“This is something for all the canadian tifo si”
Ferrari had along wait for success in canada, but seb delivered
The ‘Chant of the Italians’ rang out over the Circuit Gilles-villeneuve on Sunday afternoon as Sebastian Vettel gave Ferrari their first victory in Canada for 14 years. Appropriately, this year marked the 40th anniversary of Gilles Villeneuve’s first grand prix victory, scored at the track that now bears his name.
As Vettel jumped out of his winning machine, he grabbed a giant Ferrari flag and leapt about with child-like joy, not only celebrating his 50th grand prix win but, perhaps more significantly, relishing his return to the top of the drivers’ world championship – one point ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
It had been a celebration of the Prancing Horse throughout Sunday, as earlier in the morning, 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve drove his father’s 312T3 1978 machine to the delight of the local supporters.
“Forty years after Gilles won his first GP here, it’s great to show that Ferrari is still alive winning races,” said a delighted Vettel. “This is something for all the Canadian tifosi to enjoy and I’m just extremely proud to become part of that story.”
The German took a lights-to-flag victory at a warm Ile Notre Dame island circuit in a largely processional one-stop affair.
Vettel finished 7.3 seconds ahead of Mercedes’s Valtteri Bottas and a further 0.9s in front of Max Verstappen, who didn’t put a foot wrong in the wake of his misdemeanors in each of the first six races of the year.
Daniel Ricciardo was fourth ahead of Hamilton – the Brit never quite happy with the balance of his Mercedes throughout the weekend and suffering with power unit problems in the race.
While the Canadian Grand Prix was scheduled to take 70 laps, the official result was classified at 68 laps with a countback, after the chequered flag was prematurely waved before the finish by a local celebrity. An error described by one F1 insider as “amateur.”
Qualifying
When Vettel crossed the line to set the fastest time in qualifying, the roar from the crowd drowned out his 1.6litre turbocharged engine. It was the first time since Michael Schumacher’s achievement in 2001 that a Ferrari has taken pole position at the Circuit Gilles-villeneuve.
In recent years Hamilton has dominated at this track, but scrappy laps in Q3 – including a lock-up at the hairpin on his final run – meant he could only qualify fourth. One place behind Verstappen and his team-mate Bottas.
As has been his habit this year, Kimi Raikkonen slipped up in Q3, running wide at Turn 2, putting himself out of contention for the top spot. He aborted his final lap, meaning the Finn started fifth in his Ferrari, one place ahead of Riccciardo. Rounding out the top 10 were the two Renaults and both Force Indias.
The only real drama of the hour-long session – held in glorious summer sunshine – came right at the start when Romain Grosjean’s Haas blew its Ferrari engine as he headed down the pitlane. He was immediately eliminated in a cloud of white smoke, as was Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson, who tapped the wall at the second chicane (Turn 9).
The most significant strategic element was the fact both the Mercedes and Ferrari runners set their best time on the purple ultrasoft tyre, meaning they started the race on that rubber. But both of the Red Bulls opted for the pink hypersoft, offering up a mix of strategies for race day.
“I’m surprised both Red Bulls chose the hypersoft,” said Vettel after qualifying. “It’s not a good race tyre, but we’ll see what happens tomorrow…”
Race
As the cars formed up on the grid, all eyes were on Verstappen to see whether he could avoid contact on the opening lap. Starting on his hypersofts, he was expected to get the best launch of the front runners and be right in the mix at the first corner. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said to Max beforehand he should “go for it”, not wanting to suppress his natural racing instinct, despite his recent poor form.
Once the five red lights went out, Verstappen was no threat to Vettel, who converted pole into an instant lead, but did get alongside Bottas in the first sequence of bends. Bottas was adept in repelling the threat and although the pair had the slightest of kisses, they raced wheel-to-wheel through Turns 1 and 2 and Bottas stayed ahead.
Further back, Ricciardo did manage to squeeze past Raikkonen for fifth, while Hamilton held onto fourth place. But less than half a lap into the race, the safety car had been deployed – for the one and only time in this grand prix – for a sizeable crash in the crowded mid-field.
Williams are at present in something of a nadir and heading into his home weekend, young Lance Stroll’s body language gave the impression that he wasn’t overly enthusiastic about his prospects of a strong result at his local track. That was borne out when he didn’t make it past the sixth corner of the race.
While he managed to overtake the
two Mclarens in front of him at the start, as he rounded the swift right-hander at Turn 5, Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley attempted to pass the Williams around the outside. When Stroll’s Williams got loose, he corrected the slide, but flicked across the track and forced Hartley straight into the barriers on the outside of the corner. Hartley’s Toro Rosso became airborne and was thankfully avoided by the rest of the on-coming pack – finally coming to a wrecked heap alongside the battered Williams of Stroll. It took four laps under caution to clear the cars and remove all the debris from the circuit.
At the restart there was more drama as 10th placed Sergio Perez attempted to overtake Carlos Sainz under braking for Turn 1 and ended up running wide and losing four places in the process. On the team radio the Force India man was incensed, calling for a “black flag” to be issued to Renault’s Sainz. But in the case of the Stroll/hartley clash and this incident – the stewards declared that no further action would be taken.
A lap later Hamilton reported on the team radio that he was suffering with “drop outs of power” and his team decided to pit him earlier than scheduled to help deal with an overheating issue. That was on lap 16, the same time that Verstappen pitted to shed the hypersoft tyre.
Red Bull called Ricciardo in for his one and only tyre stop one lap later and by setting the fastest sectors of the race up to that point – in addition to speedy work by his pitcrew – he was able to leapfrog Hamilton for fifth place.
After the early dramas, the race quickly settled down. Vettel running at the front with a comfortable lead over Bottas, who was ahead of Raikkonen and then the cars that had pitted: Verstappen, Ricciardo and Hamilton and then the two Renaults.
Grosjean, who had started from the back of the grid after his engine problem in qualifying, was the last to stop and had risen to ninth in the running order.
On lap 40 the race had its third retirement when Fernando Alonso lost power in his Mclaren with an exhaust failure. It was a weekend where the Spaniard had celebrated his 300th grand prix, but this retirement once again typified his dismal run of bad luck in F1.
On Saturday afternoon, he left the track early, just as his Mclaren bosses were being quizzed about his future and their plans to run an Indycar team next year. It seems as if they are doing everything in their power to hold onto Alonso, but with the Le Mans 24 Hours in his sights this week, you can understand why his frustration with both Mclaren and Formula 1 has become exasperating for the twotime champion.
While Alonso was unstrapping himself from his broken Mclaren, there was still a race going on and interest lay in whether Raikkonen was far enough up the road (in third) to pit and emerge ahead of Hamilton (sixth). When the Ferrari man did pit on lap 32, he couldn’t make it stick and emerged just behind the Mercedes.
Up front Vettel made his one and only pitstop on lap 37, one lap after secondplaced Bottas had made his stop for fresh rubber. In the closing stages, the Mercedes started to apply some pressure to the lead Ferrari, bringing the gap down to just under 3.5 seconds, but the fight was effectively over when he ran wide at Turn 2, in attempting to lap one of the Renaults.
With a few laps remaining, Hamilton was on Ricciardo’s tail, while Verstappen was tucked up behind Bottas, but neither could find a way past on a day where overtaking was in short supply.
Then a lap before the finish, the chequered flag was flown prematurely and as per the regulations the race result was taken on a two-lap countback. After the race, the winner was asked about the error.
“Fortunately I had the lap count in my car and the pitboard was accurate, but then if you lose your team radio and the pitboard isn’t there – then you would back off,” said Vettel. “Then, as you are in the lead, you would hope all the others back-off as well. I was worried and I said on the radio not to wave the flag, so as not to get people jumping on the track, waving flags and celebrating because we’re going at full pace.”
After the race, Red Bull’s Horner was praising Ricciardo for setting the race’s fastest lap on lap 70, when he was informed about the countback – the fastest lap going to Verstappen instead. While he made a joke about the error, laughing about wanting the procession to end early, someone asked what would have happened if Verstappen had passed Bottas for second instead. “Then,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a laughing matter…!”
Vettel was certainly joyous as he celebrated on the podium, as were the Canadian Ferrari fans who had good reason to cheer long into the night. As they headed back across the St Lawrence river and into the Montreal bars on Sunday evening, we suspect one of two of them raised their glasses and said: “This one’s for Gilles.”