Vettel masterful in Montreal in dominating win, reclaims championship lead over uninspired P5 Hamilton; Bottas salvages P2 for Mercedes, Verstappen P3 for Red Bull in processional Canadian GP

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel went from pole to the victory in seemingly effortless fashion at the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday, dominating a race where once again overtaking proved exceedingly difficult. That resulted in a somewhat desultory contest where finishing positions were mainly dictated by starting positions. Once again F1 finds itself in a season with record setting fast cars but a lack of on-track action due to the overly aero sensitive nature of these magnificently engineered machines, as well as a lack of tire degradation form this year’s Pirelli rubber. All that said it is shaping up to be a seesaw season results-wise between the top contenders from the elite Mercedes and Ferrari teams. And this weekend it was Vettel’s turn to win again, as Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton exhibited a surprisingly similar malaise to the one that seemed to afflict him in slow-speed Monaco only this time at one of his favorite fast tracks here in Montreal. Hamilton couldn’t overcome his mediocre qualifying effort and in fact lost a position from his P4 start on a pit stop overcut by Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo. The Englishman could never get back at Ricciardo and came home a disappointing P5. With Mercedes holding back on their new engine for now Hamilton was definitely down on power and coupled with Vettel’s dominating victory, the 50th of his illustrious F1 career, it saw the Drivers’ Championship lead swing back to the German by a single point. So while the racing may not be of the most exciting overtaking variety, this 2018 season is providing some real suspense as to which driver will walk away with the crown at the end of it.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

Valtteri Bottas was the better of the two Silver Arrows, maintaining his P2 starting position in the face of a first lap onslaught by Red Bull’s hyper-aggressive Max Verstappen. While he didn’t really have anything to challenge Vettel in front, missing his only minor chance by running a ragged Lap 56 when he was almost within striking distance, Bottas drove well once again to come home P2. It was a good salvage job when Mercedes seemed throughly outclassed by the red cars this weekend. One wonders what the team dynamic would be had Bottas not DNF’d from the lead in Baku with an ill-timed puncture that ceded Hamilton a very lucky win. Verstappen had a much needed steady and incident-free race after a lot of erratic performances this season. While Bottas held him off early and Vertsappen never really had another shot to advance, young Max managed his race well enough to take the last step on the podium in P3. With Ricciardo’s overachieving P4 it made for another very solid day for team Red Bull and their slightly underpowered RB-14.

With the difficult nature of overtaking in this race with these cars, Ferrari’s second driver Kimi Raikkonen found himself stuck in P6 after Ricciardo also pipped him at the start of the race. Ferrari could never quite figure out how to get the veteran Finn back in the mix and so Raikkonen finished there as well. Best of the rest after the elite 6 was Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg who finished P7 followed by his teammate Carlos Sainz in P8. Rounding out the top 10 Esteban Ocon came home P9 for Force India and Charles Leclerc’s stock kept rising with another splendid drive to take the last point in P10 for perpetual backmarkers Sauber.

A scary opening lap shunt between Williams Lance Stroll and Toro Rosso’s Brendan Hartley caused a Safety Car until Lap 4. Hartley went airborne briefly and was checked at hospital but was cleared medically and released. It was another disappointing result for the struggling Kiwi, as well as for the Canadian Stroll, who found himself out of the GP before the end of the first lap in front of his home fans.

Top 10 finishers of the Canadian GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

In two weeks’ time the next race will feature the return of France to the GP calendar after a decade’s absence. The first French Grand Prix since 2008, it will be back at the venerable Circuit Paul Ricard. Hope to see you then to see if Vettel can extend his points lead or if Hamilton can back to his winning ways on this new-old circuit!