F1 Canada 2010

It was great race! There were incidents galore, wheel to wheel to racing, and some real honest to goodness passing. Surprisingly, there was no safety car which was very unusual for the Canadian Grand Prix. Credit for the great racing goes to the tires which were marginal for the track conditions.

For the moment Maclaren have gained the upper hand over Redbull. Hamilton put in an amazing qualifying lap which finally broke Rebull's stranglehold on poll position. Webber and Vettel had to settle for second and third place on the grid. Button who only managed to qualify fifth, acknowledged that Hamilton's qualifying lap was untouchable.

Redbull's Achilles heel as always, was reliability. Webber required a gearbox change which cost a five place grid penalty. Vettel also had a gearbox problem,during the race and had to nurse the car to a fourth place finish.

Neither the prime (hard) nor the option (soft) tire were very durable on the resurfaced track, which made tire choice very difficult. For the first time this season, there was a split in tire strategy, with Maclaren choosing to qualify and start on the option tire. The problem was the option tire lasted only about six laps, instead of the expected ten.

Redbull's decision to put their cars an opposite tire strategy after the first pit stop, might have worked if they had reversed which car got the soft tire. Vettel received soft tires but his mechanical problems prevented him from taking advantage the tires. Webber needed the soft tire when he was leading the race to build up a cushion. Hindsight and all that...

Hamilton and Alonso almost collided in pits when Maclaren released Hamilton a little too early. They actually raced side-by-side down the pit exit until Hamilton finally conceded to Alonso. I was very surprised that the incident escaped investigation by the stewards.

Schumacher has a very scruffy weekend. He only qualified thirteenth. In the race, he had several close calls with a number of other drivers. It's obvious that Schumacher hasn't lost his killer instinct but it also looked unnecessarily aggressive. Frankly, I'm surprised that only the incident with Massa was investigated, which was the lesser incident compare to the one with Kubica in my opinion.