Thumb's up for McLaren's Jenson Button after winning the Canadian Grand Pix in Montreal.(Darron Cummings/Associated Press)
The track was already wet on a drizzly Saturday afternoon (Sunday morning in Manila) in Montreal. The rain was indeed the biggest concern for most of the drivers. Jenson button was on a mission – the rain was just a small obstacle for him. Barely half of the race was completed – 25 laps to be exact – when the weather got worse. The race had to be postponed due to heavy rains but it was resumed after 2 long hours. Normally, it would’ve been cancelled because of the latter but it seems the FIA and Canadian organizers of the races didn’t want to disappoint the fans. Patience was indeed a virtue and the fans got their money’s worth.
Before the race got postponed, Sebastian Vettel was the leader of the pact while Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber-Ferrari was surprisingly at 2nd place while Felipe Massa of Ferrari was at 3rd – it all changed as the race resumed.
Fast forward to lap 69 of the race, it all seemed like Vettel was in for another 1st place podium victory but he made a terrible driving lapse – Jenson Button took advantage cruised all the way to the checkered flag for the win. The mistake proved to be costly for the defending champ.
A crestfallen Sebastien Vettel bemoaned his "only mistake" as a slide on the final lap cost him victory in an epicCanadian Grand Prix.
The final laps of the pulsating race saw McLaren's Jenson Button homing in on Vettel, who appeared to have enough to match the Briton until his last-lap slip ruined an otherwise faultless performance.
"Of course, I'm disappointed," said Vettel in the post-race press conference. "It was a very difficult race from start to finish, and we led every single lap apart from the last one. I was probably too conservative after the last safety car.
"To lead and then give it away is not the sweetest feeling.
"We did the best we could," he added. "It was important to finish, especially in race like that, but to make my only mistake on the last lap is not very sweet at the moment."
If what happened to him in Monaco was bad enough, dropping early in the race in Canada after jocking for a position with teammate Jenson Button during lap 8 of the race. Lewis Hamilton left the race quietly but he was obviously none too pleased of the latter. While he’s still the number driver for McLaren, the relationship between him and button is another story altogether.
In spite of it all, Button says his teammate isn’t “aggressive” as per the criticsms floating around:
"Lewis is in the headlines a lot, and a lot of it is because he is bloody good," Button was quoted as saying by the Press Association.
"He's a racer, a fighter. For me that is the reason why I wanted to be here, against and with a driver that is super talented, one of the best drivers Formula 1 has ever seen.
"It's good challenging him on the circuit. We have a lot of respect for each other, we've raced each other a lot this year, and last year, and we've never touched. We've always given each other room. For me that's a great position to be in.
"So I don't agree with what Niki has said. I think his driving style is aggressive and he always goes for gaps. Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's not, but it's the same for all of us. He just finds himself in that situation more often than others."
Won by a hair
Jenson Button’s spectacular finish in Montreal may have been the best one in the race but you have to give credit to Felipe Massa of Ferrari and Sauber F1’s Kamui Kobayashi for a show stealer. The two were fighting for a 6th place finish – Kobayashi was ahead of Massa until the Ferrari driver made a huge push down the stretch. Both cars side by side just before crossing the finish but it was Massa that got the best of Kobayashi – won the position by a hair. It was that close of a race between the two.
The Japanese driver couldn’t help but express his disappointing 7th place finish:
"Just before the restart Jenson Button and I touched and I had to pit because of a damaged front wing," explained the Spanish veteran. "This ruined my race, I lost many positions, and I even lost a few more later when I got stuck in first gear.""I tried to recover from this as well as possible, but points were then out of reach. I must say it could have been a lot better today," he added.
The seven time world champ won a lot of races in Montreal in his career. It’s only been 2 years since coming out of retirement but the track in Montreal may have brought back a lot of flashbacks for him. Michael Schumacher knew he’s up against a young and feisty Mark Webber of Red Bull on his tail down the stretch and he was giving his all to protect his 3rd place spot – a position he’s never been at in a long while.
Barely 3 laps remaining and at all seemed he’s bound to get his podium finish for the first time since. He did everything he could to outrun Webber to seal his 3rd place victory but the young gun somehow, someway outsmarted Schumi. Before he could react on the defensive, it was a little too late – a few seconds is what all it took for that possible podium victory to fade away.
"I am leaving this race with one eye laughing and one eye crying, as I am not sure if I should be excited or sad about it," Schumacher said following the four-hour classic.
"Having been in second place towards the end, I would obviously have loved to finish there and be on the podium again. But even if it did not work out in the very end, we can be happy about the result and the big fight we put in."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the experienced Schumacher was not fazed by the two-hour break in proceedings. Lying in 12th place as lap 26 began, Schumacher put in some of his best racing of 2011 in the changeable conditions of the second half of the race.
"A good strategy after the red flag made it possible, and I am very happy for our team," he said.
"Everything went wrong, right from this morning when we saw it was raining," lamented Alonso.
"It's a real shame because today we really had a good race pace but we were unlucky: that's not a feeling I have, it's a fact."
Alonso felt that the decision to start the race behind the safety car was wrong, and deprived him of a key opportunity to attack polesitter Sebastien Vettel.
"We had our best qualifying of the year and we found ourselves starting behind the safety car, when I felt that for me, the intermediates were the best tyre," said Alonso. "When we fitted them, the downpour came, along with the red flag which meant those who had not changed tyres could now do it practically for nothing."
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