Monday, June 13, 2011

Button snatched dramatic victory from Vettel in the final lap

Race, Grand Prix du Canada, Canadian Grand Prix, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal

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It was a dramatic end to the Canadian Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel lead from start to all the way till penultimate lap of the race only to hand the victory to Button in the last lap when he skid off the kerb.

Canadian GP saw a heavy rain, record breaking 4hrs 4mins 39.537secs (4.4.39.537) of racing time, maximum number of times a safety car is deployed (6 times), red flagged race for almost more than 2 hours due to rain, race ending just in the final minute of the two hour time limit to finish the race. Kobayashi run to 2nd place and then off the podium to 5th and then on the finish line just nearly lost to Ferrari Felipe Massa for thousandth of a second to 6th. Michael Schumacher to be on 2nd position for the first podium finish after his comeback in 2010 but nearly missing out to Race Winner Jenson Button and 3rd place finisher Mark Webber only after a hard fought battle for 2nd and 3rd. Lot of accidents, spinning cars on track, both the Force India's car from running as high as 5th to non finisher and last but not the least Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button hitting each other during the early stages of the race.

It looked like two different races with a different picture before the rain stopped race to a different at the end.


It was a behind safety car start for the drivers as the race underwent at start. As the race started for the first full lap at Lap 5, mclaren problem started to grow. Hamilton and Webber had a contact spinning Webber off to drop him to 15th. Then Mclaren duo were trying to pass Michael Schumacher but failed and Hamilton slipped behind his teammate.

Then on Lap 8, on the straight-finish line, Hamilton and Button contacted and Hamilton was knocked on to the wall with left rear puncture. He limped for few corners before being asked to pull off the road due to suspension failure.

Safety car was deployed for the 2nd time.

More troubles come, when Button comes out of the pit speeding behind the safety car above safety car speed limit. He was given a drive through penalty for the same. He has switched to intermediates and was lapping faster than others.

Others driver like Fernando Alonso, Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil follow him for intermediates.

But then came the much heavier rain that was not in a mood to stop. It caused another safety car and the red flags and the race was halted for 2 hours and 5mins.

Kobayashi was 2nd without a stop. Massa was 3rd with one stop. Then there were Renaults of Heidfeld and Petrov without a stop. Di Resta in 6th. Webber, Alonso, De La Rosa and then Button for 10th. Then came two Mercedes.

But as the race restarted again behind the safety car. After few laps of race control, drivers started to compete for position again. Drivers switched for intermediates to gain speed.

But more troubles come for Button as he hit Alonso knocking him out on chicane Kerb and blowing his front left tyre. He limped to the pits behind the fifth safety car and come out at the back of the field.


From there on he made his moves to reach the top with a better tweaked car for wet setups (as Mclaren qualified on wet setups.).

As the track started to dry, teams switched to slick tyres. Kobayashi started to lose from the trailing Massa and here comes the 7time world champion behind them. As Massa tries to get pass Kobayashi, Michael Schumacher took the advantage and went past both of them for 4th. With few laps more, Webber and Button followed him for 3rd and 4th.

As the Heidfeld contacted Kobayashi, he went out of the race with safety car deployed for the record 6th time on track.

As the race resume, the battle for 2nd place started with Schumi defending the place from Webber and Button. Button went past Webber as he made the mistake when he tried to get past Michael. DRS enabled on track give advantage to both Button and Webber to get past Michael for 2nd and 3rd.

Now the final battle to win the race started between Button and Vettel with Button gaining on Vettel on everylap. World Champion made a mistake at the end to slip on the Kerb and gave his position to Button.

Vitaly Petrov was the only Renault driver to finish the race for 5th. Renault struggle during the race but was only holding the positions due to team strategy. The were faster than Sauber on slick to get past Kobayashi.

At the finish line, Massa was wheel to wheel with Kobayashi to get the 6th position from Kobayashi within thousandth of a second.

Kobayashi drove brilliantly in the wet with a clever strategy he remained on 2nd for much of the race. But the car was slower during the dry mode and had to give positions to the top teams.


Toro Rosso has a good result in the end with 8th and 10th finish sandwiching Rubens Barrichello for Williams in 9th. This was another 2point finish for Barrichello in struggling Williams.

Something went wrong for Nico Rosberg in the end and he was dropped to 11th position out of point tally.

Pedro De La Rosa who was replacement to the unfit Sergio Perez finished a remarkable 12th.

HRT had a good outing with both the drivers beating Virgin and Lotus for the first time this season. But Karthikeyan was penalized for cutting the chicane and was dropped to 17th. But then also, Vitantonio Liuzzi finished at 13th which is the best result for HRT so far.

He was followed by the two Virgins and one Lotus.

It was a bad day for Force India, who were at one moment were in contention of points in first half of the race. But both had several collisions, problems and accidents to saw both drivers retiring from the race. Di Resta was the last classified driver at 18th position.

Hamilton and Alonso are the top drivers who did not finish the race. Also were Heidfeld and Sutil, Maldonado and Kovalainen.

An amazing race with a dramatic results was full of fun and entertainment for the fans and tough for drivers to cope with such a heavy rain.


Records Made during Canadian Grand Prix:

Longest Race: 4hrs 4mins and 39.537secs

Max. No. of Safety Car in a race: 6 times


Pos Driver Team Laps Time Pits Grid Points
1 Jenson Button Mclaren - Mercedes 70 +4hrs 4mins 39.537sec 6 7 25
2 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull - Renault 70 +2.7sec 3 1 18
3 Mark Webber Red Bull - Renault 70 + 13.8sec 3 4 15
4 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 70 + 14.2sec 4 8 12
5 Vitaly Petrov Renault 70 + 20.3sec 2 10 10
6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 70 + 33.2sec 4 3 8
7 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber - Ferrari 70 + 33.2sec 2 13 6
8 Jaime Alguersuari STR - Ferrari 70 + 35.9sec 3 18 4
9 Rubens Barrichello Williams - Cosworth 70 + 45.1sec 4 16 2
10 Sebastien Buemi STR - Ferrari 70 + 47.0sec 4 15 1
11 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 70 + 50.4sec 4 6
12 Pedro De La Rosa
Sauber - Ferrari 70 + 63.6sec 2 17
13 Vitantonio Liuzzi HRT - Cosworth 69 + 1 Lap 3 21
14 Jerome d'Ambrosio Virgin - Cosworth 69 + 1 Lap 5 24
15 Timo Glock Virgin - Cosworth 69 + 1 Lap 2 22
16 Jarno Trulli Lotus - Renault 69 + 1 Lap 4 19
17 Narain Karthikeyan HRT - Cosworth 69 + 1 Lap 2 23
18 Paul Di Resta Force India - Mercedes 67 + 3 Laps 4 11
Ret Pastor Maldonado Williams - Cosworth 61 + 9 Laps 5 12
Ret Nick Heidfeld Renault 55 + 15 Lap 2 9
Ret Adrian Sutil Force India - Mercedes 49 + 21 Laps 5 14
Ret Fernando Alonso Ferrari 36 + 34 Laps 3 2
Ret Heikki Kovalainen Lotus - Renault 28 + 42 Laps 2 20
Ret Lewis Hamilton Mclaren - Mercedes 7 + 63 Laps
0 5
Fastest Lap - Jenson Button, Mclaren - 1min 16.956sec on Lap 69
Lap Record - Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari (2004) - 1min 13.622sec

Narain Karthikeyan was penalized for cutting the chicane and gaining advantage. 20sec added to his time which dropped him to 17th position from 14th.

F1 2011 Season Drivers Standing
1 Sebastian Vettel 161
2 Jenson Button 101
3 Mark Webber 94
4 Lewis Hamilton 85
5 Fernando Alonso 69
6 Felipe Massa 32
7 Vitaly Petrov 31
8 Nick Heidfeld 29
9 Michael Schumacher 26
10 Nico Rosberg 26
11 Kamui Kobayashi 25
12 Adrian Sutil 8
13 Sebastien Buemi 8
14 Jaime Alguersuari 4
15 Rubens Barrichello 4
16 Sergio Perez 2
17 Paul Di Resta 2
Constructors Standing for 2011 Season
1 Red Bull 255
2 Mclaren 186
3 Ferrari 101
4 Renault 60
5 Mercedes GP 52
6 Sauber 27
7 Toro Rosso 12
8 Force India 10
9 Williams 4

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