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Hamilton Scores Maiden F1 Win in Chaotic SmashfestBy Mike Sulka
Formula One's next superstar - Lewis Hamilton - is now officially a winner.
Courtesy of McLaren
The hits just kept on coming. No, not from retired F1 driver Jacques Villeneuve at his local Montreal bar. Instead it was crash, smash, horrific crash, more smash, some spins, and more crashes!
While the Canadian Grand Prix was completely out of tune with what is traditionally known as a Formula One race, there was one new song that made it all look easy… The Hamilton Waltz.
While his fellow competitors were beating themselves - if they weren’t beating themselves into a wall - Hamilton’s easily strolled through the scenic Circuit Gilles Villeneuve park-like setting on his way to his first career Formula One victory. In doing so, he racked up 10 points, and leaped over his teammate Fernando Alonso to take the sole lead of the F1 driver’s championship standings.
“I’m on another planet after this!” said Hamilton who yesterday’s first Formula One pole described it as being ‘over the moon’. “I made an OK start off the line – nothing spectacular but managed to get a good exit out of the first corner and whilst mayhem was happening around me I was able to keep my cool and focus.”
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 | Mayhem meaning Alonso.
Hamilton’s only close call of the day came on lap one, turn one when two-time Formula one champion Fernando Alonso out-braked himself punting his MP4-22 out onto the grass. As the floundering Fernando, wallowed back onto the circuit, he cut-in directly across the path of Hamilton nearly starting the day with a massive mess.
But after Turn one the only thing that could catch Hamilton was the continuous stream of yellow flags flying about the circuit.
“It’s been an incredible start to my Formula 1 career so far,” said the rookie.
Indeed.
Unfortunately, BMW Robert Kubica was one of the reasons for those yellow flags following a horrific head-on hit with a concrete barrier. Though it has been reported he has a broken leg, the team has yet to confirm it. Even so, this was a crash that could have been much, much worse.
But BMW did have a good day. Kubica's teammate Nick Heidfeld scored a second place finish for BMW!
After qualifying third, Heidfeld controlled his race destiny with the calm cool demeanor of his fellow German countryman and legend Michael Schumacher. Hedfield cleanly swiped past Alonso’s mistake, and continued to hold the position.
"What is satisfying is I think I had a very good chance to finish second even in normal race conditions without so many safety cars, and Fernando being penalized," said Heidfeld. "I was pulling away from him."
Placing third, Alex Wurz took full advantage of the mistakes by others, and drove a flawless fruitful race with a rear wing damaged by Toro Rosso driver Scott Speed in the early laps. After qualifying 20th yesterday, and admitting that the ‘driver’ was the problem, not the car, amazing Alex turned the weekend around to give the once mighty Williams team their best finish since Monaco of 2005 when Mark Webber finished on the podium (third).
“Scoring a podium on the 10th anniversary of my Formula one debut is a dream,” said the Austrian. “I had a difficult weekend and starting the race from the back was hard, but I didn't give up and tried to push as much as I could. on the driving side, I made no mistakes and I was able to get rid of some graining by the end of the race, just in time to keep Kovalainen behind me who was on prime tyres.”
The start... Alonso's McLaren starts to go wide before heading off the tarmac and onto the grass.
Courtesy of Ferrari
Just behind Wurz, Heikki Kovalainen matched Renault’s best result of the season with his fourth place finish. It was a well deserved points find after Kovalainen suffered through Friday practice by hitting the wall, losing an engine in the closing moments of Saturday morning’s final practice, and breaking off his rear wing during the opening qualifying stint. Today, his persistence overcame his futility to grant him an encouraging reward.
“I needed some luck to score points after starting last – but you have to take advantage of your opportunities, and I think I did exactly that,” said the rookie driver. “ I seemed to spend a lot of the afternoon overtaking other cars, but we had changed the set-up before qualifying to give me better straightline speed and that definitely paid off. The conditions were very hard, with a lot of marbles out on the track, and it was really easy to make mistakes. I didn't make any, and this is a great reward after two really hard days here in Montreal. All the problems I had this weekend only made me more determined to succeed, and it just goes to show that you should never, ever give up. You have to stay positive, keep looking ahead and the results will come.”
Kimi Raikkonen soldiered on to pick up points on his teammate Felipe Massa, who was black flagged by officials for entering pit lane when it was closed. The same offence earlier resulted in a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for Fernando Alonso.
Super Aguri benefited from the queer day, but earned the three points they won. Takuma Sato even made an on-track pass of a hapless Fernando Alonso in what the team called the ‘driver of his career. The other Super Aguri driven by Anthony Davidson was running an astonishing third when he ended the life of a beaver with his front wing.
As we said… a queer day.
Speaking of Alonso. He started the day talking about taking all the points he could get, and in the perfect spot to follow his teammate until the first pitstop, and then make his move… He instead made his second first turn lunge of the season. As in Barcelona, he lost positions with his aggression, costing him dearly. He would go on to make mistake after mistake on turn one, and the sum total of his day was a pathetic two points.
Maybe it’s the water in Canada, but the ‘Great White North’ hates Alonso... It even taunted him with the fastest lap of the race. Ouch!
The final point was paid to Ralf Schumacher. A fine bounty for Toyota’s $20 million dollar man. He now has two points on the season.
Spyker, and Toro Rosso each had the special designation of being the only two teams to crash or smash both cars.
Next up is the United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis, Indiana. PaddockTalk will be on site, bringing you the latest news, rumors, and information.
Hamilton leads BMW's Nick Heidfeld, with Alonso trying to keep pace.
Courtesy of McLaren
Canadian GP: Formula one Race Results
Round 6, 10 June, 2007. Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Canada.
Lap distance: 4.361km/2.709 miles Race: 70 laps - 305.270km/189.694 miles | | | |
Pos | No. | Driver/Entrant
| Laps | Time | Gap | Kmh | Best | Lap | 1 | 2 | Lewis Hamilton (GBR)
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes | 70 | 1:44:11.292 | - | 175.799 | 1:16.494 | 37 | 2 | 9 | Nick Heidfeld (GER)
BMW Sauber F1 Team | 70 | 1:44:15.635 | 4.343 | - | 175.677 | 1:16.696 | 19 | 3 | 17 | Alex Wurz (AUT)
AT&T Williams | 70 | 1:44:16.617 | 5.325 | 0.982 | 175.649 | 1:17.947 | 67 | 4 | 4 | Heikki Kovalainen (FIN)
ING Renault F1 Team | 70 | 1:44:18.021 | 6.729 | 1.404 | 175.610 | 1:18.368 | 67 | 5 | 6 | Kimi Räikkönen (FIN)
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro | 70 | 1:44:24.299 | 13.007 | 6.278 | 175.434 | 1:16.861 | 21 | 6 | 22 | Takuma Sato (JPN)
Super Aguri F1 | 70 | 1:44:27.990 | 16.698 | 3.691 | 175.330 | 1:18.035 | 47 | 7 | 1 | Fernando Alonso (ESP)
Team McLaren Mercedes | 70 | 1:44:33.228 | 21.936 | 5.238 | 175.184 | 1:16.367 | 46 | 8 | 11 | Ralf Schumacher (GER)
Panasonic Toyota Racing | 70 | 1:44:34.180 | 22.888 | 0.952 | 175.157 | 1:17.910 | 38 | 9 | 15 | Mark Webber (AUS)
Red Bull Racing | 70 | 1:44:34.252 | 22.960 | 0.072 | 175.155 | 1:17.618 | 47 | 10 | 16 | Nico Rosberg (GER)
Williams F1 Team | 70 | 1:44:35.276 | 23.984 | 1.024 | 175.127 | 1:17.156 | 42 | 11 | 23 | Anthony Davidson (GBR)
Super Aguri F1 | 70 | 1:44:35.610 | 24.318 | 0.334 | 175.117 | 1:18.780 | 36 | 12 | 8 | Rubens Barrichello (BRA)
Honda Racing F1 Team | 70 | 1:44:41.731 | 30.439 | 6.121 | 174.947 | 1:18.543 | 62 | Not Classified | - | 12 | Jarno Trulli (ITA)
Panasonic Toyota Racing | 58 | 1:27:26.084 | DNF | - | 173.572 | 1:19.092 | 12 | - | 18 | Vitantonio Liuzzi (ITA)
Scuderia Toro Rosso | 54 | 1:20:09.639 | DNF | - | 176.266 | 1:19.375 | 9 | - | 21 | Christijan Albers (NED)
Etihad Aldar Spyker F1 Team | 47 | 1:09:18.580 | DNF | - | 177.435 | 1:19.254 | 21 | - | 14 | David Coulthard (GBR)
Red Bull Racing | 36 | 54:37.171 | DNF | - | 172.461 | 1:18.981 | 19 | - | 10 | Robert Kubica (POL)
BMW Sauber F1 Team | 26 | 36:49.546 | DNF | - | 184.739 | 1:17.529 | 19 | - | 20 | Adrian Sutil (GER)
Etihad Aldar Spyker F1 Team | 21 | 28:29.645 | DNF | - | 192.842 | 1:19.452 | 20 | - | 19 | Scott Speed (USA)
Scuderia Toro Rosso | 8 | 10:59.351 | DNF | - | 190.485 | 1:20.092 | 6 | - | 7 | Jenson Button (GBR)
Honda Racing F1 Team | 0 | - | DNF | - | - | - | - | Fastest Lap | - | 1 | Fernando Alonso (ESP)
Team McLaren Mercedes | 1:16.367 onlap 46 | 205.580 |
PaddockTalk Perspective
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