Hamilton leads every lap to claim sixth Montreal win

Lewis Hamilton dominated the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal, leading from start to finish to cut Sebastian Vettel’s championship lead to just 12 points.

The Mercedes driver escaped the first lap drama, which saw Max Verstappen jump from fifth position to second, damaging Vettel’s front wing in the process as the German dropped to fourth by into Turn 1, behind Valtteri Bottas.

Unfortunately for the Dutchman, a battery issue early on forced him to retire, promoting Bottas into second, as Mercedes claimed their first 1-2 of the season with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo recovering after a slow start to the weekend and holding off a huge battle between the two Force India’s to take third.

A huge accident for Carlos Sainz on the opening lap, as he collided with Romain Grosjean on the approach to Turn 3 and took out Felipe Massa in the process caused an immediate Safety Car.

When it pulled in, Vettel’s damaged wing finally broke forcing him to stop at the end of Lap 9, rejoining in last position.

After Verstappen’s failure caused a brief Virtual Safety Car, Hamilton started to increase the gap at the front from his team-mate with Vettel recovering back up the order. caught with the battle to third place with Ricciardo, Sergio Perez, Esteban Ocon, and Kimi

Ferrari decided to change strategies and go for a second pit-stop back on to the ultrasoft for both drivers which worked till Raikkonen faced a brake problem that forced him to drop pace in the final laps. As for Vettel, however, he caught up with the battle to third place with between Ricciardo, Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon.

Perez was asked to give the position to his quicker teammate behind but the Mexican driver refused to swap positions. That decision cost the team massively with Vettel able to overtake both cars and claim fourth with Perez holding off Ocon as Force India finished fifth and sixth

Hulkenberg overcame a bad start to finish eighth with Lance Stroll the local hero scoring his first points ever in F1 in front of his home crowd following a perfect drive the whole race to ninth.

Romain Grosjean completed the top 10, benefiting from Fernando Alonso being forced to retire 2 laps before the chequered flag with an apparent engine failure, preventing him from grabbing his first point and the first for the team in this season.

Jolyon Palmer just missed on his first points this season finishing 11^th as Kevin Magnussen, Marcus Ericsson, Stoffel Vandoorne and Pascal Wehrlein completed the race finishers.

The only other driver to not finish was Daniil Kvyat as he first failed to leave the grid on the formation lap and then picked up two penalties for not regaining his position in the queue on the way around, he then eventually retired with a mechanical issue.

Race Result – 70 Laps: