The F1 season took a break from Europe to take a trip across the Atlantic to Canada this week for the seventh race of 2013. With the current standings in the World Championship beginning to favour triple and reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel, a victory for the German would begin to see him move ominously away from the chasing pack. With Mercedes chasing a fifth successive pole position, and the German chasing his third successive pole at Montreal, qualifying seemed a mouth-watering prospect. In terms of the race, Lewis Hamilton has always loved the Gilles Villeneuve circuit, taking his first ever victory there, and a three time winner, promising to claim his first victory as a Mercedes driver. In qualifying, these two protagonists took centre stage.
Qualifying, like last time out in Monaco, was thrust into chaos with the introduction of rain throughout the Saturday. This meant that the entirety was undertaken on the intermediate tyre, with initial slick tyre forays onto the track by Felipe Massa and Gilles Bianchi ending in spins and slides. Even with the wetter weather tyres, oversteer and drifting was common, leading to an unpredictable first qualifying session. Like Monaco, it was Force India's Paul di Resta who bore the brunt of the track increasing in pace as the session went on, being eliminated in 18th place. A bitter disappointment for the Scot, who was similarly unhappy on the radio two weeks ago. Q2 saw more improvement in the weather, leading to an ever improving track condition, however no-one dared risk the move to slick tyres. This once again meant a dash to be last over the line, thereby gaining the best track condition. More similarities to Monaco occurred in this session also, with Massa crashing off in the early part of the lap, leaving the Ferrari languishing in 16th place, and a real struggle to gain any serious points. The final section of qualifying was once again interrupted by rain, with firstly Hamilton, and then Vettel hitting the sweet spot and lighting the timing screens purple. With a late flurry of rain, it was the German who took his third consecutive pole in Canada, denying the Mercedes team. The real winner of qualifying, however, was Williams's Valtteri Bottas. Williams, beginning the seventh race of the season with 0 points, have a driver starting on the second row, with an impressive 3rd place finish. I doubt they will have a better chance to pick up points this season.
The two big DRS zones at the end and beginning of each lap seemed to suggest that we were in for a race of many overtaking manoeuvers. And so it proved. From the very beginning, although Vettel scampered off into the distance, leading by 2.8 seconds after just 2 laps, the midfield squabbled throughout the afternoon. Bottas, after his tremendous qualifying show yesterday, suffered the worst possible start, dropping three places in the opening lap, immediately putting his hopes for points in jeopardy. The Finn's early laps failed to get any easier, with Adrian Sutil spinning in an attempt to overtake the Williams driver on lap 6, forcing those immediately behind to take evasive action onto the grass at turn 3. The midfield switches seemed set to continue in the early stages, with the Ferrari of Massa and both Lotuses attempting to make their way through the field, meaning that overtaking was commonplace. Up front, even Sebastian Vettel was not having an undramatic beginning to the Grand Prix, coming dangerously close to wiping himself out of the race on lap ten, brushing the wall at turn 3, being lucky to avoid breaking an element of the suspension.
Moving towards the mid-part of the race, Vettel continued to stretch the gap back to Lewis Hamilton, eventually giving him a full pit stop advantage over the Mercedes driver. The initial round of stops began on lap 13, where pit stop strategies began to become evident. The majority of the top drivers seemed to be on a firm 2 stop strategy, meaning that the top few places were pretty much nailed on, but for the minor points place, drivers like Button, Raikkonen, di Resta and Grosjean all attempting the more risky one stop strategy to maximise their rewards. The overtaking remained relentless, with an intriguing scrap evolving for the final podium position between Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso. The Mercedes certainly looked like he was backing up the quicker two drivers, and this pace eventually told, with the German losing two places in two corners, and then continued to fall away. The fight between Webber and Alonso continued for many laps, with the Aussie seemingly maintaining the gap. However, a collision when attempting a routine pass on backmarker Guido van der Garde allowed the Spaniard to close right up again, and cost the Red Bull driver part of his front wing. Eventually this, combined with wearing tyres, told, with Alonso passing Webber on lap 42 to assume the 3rd place position.
With the first position practically sewn up by half distance, the attention turned to the battle for the final podium positions, with Alonso closing in quickly on Hamilton. Having caught him by lap 60, an enthralling few laps ensued. Hamilton suffered behind the lapped traffic, allowing Fernando to overtake the Mercedes man on lap 63, albeit with a bit of contact. The Brit did not give up his place easily, challenging Alonso repeatedly for the place back. Further behind also remained interesting to the finish. Most notably, an incredible run from Paul di Resta, as he remained on the tyres on which he began the race until lap 57, meaning that he was the only one-stopper that did not have to worry about tyres come the end of the race and gave him a great chance of scoring points. Despite starting in a promising 3rd place, Valtteri Bottas failed to claim Williams's first points of the season, finishing in a disappointing 14th.
In complete contrast to the midfield action, Sebastian Vettel strolled to a 15 second victory over Fernando Alonso, leading all but one race laps. He finished a full 70 seconds ahead of 5th placed man Nico Rosberg, and lapped the rest of the field, in a devastating show of dominance. After a fantastic first stint, di Resta got his reward with a seventh place finish, with Toro Rosso's John Eric-Vergne taking an impressive 6th. Kimi Raikkonen continued his incredible record of scoring in consecutive races with a 9th place finish, leaving him level on points with Michael Schumacher's record of 24, and all eyes will be on the Finn in the next race. The day belonged to Vettel, however, with his dominant display firing a warning shot across the bows of his championship contenders, laying down the gauntlet for the rest of the campaign.
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