Canada: post-race analysis

Rather weird feeling. Both tips came off, which is good (particularly as good fortune played more than a small role), but an early 34 bet on Perez to be the winner without Rosberg and Hamilton didn't come off despite looking very close. It was, narrowly, the greenest race of the season so far.

Anyway, to the race.

Off the line Hamilton had a good start and very nearly passed Rosberg who used his track position to force Hamilton to pull out, which enabled Vettel to sneak into third. Perez got the jump on his team mate and was eleventh.

On the first lap Chilton crashed into his team mate, wrecking both cars and necessitating a safety car that stayed out for several laps. Chilton made excuses and claimed it was Bianchi's fault. It categorically was not. Bianchi was ahead, left plenty of room and Chilton was sliding. It was 100% Chilton's fault and his bleating is significantly unimpressive.

At the restart Rosberg was over the hills and far away and it took Hamilton a little while to pass Vettel. From then on it was always close between the two Mercedes drivers.

Perez started on the supersoft and managed many laps (over 30), with Hulkenberg on the soft. Both were trying for one stop strategies unlike just about everyone else.

This almost compromised the Vettel bet. The German soon cruised up to Hulkenberg (then fourth behind Rosberg, Hamilton and Perez) but could not pass the Force India because, although his car was superior overall, the Force India had much greater straight line speed. This allowed other cars including his team mate and the Williams, to close up. When Vettel pitted he came out behind Ricciardo, much to his, understandable, annoyance.

About halfway through, with the Mercedes over 20s ahead of Perez, then third, both Silver Arrows were struck with a problem. It seems their MGUs were not working, robbing the car of a huge amount of energy. They lost seconds every lap to their competitors, and Hamilton had to retire with a brake problem. Rosberg was told to alter the brakes but was still losing a huge amount of time. He was able to pull a significant advantage in the first half of the lap over Perez, so that the Mexican could not effect a pass during the long straight. However, when Perez got passed by Ricciardo the Aussie was able to reel in Rosberg (the Red Bull has perhaps the best chassis on the grid and was much faster in the first half of the lap than the Force India) and pass him. Great for him, slightly annoying for me.

Perez's problems (turned out to be brakes) enabled Vettel to pass him, and the Mexican was struggling to keep Massa behind him. Massa ploughed right into the back of Perez just after the start of the final lap (Perez may have braked early due to lack of braking force, catching Massa unawares) and the two had a significant crash. According to Allan McNish, Perez had a 27G impact from it. It appears, at the time of writing, both are ok.

Vettel was fortunate not to get caught up in the crash as collateral damage. Behind, Button appears to have somehow pounced and passed both Alonso and Hulkenberg to claim an unlikely 4^th.

Bottas was down in 7^th, followed by Vergne, Magnussen and Raikkonen. Very much a tale of two team mates, with the Finn some way back from Alonso, Magnussen a similar margin behind Button, and Vergne scoring decent points whilst Kvyat retired.

Rosberg will be a little disappointed not to have won, but to extend his lead over Hamilton by 18 points is very significant. In addition, the Mercedes performance without its motor generator units is a sign of just how dominant it is. Without a huge stack of power the car was almost capable of victory. That's like winning a marathon by hopping.

It's interesting to note that the brakes failed on two cars with Mercedes engines. Perez chose (and was allowed to choose) to stay out by his team. Canada is very hard on the brake, so I don't expect this to happen at many other tracks, but it might happen again occasionally.

Some odds I glanced at had Red Bull at 21 to be top scoring team and Ricciardo 4 for a podium. Mind you, betting's rather easy when you know the results.

Rosberg now has a 22 point advantage over Hamilton. That is not impossible to overcome. We have about 12 races left (looks like Russia will go ahead after all), but at this stage 22 points is a healthy lead. If Hamilton's odds are long enough with Ladbrokes I might put some money on, so I'm green either way.

The next race is Austria, in a fortnight.

Do feel free to let me know your thoughts on the race, the crash, the brake and MGU failures, and anything else that takes your fancy.

Morris Dancer