had to wait until the 7th race before he finally let loose….
I’m glad he told it for what it was.
Dull race, and we know the circuit is good. But it’s not surprising, the Renault powered cars are useless, likewise the Honda, force India, Marusa and sauber are running last years cars, Lotus can’t afford develop their cars. So despite their being 20 cars, that leaves us 2 manufacturers and one independent to fight it out. Plus Merc now have a dominant NO.1 driver so at best we have 5 cars fighting for second. I’m sorry, but F1 is fuc*ed up right now.
Been watching 20 years, never missed a race, now I’m fast forwarding them.
I suspect I’m not the only long term fan doing this.
Reversed grids would solve a lot. Compare Massa and Vettel to Raikkonen and Bottas.
F.*.C.K. me drunk!