CANADIAN GP – Hamilton ‘stings like a bee’ to victory for a sixth time in Montreal
Lewis Hamilton has taken his second victory of the season and his sixth the Canadian Grand Prix. The world champion dedicated his win to the boxer Muhammad Ali who died last Saturday declaring his win “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. That’s for Muhammad Ali,”
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel had to settle for second after he made a brilliant start going through the middle of both the Mercedes drivers into Turn One where he managed to take the lead of the race.
Valtteri Bottas finished third ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who forced Nico Rosberg into a mistake. Rosberg spun off on the penultimate lap after having a messy race starting with contact on the opening lap. The Dutch teenager looked like a man on a mission when he began piling on the pressure on the Mercedes before getting passed in the closing stages.
Hamilton said “Today I had another really bad start, I’m not sure why – probably overheating my clutch. Sebastian and Nico got quite a good run down to Turn One and then the tyres were cold, big oversteer, I’m just grateful me and Nico didn’t get big damage to our cars.”
Vettel took the lead after he made a great start firing past both the Mercedes in under a 100m then got past on the short run down to turn one. While Mercedes had their heart in their mouth after contact between Hamilton and Rosberg. This sent the German off track dropping him down to ninth.
All was not lost like in Barcelona with both escaping without taking each other out. Vettel tried to build a early lead over Hamilton but Ferrari took a gamble after Jenson Button brought out the safety car after Jenson Button’s McLaren, which suffered an engine failure on lap 10.
They chose to stop both Vettel and Raikkonen, putting them both on the same two-stop strategy and forcing the German to pass Hamilton again to win the race. But Mercedes left Hamilton out allowing him to make a single stop, swapping his ultra-soft tyres for softs.
The world champion came out 13.5 seconds behind the Ferrari, which has been improved by a new turbocharger design.
Ferrari’s team boss Maurizio Arrivabene told Sky Sports “We overestimated the degradation on the tyres, this is the reason why we called him in. It was the wrong decision.”
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was sixth, while seventh went to Daniel Ricciardo in the second Red Bull, with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez completing the top ten, split by the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz, who came from 20th on the grid to secure ninth place.
Along with Button the other retirements were Jolyon Palmer was next up, bringing his Renault into the garage with a water leak on lap 19 and Felipe Massa made a terminal visit to the Williams pit on lap 38 because of over heating.
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