CITY AND STROLL DELIVER A GREAT F1 RACE
Sun shines on event worthy of 50th anniversary
Given the hype surrounding this weekend’s 50th anniversary of the Canadian Grand Prix, a letdown would not have been all that surprising.
It might even have seemed inevitable.
After all, the 2017 edition of the Formula One event at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve marked not only half-a-century of Grand Prix racing in Canada, but it took place as the nation celebrates its 150th birthday and the host city its 375th.
It also featured Montreal-born rookie Lance Stroll, the first Canadian F1 driver since Jacques Villeneuve in 2006 to race on the island circuit named after his late, great father.
And it came amid a fierce championship battle between titans Mercedes and Ferrari after too many years (in some eyes) of dull domination by the Silver Arrows.
Clearly, the annual festival of speed, sound and excess arrived with a heightened sense of anticipation this time around, and the risk was that the extra weight of expectation would cause it to crash ingloriously into a wall of a reality.
And yet, when the checkered flag came down after 70 laps on Île Notre-Dame on Sunday afternoon, you would have to be pretty cynical not to recognize that Montreal had delivered yet another successful Grand Prix, after all.
As always, the grandstands were packed on race day and fuller than typically seen at other F1 venues around the globe during Saturday qualifying and the Friday practice sessions.
So, too, were the streets, bars and terrasses, as this week’s festivities spilled beyond the usual confines of Crescent and Peel Sts., and Little Italy and the Old Port, onto de Maisonneuve Blvd., Dorchester Square and beyond.
The Crescent St. Grand Prix Festival was reported to have drawn record crowds, and merchants there and across Montreal were given extra reason to cheer with this weekend’s announcement of a five-year contract extension that secures the Grand Prix here until at least 2029.
No doubt the glorious weather played a large part in drawing people to the streets and circuit, with Mother Nature doing a U-turn on initial forecasts for rain or even thunderstorms at some point during the five days of Grand Prix events.
Instead, it remained hot and more or less sunny throughout — nudging 30 degrees Celsius on Île Notre-Dame half an hour before Sunday’s race start, when the track temperature registered 40 C.
That was a welcome and dramatic change from last year, when it got so cold at times that toques and gloves became de rigueur in the paddock area.
Not that the weather didn’t play tricks this time around. Sunday’s breezy conditions were welcome by overheated spectators, but certainly not by team engineers faced with the puzzle of extracting maximum performance from temperamental race cars.
Celebrities? The actor Michael Douglas, a regular at the Canadian Grand Prix, was spotted strolling the paddock area, as was Sir Patrick Stewart, a.k.a. Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek fame, who served as the master of ceremonies during the podium presentations.
Members of local wildlife also are known for making cameos at our Grand Prix. Happily, the groundhog that made its way onto the track during Sunday’s warm-up lap knew well enough to scurry before the real action got underway.
Alas, that action took a hit — literally — early on when the Red Bull of Max Verstappen clipped the front wing of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari shortly after the start, forcing the championship points leader back into the pits for a nose change and relegating him to the back of the pack when he re-emerged.
That allowed pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton to scamper away and stay at the front from start to finish without any bother, with Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas serving as a buffer between the silver cars and the rest of the pack.
And that’s how it ended, with Hamilton crossing the finish line 19.783 seconds ahead of Bottas, and Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo a further 15.514 seconds adrift in third.
As for Vettel, he did well to fight all the way back to fourth, lifting fans from their seats with some heart-stopping overtaking before reaching the checkered flag 0.610 seconds behind Ricciardo.
Kimi Raikkonen in the other Ferrari was less inspiring, finishing seventh with brake problems after starting fourth and depriving fans of any remaining chance of that hoped-for MercedesFerrari clash.
Heroes? Well, Hamilton for one, even though he had a relatively easy time of it this time. His victory was his third-straight in Montreal and sixth overall — one short of the record set by Michael Schumacher, the winningest driver in F1 history.
Fernando Alonso deserves honourable mention. After his engine gave out late in the contest, he climbed out of his stricken McLaren-Honda, made his way deep into the grandstands and was mobbed by F1 fans of all stripes — an extraordinary scene, possibly unprecedented in F1.
Top honours, though, must go to the local kid. Stroll, 18, has had a difficult start to his rookie season with the Williams team, finishing only two of the first six races before Montreal. His best result was 11th place, in Russia.
Arriving at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, his goal was to finish in the top 10 and collect his first championship points at the notoriously tricky track where he’d never raced before, even in junior formulas.
Give him credit: Stroll drove an aggressive and inspired home race on Sunday, finishing a welldeserved ninth — good enough for two championship points.
Well done, Lance. Well done, Montreal.
GRAND PRIX FROM A1