Canada, Canada, Canada....what are we going to do with you. There is normally the concept of madness and unpredictability associated with your race, but you just had to go that little bit further didn't you. The destruction in Monaco wasn't enough was it, you just saw it as a challenge - a test even, an opportunity to do better than the street track. Well the challenge was well and truly accepted, and Canada I safely assure you that you passed with flying colours and delivered a race on such a magnitude I haven't seen since the complete insanity of Belgium 1998 which too did also involve that one vital liquid ingredient.
Those of you of an observant nature may have noticed that today is Monday and is not Sunday when the race actually occurred but there was a significant amount of sleep deprivation was starting to set in. As you may have noticed from the pre-race attempt of disjointed rambling I was up all night with the Le Mans race - not a person before you get any ideas. So by the time the epic spectacle was played on the television I was rather tired but the action aside from the 2hr break more than kept me awake...
So with out further delay and no longer under the influence of energy drinks and pretzels here is this events effort at documenting what is by far the greatest race in recent years. But a little warning this may go on for a while because there is no short way of listing all the things that went on for almost 4hrs of race conditions.
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| Credit to F1 Fanatic.co.uk |
The screen dawned on a rather wet and rain soaked Montreal - puddles were scattered across the surface peppering the circuit, converting it into a mirror conveying the reflections of madness that was to follow. Several sighter laps were conducted by the pace car, and a mystical second SLS this one garnished in red paint rather than the traditional FIA silver took to the track. After some splashing around the decision was made to commence the Canadian grand prix under the safety car - a little overly cautious in my opinion... races have been a lot wetter and started normally before.
So off they they went, trundling behind Maylander's SLS and visibility was challenging but far from impossible. The thick suffocating glove of Health and Safety kept the pace car circulating beyond the first lap paralysing the positions and wearing a dry line on the road. At the very back of the queue Alguersuari opted to start from the pit lane after pulling from the grid to re-configure the car for wet conditions which converted to the end of the pace car line as there was no grid start.
But at the end of lap 4 the Safety Car returned to the pitlane releasing the cars out onto the considerably drier race track, and the Canadian Grand Prix was properly under way, under restart conditions. Alonso stalked Vettel into the final chicane but the German defended and held position. Both of the top two drifted slightly wide in turn one, behind them Hamilton carried on exactly where he left off in Monaco, with some contact giving Webber a bit of a push into a spin knocking the Australian back to 14th. Neither car sustained any damage and were easily able to continue albeit a few places further back.
Hamilton was fell back in behind his team-mate and Schumacher, but Michael was on the charge the wet conditions played exactly to his specialities and he moved ahead of Button setting his sights on the next Mercedes in line. Lewis also made his through and chased up the back of the so called "rainmeister" but his charge was short lived as he was forced a little wide at the hairpin by the German the next lap. This allowed Button back through as the Hamilton plodded through the puddles on the exit, before things were going to get a little more interesting.
The feld had a rather two by two look to it - with Ferraris ahead of the Mercedes and then the two McLarens with Vettel heading the lot of them. But things were about to be reconfigured a little - Hamilton had caught his team-mate and wanted past, but those pesky people at McLaren don't believe in giving Lewis is own way so he had to actually pass the other Briton - so well done to them for that stance. So penalty-points leader Hamilton looked up the inside of Jenson in a manoeuvre that worked out as well as playing eye-spy in the dark. Sliding into the cloud of spray he found himself trying to find some space between the pit wall and Button's car - that space disappeared and Lewis got a lot more personal with the concrete. From the outside it looked a lot like Button creamed his team-mate into the fence - but even though that probably is a good plan - it was a case both drivers ending up on the racing line at the same time and was a racing incident. Lewis tried to drag the ailing car round one wheel at an angle which was rather ineffective but was called to pull off and parked it, but his positioning of the McLaren brought out the Safety car.
As the SLS was counting up more laps in the lead - Button came in to check for damage and fitted Intermediate tyres in the process as there was a considerable drying line available which would only improve under the safety car. A decision which made no sense at all considering reports from the pit wall suggested there was a significant weather system inbound and would bring with it a large amount of water rendering Buttons tyres useless.
A few laps later green flag conditions were resumed in an usually civil format for a wet Canadian racetrack, and Vettel went away into the distance in an attempt to reclaim the number of laps lead from Bernd in the Safety car who was on 7 to Sebastien's 5. The laps began to wear down and more and more drivers were heading to pit lane to swap the wets for intermediate tyres after Button started running 3s per lap faster on his inters. They were all being daft - the weather system which all the teams new about was visible on the horizon and rain was slowly starting to fall but they went and changed them anyway. No amount of shouting at them, pointing at my twitter feed and calling them all morons worked, In the midst of the wild gesticulations at the television Button was issued with a penalty for speeding behind the safety car - assumingly after his stop when catching up to the field.
After dealing with the penalty and his stupid tyres caught up to the back of the Renault Squadron who were as usual running in formation with Nick leading Petrov. The Squadron had already been caught and processed by a resurgent Webber had closed ranks to keep the Mclaren behind. Then the inevitable happened - that rain everyone forgot was coming turned up, and was angry at being ignored, as every single rain drop in the history of the universe descended on Montreal. The biblical onslaught of rain however was a little excessive - I like most folk reckon that a little bit of rain does make things interesting - but drowning the entire grid may be a little far. Then Health and Safety kicked in again, rather than letting them have ago in the monsoon to allow those on the wrong tyres to fall back because they were fools Charlie Whiting threw the Safety car out again. He may have saved those who put stupid tyres on but he can't stop me pointing at them shouting "why"!!
Five laps of toiling around behind the Safety car as the cataclysm of rain swept over the layout - a plethora of calls flooded from cars to teams complaining and winging about the conditions. Those fools who went for inters had to go back to the pit lane for wets under a hail of laughter and some more pointing. But then the yellow indicator at the top of the screen shifted to red as the race was declared suspended until the shower passed. At this point that was the right call because instead of it being a case of the usual daft batch of driver complaints that halted things it was a case of the cars not being mechanically able to operate in the volume of water that had descended on the circuit.
The Really long bit in the middle where not much actually happened
Trapped under the red flag which the meteorological apocalypse had arrived, this may not have been the wettest race ever recorded but has to be in the top 10, Malaysia 08 was pretty bad and then Korea 2010 took forever to start. As is always the case when this much rain arrives, the drivers run off into the garage to hide from the weather and the camera staff start looking at the scenery, picking up the flourishing wildlife, including a Red-winged Blackbird which the Virgin Racing team's twitter page adopted. Marshals were working with brushes and sweeper trucks to move the water, but the rain just kept falling making their work futile.
During this interval the Renault Squadron won the competition for being most amusing - complaining about the snacks that McLaren had provided to Button and the team on the grid inferring that the crumbs were a devious plan to lower grip on track. And then determining that the support vehicles wouldn't make the 107% rule. While Renault Squadron were having a laugh a fleet of Mercedes ( not the race team) drove around the track in a rather captain obvious mission to determine it was still too wet as the rain intensified when the heart of the storm passed over.
The Race - The rest of the event after the long uneventful bit
After more than two hours of sitting around in the rain it finally stopped and it was time to get going again and an opportune time to have some more generic energy drink - and no I was no sponsoring the lead car on that matter, like my budget can do that. My best guess is that the FIA were competing with the ACO to see how long they could have a stoppage for - they managed suspend Le Mans for close to 2hrs for barrier repairs after an Audi accident so they had to compete. Yes they used the safety car for 2hrs but that's not possible in F1 so the red had to do.
...Whoa this getting on a bit - first started 5hrs ago now - but as on the stage faliure is not an option and here's the rest.
The cars got moving again behind the Safety Car and trundled around yet again for several consecutive laps - the track was increasingly drying out. The drying process was astonishingly quick considering the volume of water which landed on the circuit - but that dark ominous hand of Health and Safety brought itself into effect once more. The time under the safety car was spent far too long on the track to the point where D'Ambrosio headed to the pits under the yellow to put intermediates on, here was a track flooding in places and it was now ready for intermediates. This clearly showed it was out too long - F1 is starting to set a precedent where you're not allowed to race in the wet, god forbid it gets a little challenging from time to time, and even at the point of restart there were still complaints from the drivers. It's a process that happens through the field - they make stupid excessive complaints about the conditions just to influence race control to their personal whim.
After 10 laps following the safety car which had now lead most of the laps run - the green flag finally re-appeared. The cars were released and a far few drivers took the restart straight into the pit lane to shed the now useless full wets including Schumacher who was about to mount a considerable charge. On the next lap a second train of drivers went for the better compound - including both Ferraris who had to queue in the pit lane which hurt Alonso dropping back to where Button ended up after his penalty before the red flag.
It was this re-entry that counted against Fernando, because the exit of the pit lane being in turn 2 he had a faster apex speed and caught Button. Alonso went around the outside of Button into turn three but contact was made spinning the Ferrari to the outside becoming beached on a kerb and hitting the wall knocking him out of the race. The stricken car couldn't be recovered and as a result the safety car came out again time for Bernd to make some more laps after only two under green conditions, while Button recovered to the pit after sustaining a puncture in the collision. Vettel was gifted another opportunity to make a free unimpeded pit stop without losing time or position as the safety car was deployed.
So the restart procedure started again with Vettel leading Kobayashi and Massa, but as the German backed up the field in the hairpin Sutil made some contact with the back of Nico Rosberg and had to pit for a new nose. But this phase of the race was all about Michael Schumacher who on the inters and a slippery track was making excellent progress. His first victim was Mark Webber who ran wide at the hairpin, while further up the road Paul Di Resta had a go at Renault Squadron leader Heidfeld but it was a clumsy attempt and Paul lost his wing in the process and earned a drive trough penalty for his efforts. It was a stupid decision by the stewards considering Paul had already paid through damage and the need to replace the wing, no need for further intervention.
Race control activated the DRS system which was disabled in the race due to the wet conditions - but deemed it dry enough to switch the system on. As the track dried out the relative pace of the cars changed dramatically - the Sauber of Kobayashi in second lost pace and as a result lost places to the cars behind, while Schumacher and Webber were going the other way towards the front. Both making their way past Renault Squadron. Schumacher caught up to the Massa/Kobayashi battle for second and managed to pass both of them in one corner after Kamui ran wide and held Massa up in the process opening a gap for Michael. In the sort out Kamui was shuffled down to 4th while Massa moved into 3rd with Schumacher on a charge headed after leader Vettel. Belying his advanced years the German was finally having a race resemblant of the former speed he was capable of.
A dry line appeared on the track, miraculously so considering how wet things got before - and Webber was the first one to make the move onto slick tyres when only a thin margin of error was present - stray off the dry groove and the wall was waiting. Button was a lap later to make the change and within laps the rest followed but the overall order remained intact as everyone needed to move onto the slicks because the dry track would destroy the inters. But this caused a different problem - running online was fine but stray off it and the slicks would meet the wet and traction would evaporate. The first victim to this phenomena was Massa who had to venture offline to lap one of the HRT cars - once the tyres hit the wet surface he span into the wall under the bridge before turn 8. The collision only damaged the nose but forced a stop for a replacement and cost the Massa several positions.
Next up to suffer from the contrast in conditions was Heidfeld as he closed up on Kobayashi once switching onto the slicks didn't have the pace of the Renault Squadron car. Trying to keep ahead he ran a little wide in turn two and just got onto the wet area of the track, this slowed his apex speed so Nick caught up faster than expected and ended up knocking his wing against the Sauber. As the Squadron Leader left exited the corner the damaged wing detached went under the car and exploded into a shower of shredded carbon. Skating on the remains jammed under the chassis Nick slid off down the escape road bouncing the wall in the process leaving behind field of debris and shattered wing. Because of the all the mess the Safety car was out for the fourth time not including the start of the race so Bernd was in for his fifth stint.
Under this fourth intervention marshals made the most appalling effort at removing the debris I've seen on the television, several individuals entered the track haphazardly kicking at the shards and chunks as is the normal procedure. But there was this one guy who ran onto the track and fell over, his collegues left the track as One-stop Perez 2.0 approached, but this guy got up turned to leave and then fell over again. Luckily Perez 2.0 was able to recognise what was going on and had to slow to laugh at him anyway but was able to avoid running him over without any trouble. It was more the difficulty the marshal had moving that was most embarrassing - maybe some beverages were consumed in the red flag interval.
Comedy staff aside it was time for another restart - with Vettel ahead of Schumacher in an all German shootout for the win. Webber was third and somehow Button had gone from 21st on the previous restart to 4th. Aided by going to slicks early and several cars in front crashing, receiving penalties or just making passes Button had become cleverly placed, and by running an alternative setup in qualifying was in prime position to make progress.
The remaining 10 laps saw Vettel make an escape when Michael found that without some water on the line Schumacher no longer had an advantage and was down to the limit of the car so consequently backed into Webber and Button. The power of the DRS system easily allowed the Red Bull of Webber to glide past the limping Mercedes but once he reached the chicane the extra speed carried him past the breaking point and across the chicane. As a result he had to hand the position back to Michael but it wouldn't be a permanent change. On the next lap Webber charged again but Schumacher anticipated the challenge and defended, Webber got wide coming out of the final chicane and eased off to avoid ending the race in the wall of champions - this opened the door for Button who was up to 3rd and still really pacey.
Target locked firmly onto the back of Michael's car Button launched his own attack on the same back straight Webber had made his attempts. The McLaren DRS system seemed far more effective making the pass effortless which ever way Schumacher went to defend the speed of the Button was going to take him past well before the corner - next stop Vettel. With five laps remaining a win was tantalisingly close.
The laps faded away as Button gained time on Vettel, although the German picked up his pace to slow the assault. Behind them Webber finally managed to relegate Schumacher off the podium, the Mercedes just wasn't able to keep pace with the Red Bull on the virtually dry track making the pass inevitable. Even further back life was falling apart in the force India garage in the final laps both Di Resta and Sutil managed to clip walls around the circuit off camera ending both their races. Additionally Rosberg had made contact with Kobayashi damaging his wing which parted company towards the end, and in turn one Maldonado managed to spin and couldn't get restarted for unknown reasons Pastor himself just said "I spun in the wet" but no idea if he hit something.
Then there was the final lap - and if you are still managing to read this, well done it has gone on for a major amount of time it is now 11pm and this has taken literally all day so bonus points will be in a separate post and totalled later.
Button was now in sight of the leading Red Bull - flirting with the edge of the DRS window. Vettel was pushing hard to keep him more than a second behind prevent the activation of the system but as they crossed the line with one to go the gap was 0.9s. Button threw the car into turn one and gained a tenth or two but still too far back to have a lunge into the upcoming chicane. That wasn't the important section of the lap - it was the run out of the hairpin Vettel needed to be concerned about that's where DRS would take effect, that's where he would be vulnerable. The things went a little pear-shaped for the Red Bull driver - carrying too much speed into turn four, not a huge amount maybe just one or two miles an hour too much but it was enough. His right rear glanced the treacherous slippery wet outside line - the car shifted into oversteer and slid out onto the tarmac run-off area catching the slide expertly but the lead was handed over to Button who could not be caught.
The McLaren crossed the line to complete an epically entertaining race with crashes, biblical amounts of rain, disoriented marshals and enough stewards enquiries to last the FIA for weeks. Button had started the race hitting some competitors on of them his team-mate - that Hamilton guy who had to sit in the garage while the greatest race of the season maybe even the decade unfolded. Red Bull rounded off the podium with Schumacher in fourth. Somewhere an incident involving Petrov and Kobayashi had occurred which moved the Russian in front while Kamui finished two wide with a recovering Massa who made the pass using DRS across the line. The moment in itself summed up the intensity of the race - this post may not be able convey that but it was immensity of the race.
My excitement may have been compounded by the sleep deprivation of Le Mans and the sheer magnitude of that event had sunk in but it was a race full of shouting at the television at moments of stupidity, daft marshals, incidents of friendly fire at McLaren, contact, a raft of overtaking manoeuvres and of course that final lap. The points will be written up tomorrow because this has taken ages, I am going to need more practice at these crazy races so dear F1... more of that please... thanks
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