Canadian Grand Prix Review

The feelgood story of the Pole's victory diverted attention away from two other rather unsatisfactory talking points. The first was Max Mosley's not-unexpected win in the confidence vote at the pointless Extraordinary General Meeting of the FIA and the sense that the relationship between Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone is becoming strained. The second over the course of the Montreal weekend was the condition of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, as officials sought to repair and contain surface breakage on the run.

The low-grip, low-downforce, heavy-braking nature of the track, and the proximity of the walls, always makes for unpredictable racing, but the crumbling surface was beyond a joke. Yes it caused incidents and position changes, but it made conventional overtaking impossible and penalised drivers for going off-line too severely. Uniform slipperiness caused by rain at least tests driver skill; here, if a driver strayed slightly, there was nothing he could do, and that's hardly a good advertisement for top-flight racing.

There is no doubt that Kubica's victory relied on some degree of good luck. The safety car period fell within his (and all the main two-stoppers') pit windows. Hamilton chose to clobber into Raikkonen instead of the BMW at the end of the pit lane. Team-mate Nick Heidfeld did not make it difficult for Robert to pass him on the track, which gave Kubica the opportunity to make use of his strategy rather than scuppering it altogether. But to focus on these aspects would be to take away from a richly deserved win.

If these were strokes of fortune, then consider it a case of Kubica reaping the rewards of making his own luck. His qualifying form has not only been stellar, but he has put Heidfeld to the sword in that respect. His race pace has been solidly and consistently quick, and he is the only driver to have finished in the top four in each of the last six races, plus he would also have scored points in Australia had he not been taken out by Kazuki Nakajima under the safety car.

Here, although Hamilton was undoubtedly the star of qualifying, it is easy to forget that before Lewis' final blistering lap, Kubica was the man sitting on provisional pole. And in the race, although Heidfeld did him a favour by not holding him up, Timo Glock certainly did delay him before the Toyota man made his stop. In famous Schumacher style, Robert had to pull out an extra ten-plus seconds over Heidfeld in seven laps, and he did so with ease. Those seven laps may be the defining moment of his F1 career.

And the reality is, we are seven races into the season, and BMW have shown no signs of being dropped any time soon. Kubica leads the championship, and his only retirement was not something that was neither his fault nor his team's. By contrast, each of Hamilton, Raikkonen and Massa have dropped points in at least two races due to errors by themselves or by their team. Who's to say that that won't happen again whilst Kubica keeps racking up the points?

Robert's season is starting to have overtones of Heinz-Harald Frentzen's 1999. That year, Frentzen was in the Jordan, the third-best car in the field, and he kept picking up solid points and podiums, as well as a pole and two wins, whilst McLaren and Ferrari kept tripping up. Heinz-Harald was in championship contention right up until the last two races. Relatively speaking, this year's BMW is possibly slightly better than the 1999 Jordan, and the same scenario is playing itself out.

Kubica, BMW and Mario Theissen's joy was somewhat offset by Heidfeld's thinly-disguised disappointment immediately after the race. In the post-race press conference, in response to Kubica's comment that he had grown up with the team, Heidfeld was quick to point out that he had been associated with BMW since being at Williams in 2005, and of course he had driven for Sauber from 2001 to 2003. He also was at pains to make it known that he had not made it hard for Robert to pass him on track.

That, plus his gloomy facial expression and monotonic voice, betrayed a jealous man who is not only being whipped by his team-mate in qualifying and race trim, but who is rapidly losing the affections of the team to the Polish upstart. Once again, on a heavier fuel load in Q3, Heidfeld was nowhere compared to Kubica and, having been changed to a one-stop strategy after the safety car period, he could have held his team-mate up, which would probably have given himself victory and relegated Kubica to 3rd maybe.

Was it a voluntary act of generosity by Heidfeld in letting Kubica past at the start of lap 31? Or was it based on information from the pit wall short of a team order? If it were the latter, then Nick has nothing to complain about, for what self-respecting team would not give both drivers the best chance to maximise their different strategies mid-race? If it were the former, then yes Nick may have thanklessly given away the win, but what would be the intra-team consequences if he had purposely destroyed Kubica's race?

But not only had the safety car, the deployment of which for Adrian Sutil's parked Force India seemed a little trigger-happy, cut the lead which Hamilton had built up, but both Raikkonen and Kubica were going to beat the McLaren out of the pits. At this point, the curse of the Montreal pit lane red light struck again, as it did for Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella last year, for Juan-Pablo Montoya in 2005, and for Nigel Mansell and Alessandro Nannini as far back as 1989.

On each of these occasions, the indiscretion was unforgivable on the part of both driver and team. Given that history, and given that a McLaren driver (Montoya) had previously fallen foul, that it happened again made it even more inexcusable. It is not clear whether McLaren warned Hamilton about the red light; at any rate, Lewis did not respond quickly enough to the sight of both Raikkonen and Kubica stopped at the end of the pit lane - and, for that matter, neither did Nico Rosberg.

But Rosberg only lost his front wing; Hamilton clouted Raikkonen so hard, both went out of the race. Lewis did not even have the grace afterwards, when interviewed by ITV, to admit an error, choosing instead to say "I don't know what happened." Had the Ferrari and BMW not been there, Hamilton would have run the red light and been disqualified. As a result, he has justly been given a ten-place grid penalty for the French GP (as has Rosberg), and we also give him the 'Reject of the Race' award.

McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh has publicly expressed a view that that penalty is severe, given that Raikkonen was not penalised at all for putting Sutil out of the race at Monaco. That is complete claptrap. What happened at Monaco was an unfortunate racing incident caused by Raikkonen unintentionally losing control. This was a case of Hamilton causing an accident and taking out a rival due to a blatant contravention of the rules - and in the pit lane, where for safety reasons incidents are particularly frowned upon.

Had the collision not occurred, it would have been interesting to see how the race would have panned out. We will never know whether Kubica or Raikkonen would have got out of the pits ahead. Plus, if Hamilton had lost position because he was fuelled longer, how would strategy have played out at the second stops? For what is undeniable is that, after a difficult qualifying in which neither he nor Massa could get their Ferraris to grip, Kimi was starting to come into his own before the safety car period, closing in on Kubica.

In that sense, it was a good drive from Felipe; the Massa of old would have been a prime candidate for running wide and losing positions or spinning out, but the Brazilian did none of that and instead capitalised on others' errors. He now moves level with Hamilton on points whilst Raikkonen has slipped to 4th from the title lead in two races. Not only are the Ferrari drivers taking points off each other, but Maranello faces the dilemma that Kimi has the ultimate pace, but Massa currently has the form and momentum.

In the other McLaren, Kovalainen once again had a race where the cards did not fall his way. He ended up in the same kind of situation as Massa although he only made one stop behind the safety car, but the turning point was when he passed Barrichello at the hairpin only for Massa to pass them both and be released. That led to Massa coming out of his second stop ahead of the one-stopping Sebastian Vettel and free to pursue the Toyotas, whereas Kovalainen came out behind the Toro Rosso.

The Finn thus ended the race in a dogfight with the young German, and also with Rosberg closing in from behind, and eventually finished 9th and out of the points, leaving him still stranded on 15 points with Kubica now on 42. It is true that Heikki has generally managed to match Hamilton's pace whilst not scoring the points to reflect that, but in Canada there was quite a large performance gap, with Kovalainen only qualifying 7th, and even then Heikki could not pick up any points. He needs to reverse that, quickly.

Taking the final spot on the podium, and yet again picking up good points in a race where a cool head counted, was David Coulthard in the Red Bull, recording his first top three finish since Monaco 2006. His result was owed largely to a one-stop strategy like Heidfeld, and the fact that he managed to leapfrog Barrichello's cumbersome Honda which released his RB04 into the clear. The Scot may be no match for Mark Webber on pace, but you can't fault how he keeps scoring big points in chaotic races.

Webber though will surely be cursing a weekend of missed opportunities to add a sixth consecutive points finish. It started going wrong at the end of Q2 when, despite being safely in the top ten, he unnecessarily went for one more quick lap and crashed, meaning that he started 10th instead of, say, 8th or better. An average start then meant he was stuck behind Barrichello in the first stint and after the safety car period, pitting on the same lap as Heidfeld although Nick was miles up the road.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Lewis Hamilton
Red means 'Stop'. Green means 'Go'.

Red Bull's six points put them into 4th in the constructors' championship ahead of Williams, but the Grove team were also leapfrogged by their engine partners Toyota, courtesy of a 4th place finish for Glock, on the same track where he had scored on debut for Jordan four years ago, and 6th for Trulli. For all his one-lap qualifying heroics, the Italian was found wanting on the slippery surface, qualifying behind his less experienced German team-mate and losing out in the race.

Glock left behind his somewhat erratic ways to put in his best F1 drive to date. He led calmly after the safety car period and after all the other one-stoppers had pitted, despite the pressure from Kubica who was in a hurry, overtook Trulli in the pits, and passed Webber and Barrichello on track whilst holding off Massa towards the end. It was an unusually good strategy from Toyota, and the result should quieten Glock's doubters, to some extent including ourselves, for the next few races.

Honda and Barrichello picked up more points with 7th place, but it was a bittersweet race for the Brazilian. The RA108 was not responding well in the heavy braking zones, so for Rubens to get into the top ten was an astounding effort. Once there, and with a one-stop strategy, he maintained position to give those running behind him nightmares all race. With two-thirds of the race to go, only Heidfeld had passed him on the track, and only Coulthard had passed him in the pits.

That meant Barrichello was in a net 4th, but from here he lost position on track to Massa (twice), Kovalainen (although Rubens picked this back up when Heikki pitted), and both Toyotas. In isolation it was a good result, but it could have been better. At least it was good news compared to Jenson Button's miserable weekend, his gearbox woes in qualifying leaving him starting from the pits, only for his race to be further compromised by being on a two-stop strategy when really he was battling one-stoppers.

Behind Barrichello, Vettel picked up the last point for Toro Rosso to follow his scoring effort at Monaco, this time having also started from the pits after another gearbox change. With a better stop, he reckoned he could have come 6th. But, from his starting position, it was as effective a drive as some of the other one-stoppers, without the headlines. And it left Sebastien Bourdais gasping. Quite simply, the other Seb was spooked early on by the slippery conditions, and psychologically never recovered.

Though he still shows signs of his undoubted quality, Nico has not only not been consistent enough, he hasn't really done anything hugely noteworthy since that podium finish in Melbourne. By comparison, Nakajima may not be as quick, but the Japanese driver just keeps popping up in points-scoring positions and that has impressed. Here he too made a great start and was in the top ten early, and then was the first man caught behind the Barrichello freight train.

That he made his first stop on lap 33, three laps before Barrichello, meant he was unable to leapfrog the Honda, and it is unclear whether Nakajima needed to stop again. In the end it didn't matter. For a driver who, despite a reputation for being a bit unruly, has proven that when opportunity beckons he curbs his wilder instincts, this was the first time he blotted his copybook in that respect, hitting Button and losing his front wing, then crashing on pit entry as he lost steering, ruining the prospect of more points.

At Renault, once again Fernando Alonso drove his heart out, qualifying a superb 4th and running 5th early on, which translated to being the leading two-stopper except for Kubica after the safety car period. But by being held up by Heidfeld his race was effectively ruined, and he was facing the same fate as the likes of Massa and Kovalainen when he binned the car on the exit of turn seven. The same applied to Nelson Piquet Jnr, who managed to spin but keep it going before retiring with brake trouble.

Psychologically, many were giving Piquet the benefit of the doubt, saying that if Kovalainen could overcome a poor start to his Renault career last year by turning it around in Canada, then Piquet could do likewise. But good passes on both Toyotas in the early stages of the race do not offset the fact that he came nowhere close to Q3 whereas Alonso started 4th, that he once again made a mistake in the race, and, although not his fault, he again scored no points. The pressure just went up another notch.

Finally, it was back to earth with a thud for Force India, although Sutil's new-found confidence meant he had the edge over Fisichella. But the VJM01 was back to being the slowest car in the field, and Adrian's race ended early, whilst unusually for someone who started so far back, Giancarlo was on a two-stop strategy that was bound to end unfavourably. As it was, Fisi ended his race in the wall. Is this another season where he starts brightly only to fade into ever greyer anonymity as the year wears on?