Hamilton takes straightforward Canadian GP win

F1 Grand Prix, GP Canada, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

Lewis Hamilton has set the record straight at Canada, coming back from the disappointment that befell him in Monaco. The Brit virtually led the race from start to finish, ahead of team mate Nico Rosberg. Williams driver Valtteri Bottas completes the podium

At the front of the grid of this Canadian Grand Prix is Lewis Hamilton, with his team mate Nico Rosberg alonside him. Kimi Raikkonen is on third place, ahead of Bottas, Grosjean, Maldonado and Hulkenberg. Next up is the Red Bull Racing duo while Sergio Perez completes the top 10 on the grid. At the back, Vettel is 18th following a technical problem in qualifying and a further penalty for overtaking under red flags in FP3. Verstappen starts from 19th with Button at the starting from the pitlane.

As the lights went out, the leading positions remained identical, and from the top 10 runners only Hulkenberg managed to gain a position. Alonso made a strong start to move up two places into 11th place. Vettel moved up to 16th with Verstappen up into 17th.

On lap 3, Vettel gains a position on Sainz through the hairpin, while at the back straight Alonso immediately loses his two places gained at the start due to a lack of top speed with the Honda engine. This put him immediately ahead of Vettel, who passed him the next lap at the back straight after failing to make a pass work through the hairpin because of overshooting his braking.

By lap 6 its obvious that Massa is getting blocked by Ericsson. The Ferrari powered Sauber, lacking Ferrari's engine upgrade is slower on the supersofts than Massa can go on the soft. Two laps later, Vettel joined them as well, but the German dove into the pits at the end of that lap, changing to soft and rejoining the track at the back of the pack.

On lap 11, Massa finally makes it past Ericsson, taking the outside line through turn 1, giving him the advantage of having the racing line for turn 2. It ended up to be a muscled but clean move. The pass on Ricciardo 3 laps later proved far easier, thanks to a simple DRS pass on the back straight.

Meanwhile at the front, Hamilton has a 3.5s advantage over Rosberg on lap 19, with Raikkonen another 3 seconds further down. Bottas is 4th at another 3.3 seconds. Behind him however, there's a gap of 10s to Grosjean and 18 seconds to Hulkenberg.

Vettel then continued to progress through the field as other drivers' super softs are starting to fade slowly. The German however went into the grass on the exit of turn 7 and then also overshot the final turn, twice for being too optimistic in trying to get past Alonso. One lap later he eventually made a clean pass and subsequently moved on quickly to get past Verstappen, Sainz and Ericsson. By lap 26 he's 10th and just behind Maldonado.

By that time, more and more drivers entered the pits, with notably Raikkonen changing to softs on lap 26. He rejoined in 4th, but halfway in the hairpin, he lost rear grip and spun. The Finn managed to recover his car without damage, but he certainly lost around 10 seconds. He immediately complained over the radio that what happened was exactly the same as last year, hinting it may have been a technical issue.

On lap 30, race leader Hamilton pits, changing to soft tyres in 2.8 seconds. At the same time, Rosberg made an error under braking for the hairpin, subsequently going wide. The German pitted the next lap and rejoined 2.3 seconds down on Hamilton but a comfortable 16 seconds ahead of Bottas. Raikkonen is 4th, little less than two seconds behind the Williams driver.

Massa meanwhile progressed to 5th, albeit still driving on the soft tyres he started with. Next up were Grosjean, Vettel, Maldonado, Hulkenberg and Verstappen.

At the front, Rosberg is doing all he can to get back on Hamilton, recording several best sectors. The gap went down to 1.3 seconds on lap 33 before Hamilton replied to re-add a few tenths the next lap.

On lap 36, Grosjean re-takes Massa into 5th place while Vettel returns to the pits from right behind that duo, changing to another new set of soft tyres. Two laps later, Massa also decided to pit just before he would have overtaken by Maldonado. The Williams driver changed to super soft and is thereby on a similar strategy as both Manor Marussia cars.

On lap 44, Vettel, who had been stuck behind Hulkenberg for a number of laps finally made an attempt, approaching the final chicane from the outside as Hulkenberg was defending the inside line. Vettel turned in aggressively, and as a result Hulkenberg locked up and spun. While the two didn't appear to have touched, Vettel also missed the corner. The stewards however decided not to hand out any penalty.

6 laps later, a penalty did get awarded for Grosjean though. The Frenchman in 5th passed Merhi on the back straight, but rather optimistically cut back across him before the final chicane. Both drivers immediately dove into the pitlane, Grosjean with a left rear puncture, Merhi with a broken front wing. Grosjean was deemed to have caused the collision and got a 5s penalty for it, even though he shouted on the radio "he hit me, he hit me!".

After Alonso's retirement a few laps earlier, Button also returned to the pits to retire from the race, making it another disappointing outing for McLaren Honda. Another 3 laps later, Merhi was running slowly along the back straight before pitting, also eventually retiring early from the race.

Overall, Hamilton had this race in the bag throughout, even though Rosberg got close at times, he never became any real threat for the win. Valtteri Bottas secured a podium here for Williams, thanks to a spin by Raikkonen while Vettel made it to 5th after good progress through the field.