Results of the 2007 Canadian F1 Grand Prix

The fairy-tale debut of F1 rookie Lewis Hamilton continued in Montreal as he stormed to his first victory in just six races and once again leads the Drivers’ Championship with a very real challenge to win the title on his debut. In his Mercedes-McLaren he lead a drammatic race from pole position, while his teammate and rival Fernando Alonso got caught up horribly in one of the many safety car periods to finish seventh. Luckiest man on the track however was Robert Kubica who emerged from a spectacular role crash unscathed.

Nick Heidfeld scored his best finish of a consistently good season to take second ahead of a surprise third for the Williams of Alexander Wurz who started near the back of the grid. On a day that saw luck favour some, and turn terribly against others, Finnish driver Heikki Kovailainen put Renault into a fourth for one of their best result this season, ahead of compatriot Kimi Raikonnen who was the only finisher of the Ferraris.

Takumo Sato finished sixth in his newly invigorated Super Aguri, passing reigning champion Alonso in the dying laps to demonstrate the bizarreness of this race. Ralph Schumacher collected the last of the points for Toyota. Of the other usual contenders, Filipe Massa was disqualified on lap 51 along with Giancarlo Fisichella, while poor old Jenson Button didn’t even get off the grid as his ever unreliable Honda got stuck in gear.

The drama started right at the beginning as Alonso got off to another over-optimisitic first corner move, running wide and losing out to Heidfeld.He regained the place only to visit the grass on lap 18, gifting Massa third. However, it was to get much worse on lap 23 when the safety car was deployed following a crash to Adrian Sutil’s Spyker. Running low on fuel the Spaniard had no choice but to pit, unfortunately the pit lane closed moments before leaving him no option but to suffer a driver through penalty costing him 10 places.

This was all overshadowed by a horrendous crash just three laps later as Kubica lost control of his BMW-Sauber at full speed, smacked into the barrier and barrel-rolled down the track. Fortunately he suffered no injury, but the safety car deployment again played havoc with strategies. For Massa and Fisichella it was all meaningless as they were handed disqualifications for exiting the ‘closed’ pit lane on lap 31. While all this was happening, Hamilton quitely got on with building an unflappable lead, three times in fact, finishing 4.3 seconds ahead of Heidfeld.

Alonso fought his way up to seventh, while Raikkonen regained fourth after slipping as low as ninth. Alonso might have mitigated the damage by finishing fourth but the severe strain he placed on his McLaren to get back into the points left him with ragged tyres that simply couldn’t hold out in the dying laps. He now trails Hamilton by a disastrous 8 points on 40, seven clear of Massa. Raikkonen is now within six points of his third-placed teammate, but 21 points behind the leader and hardly the 2007 title contender he was expected to be.

In the Constructors’ Championship McLaren now enjoy a 28 point lead on Ferrari, with 88. BMW-Sauber a distant third on 38.

Result of Canadian Grand Prix
1 Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes one hour 44 minutes 11.292sec
2 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 4.343 seconds behind
3 Alexander Wurz (Aut) Williams-Toyota 5.325
4 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Renault 6.729
5 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 13.007
6. Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri-Honda 16.698
7 Fernando Alonso (Spa) McLaren-Mercedes 21.936
8 Ralf Schumacher (Ger) Toyota 22.888
9 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 22.960
10 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota 23.984
11 Anthony Davidson (GB) Super Aguri-Honda 24.318
12 Rubens Barrichello (Brz) Honda 30.439
R Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 58 laps completed
R Vitantonio Liuzzi (ITA) Toro Rosso 54 laps
R Christijan Albers (Ned) Spyker-Ferrari 47 laps
R David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault 36 laps
R Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 26 laps
R Adrian Sutil (Ger) Spyker-Ferrari 21 laps
R Scott Speed (USA) Toro Rosso-Ferrari eight laps
R Jenson Button (GB) Honda no laps
DQ Giancarlo Fisichella* (Ita) Renault 51 laps
DQ Felipe Massa* (Brz) Ferrari 51 laps