Lewis Hamilton and his McLaren team had the best
strategy despite another hiccup as the Briton stormed to victory in the
Canadian Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday to become the seventh winner
in as many season races.
Although the second pit stop
was not perfect, Hamilton roared past world champion Sebastian Vettel
and Fernando Alonso in the closing stages for his first 2012 win on the
course where got his first career success in 2007.
Romain
Grosjean placed second for Lotus and Sergio Perez third for Sauber as
Alonso and Vettel were slowed down by worn tyres as a gamble with a
one-stop strategy cost them the podium.
Vettel at
least partly made amends, went to the pits straight after being
overtaken by Hamilton with eight laps left and was awarded by snatching
fourth place from Alonso shortly before the end.
Hamilton
also stole first place from Alonso in the standings with 88 points from
seven races. Alonso has 86 and Vettel 85 as the record of different
winners was stretched to seven.
Vettel handily won
the start from his 32nd career pole ahead of Hamilton and Alonso and
opened up a small gap in a first lap with no major incidents.
The
order at the top didn’t change but Felipe Massa spun in the fifth lap
and dropped from fifth to outside the top 10 in a another setback for
the beleaguered Brazilian Ferrari driver.
Jenson
Button pitted first in the 16th despite normally longer lasting hard
tyres at the start and was back in for another set of softs as early as
the 34th as the 2009 world champion was never in contention as last
year, when he won the rain-interrupted race from last place at the
halfway mark.
Up front, the shake-up came during the first round of pit stops.
Vettel came in first in the 17th, Hamilton in the 18th and Alonso in the 19th.
The
Spaniard came out in first place, but Hamilton -- who had moved ahead
of Vettel with a fast stop -- had more grip from a lap on the new tyres
and with the help of the DRS system took the lead in the 20th lap ahead
of Alonso and Vettel.
But there was concern when
McLaren didn’t get it right again at Hamilton’s second stop in the 50th
lap, losing around two precious seconds when the right rear tyre could
not be instantly fitted.
The worries in the McLaren
camp grew when Alonso and Vettel didn’t follow into the pits and it
became obvious that both aimed to complete the race with one stop.
But
Hamilton made the most of the fresh tyres, stormed past Vettel with
eight laps left and was back in front six laps from the end for victory
in 1 hour 32 minutes 29.586 seconds, 2.5 seconds from Grosjean and 5.2
seconds ahead of Perez.
Michael Schumacher had to
swallow yet another setback as the DRS rear wing flap jammed and
remained open, forcing the record world champion and seven-times Canada
GP winner to retire his Mercedes in the 45th lap in yet another
zero-points showing.
The next race is the European Grand Prix in Valencia on June 24.