Canadian GP: Winners and Losers by A. Davies.

Canadian GP: Winners and Losers

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Star of the Race

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 1st

Yeah Jacques, and your point is...?

If there were any wisps of lingering doubt that Hamilton is the real deal then they were dispelled in Canada as the rookie withstood immense pressure at one start and four re-starts to score his debut win.

Psychologically Safety Cars can be very draining when the leader sees his hard-won lead reduced to nothing, and know, with a sinking heart, that he has to go out and do it all over again.


If anything Hamilton handles this kind of pressure better than Alonso - Alonso's made mistakes in Canada in the past, most memorably in 2005. (And he won the Championship that year)


On Sunday Hamilton's great bonus was that he didn't have his team-mate or Felipe Massa behind him. Instead he had someone who was actually quite pleased to be in P2 and was viewing the cars lined up behind, not thinking where he could overtake the car ahead.


Hamilton's race performance put alongside Alonso's was also proof that the McLaren team had been right to haul Hamilton off the chase in Monaco. Alonso ran onto his favourite piece of grass at Turn 1 at least four times in the race (he ís savvy enough to know where he can risk his car when trying to make up time). If he'd been sprinting to catch up with Hamilton before Lewis's second pit-stop in Monaco, then it could have proved disastrous.


You got the impression of Lewis grinning his way through the race to the chequered flag. You know if Fernando doesn't get his act together pretty soon this season could become quite boring.


Overtaking Move of the Race

Takuma Sato on Fernando Alonso - Lap 68

With his team-mate sweeping the circuit clear of any beavers likely to spoil the entry to the final turn, Takuma Sato was free to cruise down the outside of Fernando Alonso's McLaren and overtake him for P6.


Though there is doubt that Sato should have been where he was on track - his last pit-stop having taken place before the pitlane was officially open during the Lap 50 Safety Car period - he made the most of it.


Winners

McLaren

We all thought that coming into the Canadian GP it would be Ferrari back on top with McLaren hanging on as best they could. The fact that they have now won back-to-back GPs on two wholly different circuits will be very worrying for the Scuderia.


McLaren are now odds on favourites to take the USGP at Indianapolis and what's more, they'll have those BMWs trying to get in the way at the same time.


Nick Heidfeld, BMW, 2nd

A great race for Nick who had to withstand pressure at the re-starts from Massa, Webber and Alonso. This will surely have sealed Mario Theissen's resolve to re-sign the German before he slips to another team.


Toyota should be queueing outside his manager's office right now.


Alex Wurz, Williams, 3rd

The toothy plankmeister got the most unlikely podium of his career, with 80% of his rear wing for 90% of the GP. If Hamilton hadn't scored his debut win, then Star of the Race would certainly have gone the Austrian's way.


Yes, he was lucky, but such is the glorious unpredictability of F1 on a day like this. And it didn't even rain. Most of this season Alex has spent cleaning tyre marks off his bodywork and explaining to Louise Goodman why he was unlucky. Today was payback time.


Heiki Kovalainen, Renault, 4th

Starting from last on the grid Heiki's 4th place was achieved with 100% of his aerodynamic aids in place. A great result just when he needed it. What is more intresting going into the USGP is that the Renault was fastest of anyone through the speed traps.


Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 5th

Raikkonen was perhaps fortunate that Felipe Massa was black-flagged because if he hadn't been, then come the second round of pit-stops Kimi would have found himself queueing behind Felipe again and losing more places.


As a result of Massa's elimination he gained four points and is only six points behind his team-mate in the World Championship.


Can he beat Massa? Not with the kind of starts he's had this year - it's hard to remember a good one in six races.


Ralf Schumacher, Toyota, 8th

Amazing to see that the three drivers who qualified badly - him, Wurz and Kovalainen - all did well in the race. For Ralf it's more a question of papering over the cracks - the USGP will be another tough test for him. He's never liked the circuit after he hit the wall there and cracked a vertebra.


Team Strategists' Overtime Bill

Four Safety Cars in one race must be some kind of F1 record for a dry race. But now that we've seen how the new 2007 Safety Car rules shake up a grand prix, the teams' strategists will be busy pumping the data into their computer simulations.


In Monaco, the cars that fuelled for a long first stint lost out. In Montreal they hit paydirt.


Marshals

A big hats off to the Montreal marshals who coped with everything F1 threw at them.


F1 Safety

For Kubica to hobble away from his monster accident with just a sprained ankle is remarkable. Though the team have said they'll wait till Thursday to make a decision, the wisdom of previous years has been that it's better to take a breather after such a big shunt. BMW are unchallenged for P3 in the Constructors' table and Sebastien Vettel could do with some race experience.


Going back to the days of Ivan Capelli in a March at Paul Ricard, Derek Warwick at Monza and Martin Brundle in Australia, we'd had spectacular accidents, drivers upside down in their cars and walking away. But this was the highest speed shubt of them all and a great reassurance that all the FIA's meticulous safety tests work.


LOSERS

Jarno Trulli, Toyota, DNF

There were bigger losers and more spectacular losers than Jarno Trulli in Canada, but there was none funnier. What Jarno did as he came out of the pits was laugh-out-loud funny, because it was so clumsy. They didn't even do this in the ITV motor racing series 'Formula Women'.


Trulli simply drove too quickly out of the pitlane, like a novice on a track day at Brands Hatch and planted his Toyota into the barrier. Woompf.


One of the highest-paid professional drivers and he gets his pitlane exit speed wrong.


ITV Broadcast

Anybody who watched the race in the UK will have been screaming abuse at the broadcaster for terminating the transmission immediately after the race. Even with a remarkable British victory, ITV were too timid to risk running over time and taking a five-minute chunk out of the dismal soap Coronation Street.


Bernie should tell them that if they want to continue taking the coverage then they have to show the race in full with proper transmission coverage.


What made it worse was that Steve Rider promised us a whole lot of reaction and comment in the highlights programme and we got the same brief clips as usual.


The ITV commentary team had already failed their viewers through a lack of clear informnationin the race. Whereas the BBC Radio 5 team knew immediately that Alonso and Rosberg had come in when the pitlane was closed and were heading for Stop/Go penalties, Brundle and Allen hadn't a clue and guessed.


They also failed to notice that Felipe Massa was ahead of Fernando Alonso for about half a lap. The Ferrari sped along in front of the McLaren and you began to wonder what they were doing and how they hadn't noticed it.


Maybe the tone of the weekend was set by Louise Goodman. Speaking to Emerson Fittipaldi in the Montreal paddock she started off the coverage with: "We've just heard from Lewis that he's free to race against Alonso this weekend in Spain."



Fernando Alonso, McLaren, 7th

When he got the bit between his teeth he was very fast, but as in Monaco, his fastest lap was about 0.1 quicker than Lewis's fastest lap, and Fernando put in four trips across the grass. He's right in that Safety Car races become a bit of a lottery, but judging by his car's handling and his inability ti get past Trulli in a straight fight all he could have aspired to was 5th place.


Ant Davidson, Super Aguri, Vile cute animal killer

It's not nice to be known as the Beaver Batterer of F1, but for now and evermore that's what Ant Davidson will be known for. Don't take any pets to Silverstone.


Race Stewards

I've rewatched the race tape and watched the highlights and looked for it in the press - but I still don't understand why Jarno Trulli wasn't penalised for overtaking Robert Kubica - in the pitlane and technically behind the first Safety Car. The same for Raikkonen coming out of the pits and overtaking Liuzzi.

And Taku's final pit-stop was when the pitlane was closed - that's why his mechanics were so upset when he came in.


Yes they managed to spot the very obvious Massa and Fisi, and Rosberg and Alonso, but surely they have to enforce all of the rules for all of the time...


Massa and Fisi, Ferarri and Renault, Black-flagged

Though going through a red light CAN be mega dangerous in F1 - this clearly wasn't and the punishment seemed totally disproportionate - especially when others seemed to be winging it.


If waiting for the green is what drivers should do, why didn't the stewards take action against Trulli who took advantahge of Kubica's good driving and correct interpretation of the rules?


Mark - I'm a big fat cockney geezer wot has nuffing to say cos the coverage has been cut - Blundell

We were about to strike a seam of pure Blundell gold in Montreal and those b****ds at ITV cut the Messiah's words short. These quotes we give you are but crumbs:


"It's not the Raikkonen we thought was going to be the package challenging for Ferrari."


"You see people hitting the wall after a couple of contretemps."

Daylight robbery.