Round 7 - Canada 2015 - Race

Greetings Internet, 

There are times when the term 'disappointment' is bandied about, often unfairly and I foresee precisely that description being applied to the Canadian GP that has just unfolded. In some respects it probably can be justified, because it became much of a conservation exercise - cars on similar performance levels cannot be anywhere near each other without destroying their tyres. Something that was mentioned a lot in the 2013 season - teams calling for a two second gap between cars. Today it was fuel as a limiting factor - ironically at the meeting where the plans for refuelling in the future was cancelled. But while those complaints are inevitable, it is worth noting that everyone was in roughly the same boat with fuel today. Perhaps some of those complaints are down to a general lack of competition for anywhere in the top four - if we didn't have Vettel and Massa making recovery drives this would have fully justified the term: disappointment. 

One interesting statistic was brought up at the midpoint of the race, when it was noted that it was the farthest into a race we've achieved since the introduction of the hybrid engines that we've completed without a retirement. Conventionally we'd expect to see something like that at somewhere like Barcelona or China - not a venue traditionally reserved for mayhem and carnage. It was also a rare non-safety car race, which for Montreal is certainly an oddity, I think that team performances have certainly started to drift farther apart - some of that is down to the engine disparities but even customer teams with the same engine are poles apart. 

The Race

While race preparations were going on the enigma of driver penalties were calculated as Jenson Button also collected a 15 place grid drop penalty. Add that to the totals accumulated by Verstappen and Vettel a total of 35 grid positions were added to qualifying positions - that has to be a record of some sort. Yet as the season continues I reckon that there will be many more races with this level of grid penalties. What this did mean was that both Merhi and Stevens were off the back row of the grid... not that it mattered to much to their overall race effort.

At the start it was almost a uniform launch by the two Mercedes, which left Raikkonen nowhere to go through the first corner - consigning him to third place. The only real progress was made by Vettel who cleared three cars before turn one, and so the comeback began. At the end of the opening lap, Button completed his drive-through penalty, the one allocated for all those component changes made before the race. For the most part the top ten had remained almost in situ - Hulkenberg found his way past Maldonado, but that was about it. In fact there was a distinct lack of contact all throughout the field in this opening phase of the race - they are all far to well behaved.

At least we had Massa and Vettel to spice things things up - the first target for their resurgent drive was the McLaren of Fernando Alonso. Massa made good use of the DRS to pass round the outside of turn one after the Spaniard had defended to the inside. This time Fernando - Felipe is faster than you, confirm you understand that message... but as the race processed Alonso was to have bigger struggles to deal with. This left Vettel to deal with the McLaren, his first effort was down the inside of the hairpin, but Sebastian locked up and overshot the apex handing Fernando the place back. But the Honda engine is no match for the upgraded Ferrari power unit - and on the back straight Vettel easily breezed past. Further ahead Ericsson was trying to defend against Massa, because the Sauber has a notably stronger engine than the Mclaren, it wasn't going to be quite as easy. Once again Massa was forced to the outside and therefore had to complete the pass in turn two - both Ericsson and Massa were side by side and wheel to wheel through the second corner. Marcus' rear wheel just brushing Massa's sidepod as the Williams took the position.

Because nothing else was happening we continue to track the actions of Vettel and Massa. Felipe was closing in on the points positions, the last of which belonged to Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull - the Renault engine was completely decimated in a straight line by the Williams. It wasn't going to be an enjoyable day for Ricciardo. As for Vettel's recovery drive he was making light work of the traffic as he effortlessly used the DRS to coast past the Sauber of Ericsson. Highlighting the difference between the upgraded engine in the Ferrari versus the older specification Ferrari engine that Sauber have to struggle on with until someone from Marenello ships them out a newer version of the power unit. Massa on the other hand was continuing his charge through the field - this time overtaking a similarly powered car in the form of Perez's Force India. Unlike Felipe's attempt last season - neither car ended up in the barrier and Massa marched ever forwards. Red Bull should have started playing the jaws theme tune to Daniil Kvyat's radio - because Massa was coming for the Russian. .Unfortunately we were prevented from seeing some more Vettel based overtaking as Ferrari pulled his car in for a stop - to get it out of traffic. A reasonable plan, or it would have been if Ferrari hadn't made a bit of a mess of the stop costing over three seconds. 

It might be worth pointing out that Hamilton was still leading the race with a comfortable distance back to Rosberg in second, Raikkonen was not letting Nico pull away and Bottas was living a lonely life in fourth. Grosjean, Hulkenberg and Maldonado were also running equidistantly apart. With that summary over and done with - time for a Vettel update. Following the botched pit-stop the German bloke had rejoined behind Fernando Alonso again - how fortunes change. Both drivers jumped ship during the winter and have ended up encountering very different levels of performance. This time Fernando was not going to give up without a fight, even if the car is not on the same level as the one he was fighting with. Alonso would always defend to the inside on the back straight - and Vettel attempted to hold on round the outside of the first part of the chicane but was forced out across the curbing. Alonso repeated the defence on the following lap, this time Vettel thought twice about pressing the issue. In this battle Sebastian came close to wiping the side of his Ferrari against the wall on the exit of turn seven. A frantic couple of laps for Vettel, but he eventually completed the pass on the main straight before turn one. 

The front runners were just holding station as they waited for their first stops, so instead we were treated to a montage of easy DRS passes mostly being completed on Renault powered cars, and mostly completed by a certain German in a red car. Vettel did mix things up a bit by passing Ericsson - although it was still a blue car. So we looked across at the other side of the Ferrari garage who were preparing for the first pit-stop for the leading competitors, as Raikkonen pitted. This time the team didn't mess things up and put all four wheels on the Finn's car, but that didn't mean all was well - on Kimi's outlap he had an odd innocuous spin at the hairpin. An identical spin to the one he made in last year's race - but a spin that cost him third place to Valtteri Bottas. This also made life a lot easier for Rosberg removing the threat - however remote - from the Ferrari. Thus allowing him to be a lot more focussed on chasing down Hamilton - after both Mercedes drivers made their round of stops Rosberg had taken a second off Lewis' lead. Over the next sequence of laps, Nico brought the gap down further to clost to a second, not quite within DRS range however. Just when there was the faintest hint of a battle for the lead... remember what one of those is... no me neither, both Mercedes drivers received calls to back off. Lewis had to conserve fuel and Nico had to conserve brakes... spoilsports.

At the halfway point, the top four places were now set... Oh Canada you can do so much better. 

So it was a relief that we still had Massa and Vettel in the race, Felipe who executed deft piece of avoidant driving to avoid a Gopher crossing the track between turns seven and eight. The local wildlife generally make an appearance during the weekend, and this one lived to tell the tale of it's moment of TV coverage. In fact at this point in the race the Gopher received more screen time then any of the Manor cars. So while Massa was dodging the local fuzzy residents, Vettel was on the hunt once more - this time it was Nico Hulkenberg who should have been receiving the iconic jaws theme tune to warn him of the impending attack from the Ferrari. Force India did inform Nico that Vettel didn't have to stop again, and was coming. Sebastian found that he didn't quite have the same speed advantage over a Mercedes powered car than he had over the other cars he'd passed today. Hulkenberg defended to the inside in the final chicane and Vettel opted for the outside line. As the Ferrari turned in, Nico had to take to the curbs to avoid contact and span the car, but kept it out of the wall. The incident was investigated but declared a racing incident. As a result of the spin, Massa was able to move further into the points. 

It was time for another installment of grumpy driver radio messages. This time is wasn't a complaint from Raikkonen about lapped cars, or a rant from Hamilton dictating to the engineers when they are allowed to talk to him. This time it was from the traditionally calm cockpit of Fernando Alonso's McLaren. Like Mercedes and Red Bull - McLaren were also struggling with fuel consumption. It does make me wonder how anyone is going to cope with the Singapore GP later in the season, which is the longest in terms of time, and much closer in terms of fuel consumption to the 100kg limit. Anyway Alonso's response to the latest message was less than complimentary: pointing out that the car has no power, no speed, no reliability and now no fuel economy. Claiming that it made McLaren look like a bunch of amateurs. Within a few laps of the update Alonso had to retire from the race - it wasn't long before Jenson Button also had to retire his car. In a race with almost exemplary reliability - only McLaren had fallen foul of mechanical difficulties... It does, on the surface seem a little amateurish.

Speaking of being amateurish, we find Grosjean having a lapse of judgement

when lapping the Manor of Will Stevens. As we have seen several times before Romain demonstrated a lack of spacial awareness as he cut back in front of Will before making sure he had cleared the Manor. As a result the Frenchman clipped Stevens' front wing which cut the rear tyre on the Lotus. The only saving grace was that all this took place in the final chicane, so it was a short trip to the pits to replace the damaged tyre. Too short for the Lotus team to be ready to complete a tyre change, by the time the crew found some tyres and put them on the car - Romain had fallen out of the points. Will Stevens in a rare radio broadcast was none to complimentary about Grosjean's driving and claimed that Romain had been cutting across the front of his car when lapping him on each occasion. The stewards also declared it was in fact Grosjean's fault and handed the Lotus driver a 5-second time penalty. As the Frenchman wasn't going to be pitting again the penalty would be added to his overall race time.

Grosjeans incident meant one less car for Vettel to pass, in fact he was running out of cars to pass - his next target was Pastor Maldonado: Road Warrior in the other Lotus. Pastor has been running the current set of tyres for a considerable number of laps, and was virtually defenceless against the might of Vettel and the Ferrari on fresher tyres. On the back straight Vettel opened the DRS and powered past the Lotus, Maldonado could have forced the issue but unlike several of the other drivers Vettel had raced today... well yesterday as it has now passed midnight. The only way that Vettel was going to make any more progress would be if reliability struck the leading cars. There was a faint hint that something might be some questions as to Mercedes' ability to complete the race as Hamilton was instructed to increase the amount of fuel saving. It might be worth noting that Vettel was within 20s of Raikkonen in the other Ferrari despite starting 18th and suffering a botched pitstop. Some of that could be attributed to the volume of new tyres Vettel had at his disposal but it does make you wonder why Raikkonen couldn't get the same performance out of the same machinery.

So with Vettel's progress stifled by a lack of cars to pass, we turn to Massa who was also running out of cars to overtake - his last reasonably accessible target was Pastor Maldonado: Road Warrior. It was a miracle that Maldonado was still running never mind running in the points, given the flood of reliability difficulties and collisions he has been involved in. As the Venezuelan was now 50 laps into his current tyre stint, grip was running quite low, so he was unable to put up any real defence against Massa, much in the same way he couldn't against Vettel. With that the top 9 positions were all set, the only remaining battle was that of Grosjean and Perez - having made an additional stop Romain was on fresher tyres and was quite fast, faster than the Force India. After making the pass, the Frenchman had to build a five second gap to the Mexican to prevent the time penalty reversing the position post race. For a moment it seemed as if Kvyat was also in range of a late charge, but the camera directors failed to take any notice of it. I had to follow the battle by looking at the gaps on the rolling ticker-tape of positions. Romain got within 0.6s of the Red Bull but for some reason he was unable to make any kind of impression on the Russian - probably scared off by that infamous death stare. After spending several laps in the turbulent air I assume Grosjean's tyres were ruined thus curtailing the battle.

The final phase of the race just trickled away without any further positional changes, and without any real hint of a fight up front. The only development was the retirement of Roberto Mehri's Manor - their first retirement of the season, which in itself is reasonably impressive given how difficult their season has been.

So the race ended with another victory for Lewis Hamilton, comfortably ahead of Rosberg. Many, many seconds later Bottas crossed the line for his first podium in 2015 having capitalised on Raikkonen dropping the position through his spin. Vettel in an inspired drive finished 5th, only a handful of seconds behind Raikkonen at the end of the race, Sebastian was followed home by the other star of a mostly eventless GP - Felipe Massa. So despite being separated by so many places, the top three teams locked out the top six finishing places. Maldonado scored his first points of the year in 7th, ahead of Hulkenberg - as he prepares to do Le Mans next week. The points were rounded off by Kvyat - the only Renault powered car to score and a recovering Romain Grosjean for Lotus.

The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners

Well, for the majority of the grid nothing really happened today - a Canadian GP without a safety car is virtually unheard of - but for some people there were bonus points on offer.

• 25pts - Sebastian Vettel - The obvious choice without his recovery drive the race would have been quite lifeless 
• 18pts - Felipe Massa - Along with Vettel, Massa made this race worth watching, especially his pass on Ericsson's Sauber
• 15pts - Pastor Maldonado - First points of the season, and the best of the non Mercedes/Ferrari/Williams runners
• 12pts - Valtteri Bottas - An anonymous race, but was close enough to Kimi to capitalise on the Finn's spin
• 10pts - Fernando Alonso - In a car that can't compete with most of the others - he certainly made Vettel work for the overtake
• 8pts - Daniil Kvyat - The only Renault powered car to take home any points from the Canadian GP, holding off Romain at the end 
• 6pts - Marcus Ericsson - Brilliant racing with Massa, but it was his only real contribution to the race.
• 4pts - Nico Hulkenberg - Gets some points for keeping the car out of the wall following his incident with Vettel
• 2pts -Hamilton/Rosberg - Dull formation flying out front, but managed issues of fuel consumption and brake wear while dominating 
• 1pt - That Gopher - Obeyed blue flags and kept off the racing line, well played

• -1pt - Canada - I expected better from you
• -1pt - Raikkonen - That was a fairly pants race really wasn't it
• -1pt - McLaren - Poor show really.

Looking Forward to Austria

Back in Europe for the next round to another track based on high power and heavy breaking zones - so another venue that should play right into the hands of Mercedes once more. Williams might be able to close the gap slightly, after all it was the only track in the 2014 calendar where Mercedes were beaten to pole position, by Felipe Massa. Will that feat be repeated, I doubt it but would gladly be proven wrong. This time Ferrari are involved in that particular equation, and if Vettel can repeat a performance like he produced today, but without the mechanical dramas in qualifying, it might get busy up front. Even though the Austrian GP is Red Bull's home venue, it might not be a happy hunting ground for the home teams. Only one finished in 2014, and while the reliability might be stronger in 2015, the hope of points might not be. All we can hope for is that after two universally static races - something might happen near the front of the field... yeah that might be asking too much...