Montreal - OMG!

Righto, having watched Montreal I do not see any reason why it was left of the calendar. There were crashes, overtakes, great driving, naughty driving and a return of proper Strategy. With Hamilton fighting Red Bull for pole and winning it looked set once again for Hamilton to take on the might of the Austrian giants with his team-mate Button in-tow also. He also provided the funniest moment with the car basically running out of petrol and coasting down the back straight celebrating that stunning pole position lap.

First off, the start was classic Montreal, insane and violent with Liuzzi and Massa paying the biggest price to start their race long war. The whole thing was caused with a slow Barrichello start (btw congrats to him on 15,000 racing laps completed) and also saw Petrov slip and whack Dela Rosa. The first lap ended with a good battle with Hulkenberg and Kobayshi ended with the Kamakazie kid riding the curb and hitting the famous champion’s wall, which is either a sign of good fortune in the future or just his accident happy form coming back to life after the strong performance at Turkey.

The 5 cars at the front of the field had a closely matched race. Hamilton, Button, Alonso, Vettel (with his broken car) and Webber were trading fastest laps with a lonely Massa and Rosberg and it was a race where we finally saw Kubica being sort of dropped despite another strong drive with a broken car and his comings together with Schumacher and Sutil (more on those later).

The race had several big moments. The first one was Hamilton vs Alonso in the pits which is almost reminiscent of his crash with Raikonnen in 2008. However he made it work with the big fight with Sebastian Buemi who blocked Alonso (fairly mind) and caused Hamilton to get passed him in a decent move into the chicane. This was nice for several reasons: A) Buemi leading was a nice surprise; B) a clean battle amongst the chaos of the rest of the field and C) Hamilton used his F-Duct plus the tow from the Toro Rosso nicely.

The other big moment was the strategic blunder on Webber's part. He was doing well attemping to be the only person to stop once but as soon as he hit the turbulant air of the epic Hulkenberg, Sutil, Liuzzi, Algersuari and Massa group his tires grained to death and it was inevitable that Hamilton would get him (nice clean move, not often that happens with Hamilton and a Red Bull). He did deserve more than 5th on the quality of his driving but he really just did not have the pace to answer Mclaren or Alonso's Ferrari who were overtaking, lapping quickly and being intelligent on top of that and showed why they are all world champions.

Other good drives include Liuzzi, who masterfully kept his head despite the race long war with Massa and the gaggle with his team-mate. He did well to get in the points and used Schumacher's tire woe's to get probably a deserved result with easily his best drives which could so easily have been 6th without the accident with Massa at the start.

Buemi did a very good job at the start of the race and the timing of his stops and his good pass on Michael Schumacher gave him deserved points and his first big answer to the increase in Algersuari's form. He was also very good when leading the race with 2 world champions on his back he was very composed and hasn't driven better in F1 yet.

Kovalinen has become a bit of beast behind the wheel of the Lotus. His qualifying performance shows that the Lotus on the right track is damned near with the Midfield runners with pace and some of his defensive driving for the half a lap or so he kept Button at bay was excellent. When Lotus get into Q2 he will be dangerous i am sure of it and beating Petrov will be a massive confidence boost for him and the rest of the team.

Montreal has never been clear cut for Kubica. After his massive crash and then his epic win in 07 and 08 few knew what to expect with a Renault which he is keeping kicking and screaming in the World Championship hunt. Once again his race was eventful. Starting the race going for Button and Webber he had a big moment with Schumacher going off the road at turn 3, damaging his front wing and diffuser. He lost pace but kept up the effort. His swerve on Sutil is possibly the dumbest move of his career so far and it ended up giving Sutil quite a nasty puncture (Sutil did well to get 10th btw). It could be seen as dangerous but his late race pace while hunting the anonymous Rosberg showed that the Renault isn't out of this yet. I would love to see a Kubica win for Renault at a race which if it were to happen sooner rather than later (i.e Valencia please) would turn this season even more on it's head.

A big aspect of the race was the sheer overall aggression shown by the field. Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso are known for being homicidal maniacs behind the wheel and everyone knows about Schumacher's previous but the entire field was pushing (and exceeding sometimes) the acceptable boundaries of fair driving. This was amazing, it showed the type of mental stability (or lack thereof) to be a Grand Prix driver is alive and well. There were several moments, including Liuzzi, Sutil, Algersuari and Massa going basically 4 abreast into turn 7 like madmen and Massa's opportunistic move on Liuzzi (who else) while lapping Kovalinen's Lotus showing there is always fun to be had in motorsport.

In a break from the traditional order of my version of the saying, I have looked at the good and the down right bat-shit crazy. Now it is time to look at what wasn't good and as much as this man is still one of my all-time hero's in anything only his name really springs to mind (aside from Petrov basically shooting Dela Rosa with his car even before turn 1):

Schumacher had a stinker of a weekend. While he cleverly profited from the Turn 1 Shenanegins it was downhill from there. Basically breaking 2 thirds of the aero dynamic parts on his car in his clash with Kubica (which the stewards let him off for) his move onto the option tire with half the race remaining left him with a car which (as Martin Brundle said in the race) left the back end like 'the back end of a Donkey'. His move on Massa was outrageous and i am shocked that they didn't penalise him for that after his treatment at Monaco. His tires were so bad that he was caught by Buemi, Liuzzi and Sutil as well and that 11th place just signified a bad end to a bad weekend for Mercedes in a car which is locked in a topsy turvy battle with Kubica, Sutil and Massa to be either 5th or 6th in the championship (a battle he is losing). I am still so happy to see him back and I just hope he can help get Merc to race wins for himself and Rosberg before the season is out.

This has been one of the top 5/6 races of the last 10-15 years, along with Melbourne earlier this year (which for me is still remembered for Hamilton making Rosberg look like a complete amateur in the 'Wall of Death' move at turn 11 and Jenson's great tire call), America 03 (Schumacher demonstrating why the Bridgestone Intermediate around that time was the best tire ever made) and Brazil 06 (Schumacher's amazing charge through the field,08 (the most mental end to a championship to date) and 09 (Jenson's moment of glory).

I am actually looking to the snooze-fest in Valencia in two weeks time as hopefully it will produce a race worthy of note with Red Bull, Mclaren and home favourite Alonso hopefully turning this into a much better event, perhaps finally showing why there it was taken there in the first place.

Next up is the Fever review, followed by the Wrestling update.

Take Care folks

Nick