2019 Canadian GP Review

2019 Canadian GP Review

The Canadian Grand Prix can sometimes produce an exciting race, it usually has a good atmosphere, there's always some wildlife to avoid and it's nice for the teams to do a bit of extra curricular activities in building boats out of spare parts.

Qualifying

There were a few spins and crashes in practice, but Kevin Magnussen's crash in qualifying was spectacular, having hit the wall of champions which speared him into the opposite barrier, ruining many a qualifying runs of rivals behind him. I remember back in the day Ken Tyrrell would never send both his cars out at the same time for that reason, but back then they had two separate hour-long qualifying sessions and 12 laps in each. Anyway, it was Vettel who was back in form in qualifying, using his superior straight line speed to take pole position. The red/blue indicator on F1's side-by-side video clearly shows Mercedes are quick in braking and the corners whilst Ferrari are quick on the straights.

Stars and Strugglers

Daniel Ricciardo shone in qualifying finishing in fourth and beating Pierre Gasly and Valterri Bottas. A potentially epic scrap for position with team-mate in Hulkenberg didn't materialise (probably wisely) in the race, and the team earned their first double points finish this weekend and both of them beat Gasly in a fair battle. A fiesty defence from Ricciardo against Bottas was nice to see. Good job.

Whilst both McLaren's made it into Q3, Norris' car had a strange wheel hub failure and Sainz did not have the pace to finish in the points. Norris did have some nice dicing with fellow sim racer, Verstappen.

Lance Stroll put in a good race at his home race, finishing in the points. He still needs to find a way of getting out of Q1 though.

Daniel Kvyat continues to lead the team, earning another point in his current good run of form.

Both Haas cars were scuppered by Magnussen's qualifying crash, and never really recovered in the, with one of the highlights being Steiner giving Magnussen a right telling off over the radio, radio gold! He even finished behind Williams. Another moment was when Grosjean had to discard some Toro Rosso front wing from his cockpit. Haas need to get on top of these 'Kinder Surprise' tyres.

Alfa Romeo also struggled, with Giovinazzi spinning during the race.

Hamilton made a rare mistake that damaged his car against the barrier in practice, but did well to make a race of it. Bottas hadn't really shown up this weekend, having been strong in Montreal in the past, he was completely forgotten about this weekend, so Hamilton has extended his championship lead by more than a win's worth, having won 5 out of 7 Grand Prix so far. He has 7 victories in Canada now.

Vettel's Meltdown

So that's all the normal stuff out the way, now to the real drama. For a change, we had some good racing at the front, well I say 'racing', but a competitive procession at the front. Hamilton looked to have the stronger pace in the race and was running close behind the Ferrari all race, but where it matters along the long straights, Ferrari could pull out enough to neutralize any DRS advantage. But Hamilton harried, hoping to force Vettel into a mistake, and a mistake was made, running wide in the turn 5/6 chicane. When he rejoined and collected the car from another slide, Hamilton had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. There is no controversy in Vettel making a mistake, we've seen them all too often, running wide near the end of the 2011 Grand Prix allowing Button through to take victory, crashing out of his home race from a commanding lead in 2018 German GP, and most recently spinning in Bahrain 2019 when racing Hamilton. It's really sad, but in what was a welcome return to form for the German and his team, Vettel's mistake lost them the race.

Vettel received a penalty for rejoining the race in an unsafe manner, crowding Hamilton off the track, or in this case, towards a barrier. Hamilton had to take action to avoid a collision.

Vettel's antics after the race provided gripping drama, as one might have expected from his constant defence on the radio in car. He stopped in the pit lane rather than in parc ferme and went to his hospitality. A FIA official had to go and get him and as he passed through the Mercedes garage (because why not) he received a huge cheer from the crowd, and then he removed the first place board from Hamilton's car and placed it in the empty space where his car should have been. Totally awkward silence in the cooling down room, awkwardly being dragged to the top step by Hamilton during the anthem, and walking off on Brundle's interview halfway through was utterly brilliant to watch. With rumours Vettel might retire coming up recently, there were times in his comments when he sounded like he was done with F1 - be it because of this penalty, or the realisation he can't beat Hamilton. Whatever, his almighty strop had more drama than any of the preceding 6 races combined.

I don't think any driver, with Hamilton admitting as much afterwards, would have done anything different to Vettel's manner of rejoining the track. You're in the lead but you've made a mistake, you're trying not to crash and you want to do all that is sportingly possible to keep that lead by keeping momentum and making your car as wide as possible. Vettel kept his foot on the accelerator to keep the momentum, and had a moment when he rejoined the tarmac. He also didn't turn left but simply let the car veer to the right hand side of the track. So I totally understand the uproar against the penalty.

However, the rules are written, whether they should be there or not is a different question, but the rule clearly states that he should have given Hamilton more space (as Hamilton quoted numerous times afterwards) and Vettel should have received a penalty, and he received the smallest penalty available, a 5-second penalty. Verstappen received a similar penalty in Japan 2018, with Verstappen's rejoining very deliberate, and Kimi's avoiding action cost him much more at that time. But we've seen Vettel crowd out Leclerc a number of times this season, including when he had run wide at the start of the 2019 Spanish GP and both Ferrari's had to fend off rivals around turn 3. But this was not penalized, with first lap incidents usually getting the benefit of the doubt. But the rules are there and the stewards had to punish him, harsh as it is.

It's also the responsibility of the car behind to avoid contact, which Hamilton did well to avoid contact with Vettel and the wall.

The rules were applied correctly, but in pure racing terms it should be classed as this unwritten, ambiguous term of 'racing incident' and let bygones be bygones. The rule was put in place for blatantly driving a competitor off the track, which I think the incident with Verstappen in Japan was more clear cut. I don't think this was a blatant attempt to take Hamilton out, but an attempt to rejoin without losing too much momentum to keep the lead. The stewards have applied the rules to the letter of the law, so the gripe should be at the wording of the rules themselves.

In the highly professional world of Formula 1, we need to see mistakes being made, and we love a bit of released emotions, it brings unpredictability and drama, the exact things we are lacking this season. It shouldn't be artificial like many other racing series trying to induce some excitement. Vettel's reaction has caused lots of conversations and a social media outcry, things that will draw eyes to the sport. But for the second race in a row, the finishing order on track did not reflect the actual race results.