Hamilton Wins in Montreal: 7th winner in 7 races

Lewis Hamilton wins Canadian Grand Prix 2012 and becomes the 7th winner in as many Formula One races this season. He easily overtook Fernando Alonso who had gambled with a one stopping strategy. In fact Alonso was struggling so much with his tyres that Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez passed him for a podium position. Romain Grosjean scored the second position. Vettel too overtook Alonso in the last lap and came 4th. So Alonso had to settle for 5th place.

Nico Rosberg came 6th, Mark Webber 7th, Kimi Raikkonen 8th, Kamui Kobayashi 9th and Felipe Massa came 10th.

Mercedes Again Fails Michael Schumacher. Michael Schumacher who always has fantastic outings in Montreal was left dissapointed as his Mercedes failed yet again. This time it was a DRS failure which continuously remained open.

Narain Karthikeyan and Pedro de La Rosa of HRT and Timo Glock were the other drivers who retired. 

Sebastian Vettel scores pole in Canadian Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettels scores pole in Canadian Grand Prix Qualifying

Ahead of the Qualifying, the hub caps of RedBull cars were deemed to be illegal however, that didn't prevent him from scoring the pole position with a 1:13.784. He was the only one to go below 1:14 seconds. Giving him company in the first row was Lewis Hamilton of McLaren at 1:14.087

Michael Schumacher was driving fast but something happened in the second sector where he was seen raising his left hand and scored a P9 position.

Alonso and Webber will start in the second row in the grid followed by Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa. Romain Grosjean and Paul di Resta will start in the 4th row.

The surprise performance in the Q1 in qualifying came from Pedro de La Rosa of HRT. He was widely believed to be trounced by Narain Karthikeyan. However, Pedro was 1:17.492 out qualifying Timo Glock and Charles Pic of Marussia as well as his team mate Narain Karthikeyan who came 24th with a time of 1:18.330 ie. 0.838 seconds slower. Interestingly the HRT cars recorded a very fast straight line times.


Maldonado had scored the fastest time in the sector 1 while trying to make into the Q3, but he pushed too hard and banged his car and it was all over for him. He scored 1:15.231 and had to settle for 17th position. Bruno Senna scored a 1:15.170. The extremely erratic Romain Grosjean who has been banging wheels with other drives this season has proved to be a good qualifier. He scored a seventh fastest time to qualify into the Q3. However, his Lotus team mate and former Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen had to settle for P12  with a time of 1:14.734

Qualifying Times and Grid Position:

Sl.	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1:13.784	16 laps
2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	1:14.087	22 laps
3	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:14.151	23 laps
4	Mark Webber	Red Bull	1:14.346	19 laps
5	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:14.411	25 laps
6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:14.465	24 laps
7	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:14.645	28 laps
8	Paul di Resta	Force India	1:14.705	22 laps
9	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1:14.812	18 laps
10	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:15.182	24 laps
11	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	1:14.688	21 laps
12	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus	1:14.734	22 laps
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:14.748	18 laps
14	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	1:15.078	21 laps
15	Sergio Perez	Sauber	1:15.156	21 laps
16	Bruno Senna	Williams	1:15.170	20 laps
17	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	1:15.231	21 laps
18	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	1:16.263	12 laps
19	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	1:16.482	10 laps
20	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	1:16.602	12 laps
21	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT	1:17.492	8 laps
22	Timo Glock	Marussia	1:17.901	10 laps
23	Charles Pic	Marussia	1:18.255	9 laps
24	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT	1:18.330	9 laps
	Q1	107% Time	1:19.887

Heartbreak for Hamilton, Respite for Narain Karthikeyan

Our article on Spanish Grand Prix qualifying was titled Hamilton on Pole, heartbreak for Narain
http://www.arjunaubacha.blogspot.in/2012/05/hamilton-on-pole-heartbreak-for-narain.html

However, in the continuing drama that is Formula 1, the new title should read Heartbreak for Hamilton, Respite for Narain

Lewis Hamilton had done a great lap in the dying seconds to score the pole position. However, he stopped the car as he didn't have enough fuel to complete the lap. This was in breach of the regulations. Incidentally, the regulations (Article 6.6.2 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations) came into place because of a previous incident in Canadian Grand Prix by the same McLaren team with Hamilton driving the car. At that time Hamilton didn't have enough fuel for the mandatory inspection, so he stopped the car, got down and pushed it all the way waving to spectators. It was indeed a spectacle, but the rules were changed after that. So it is surprising that the McLaren team didn't knew about it.

McLaren officials pleaded before the Stewards that there was a fuel rig fault and hence there was shortage of fuel. However, the Stewards didn't accept the explanation and ruled "As the amount of fuel put into the car is under complete control of the Competitor the Stewards cannot accept this as a case of force majeure"

So Hamilton has been excluded from the qualifying results and will start from the back of the grid. Pastor Maldonado has been promoted to the pole position - his first pole.

"The Stewards received a report from the Race Director which stated that during post-qualifying scrutineering a sample of fuel was required from car 4, however, the car failed to return to the pits under its own power as required under Article 6.6.2 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations.

The Stewards heard from the team representative Mr. Sam Michael who stated that the car stopped on the circuit for reasons of force majeure. A team member had put an insufficient quantity of fuel into the car thereby resulting in the car having to be stopped on the circuit in order to be able to provide the required amount for sampling purposes. As the amount of fuel put into the car is under complete control of the Competitor the Stewards cannot accept this as a case of force majeure."

The disqualification of Lewis Hamilton has also resulted in Fernando Alonso moving into second position and to the front row of the grid. That will definitely excite many Spaniards and the race is going to see a full house.

So the revised provisional Grid for the Spanish Grand Prix is as follows:

Grid Position	Driver	Team
1	Pastor Maldonado	Williams
2	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari
3	Romain Grosjean	Lotus
4	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus
5	Sergio Perez	Sauber
6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
7	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull
8	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes
9	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber
10	Jenson Button	McLaren
11	Mark Webber	Red Bull
12	Paul de Resta	Force India
13	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India
14	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso
15	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso
16	Felipe Massa	Ferrari
17	Bruno Senna	Williams
18	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham
19	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham
20	Charles Pic	Marussia
21	Timo Glock	Marussia
22	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT
23	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT
24	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren