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Lewis Hamilton (left) celebrates his third place more enthusiastically than second-placed Carlos Sainz (right)
Photo:
Paul Chiasson/AP
The Mercedes takes, the Mercedes gives: »
I almost feel young again,” said a beaming Lewis Hamilton after the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Brit had finished on the podium for the first time since the season opener.
On the way to the champagne party he laughed.
His back, which caused him major problems in Baku due to the bouncing Mercedes, is also fine, said the Briton, whose good performance apparently surprised even him.
As recently as Friday, he had grumbled about the "undriveable" W13.
"The car keeps getting worse the more we do to it," he had said.
Third place in Montréal, on the other hand, was "quite overwhelming," said the Briton.
However, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were missing a lot, the world championship leader fought a chase with the Ferrari driver until the end in the last part of the race.
The result:
With a better outcome for Verstappen.
In his 150 Grand Prix, the 24-year-old took another step towards defending his title.
Hamilton, who finished ahead of team-mate George Russell, also benefited from the losing streak of World Championship pursuers Sergio Pérez (retired) and Charles Leclerc (started from the back row due to an engine penalty).
Read the race report here.
The start:
When the red lights went out in front of full ranks on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after two years of the Corona compulsory break, Verstappen defended his second pole position of the year.
Fernando Alonso did not attack in the Alpine, Sainz stayed in third place in front of Hamilton, followed by Kevin Magnussen, followed by Esteban Ocon, who made up a place against Mick Schumacher.
Pérez moved up two places but had to retire his Red Bull on lap nine.
"The engine's off," he radioed.
Tsunoda drives into the wall - and makes it exciting again:
This also meant that Verstappen's potential helper, who quickly used the virtual safety car phase to change tires, was out.
Back on track, he quickly grabbed Alonso.
At the top, however, was Sainz, who, like Leclerc, had been stopped by an engine defect in Baku a week ago.
And Hamilton also held up splendidly, like Verstappen, had the tires changed.
Everything seemed decided until Alpha Tauri pilot Yuki Tsunoda took off.
The safety car had to come out, Sainz came straight in.
With fresher tires, the Spaniard put a lot of pressure on Verstappen on the final laps.
However, the Dutchman made no mistakes and clinched his sixth win of the season.
"Sorry, Mick, you were in a great mood":
After starting sixth, Schumacher had legitimate hopes of his first World Championship points, but only for 20 laps.
Then the 23-year-old had to park his Haas with a technical defect, as did Pérez in turn nine.
Schumacher was in seventh place at the time.
The German was recently under pressure from the racing team, but now his team asked for an apology over the radio, the reaction was over-beeped.
"But I take a lot of positive things with me," Schumacher later said on Sky.
Charles Leclerc's race to catch up:
The Ferrari driver stayed on his first set of tires for a long time and worked his way up from 19th on the grid.
In the battle for fifth place against Alonso's Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon, however, he couldn't get past.
After 42 laps of 70, Leclerc changed his tires but the stop was slow and he found himself outside the points.
Again he had to work his way forward.
In the end it was enough for fifth place - in the World Championship standings he is now 49 points behind Verstappen.
Disappointment at Vettel:
Sebastian Vettel, who finished twelfth in Canada, is said to have committed a rule violation during a safety car period.
He therefore had to go to the race stewards late on Sunday evening.
They accused him of not having kept the prescribed ten lengths to the man in front when the field drove behind the safety car after an accident involving the Japanese Tsunoda.
But there was no punishment.
Hundreds of horsepower and a marmot:
A four-legged friend caused a scare of its own kind in Montréal.
In the first free practice session, a marmot ran across the track between three approaching cars. Sainz in particular in the Ferrari just barely passed the animal.
It was luckier than one of its conspecifics a few years earlier: in 2018, Romain Grosjean caught a crossing animal in Canada with his haas and killed it.
"We missed our furry little friends in Montréal," Formula 1 wrote on Twitter about the training video.
Let's keep bouncing:
It was only on Thursday that the world automobile association Fia announced that it was making the ten racing teams responsible for the subject of "bouncing" by means of a technical directive.
The aim is to "reduce" or "eliminate" the hopping, for the benefit of the driver.
Many of these had complained of pain and disability in Baku.
But little happened in Canada at first.
Sanctions were postponed to the next Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone - because racing teams argued that no valid limit value for hopping could be determined that quickly.
Therefore, only data and experience were collected in Montreal.
