This season has seen some pretty comprehensive victories but no one has dominated a race quite as brutally as Sebastian Vettel did today in Canada, even cars up to 6th place were lapped, that hasn’t been seen for a long time. The tyres were also lasting well in Montreal leaving Vettel to exploit the Pirelli’s and his Red Bull to the full at last to take his third victory of the 2013 campaign.
He made a fantastic start from pole position and was ahead of fellow front row starter Lewis Hamilton by over two seconds by the end of the first lap, it didn’t get any closer than that. It was like 2011, pushing to create a gap before the DRS was activated then pushing again when needed.
At the end of lap 7 he was 4.3 seconds ahead and for all the world it looked like he was cruising. He wasn’t of course, a wall at turn 4 bearing shades of his right rear tyre and a trip across the run off at turn 1 is testament to that, but despite this it never looked anything less than being in control of the race; only for three laps did he not lead the race as he made his first stop
He stretched his lead up to 20 seconds before backing off near the end, even putting a cheeky fastest first sector in on the final lap to stress his team out just a little bit, he’s always tempted by the fastest lap.
So not the hat trick of pole, win and fastest lap but a glorious display of precision driving that left everyone trailing. Even if title challengers Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen had started higher up, I don’t think anyone could have touched him today.
I wrote before how the likes of Alonso and Kimi had to start reeling Vettel in again this weekend. There are still 12 races to go, but Vettel has not finished outside the top four this year, he’s also won three times, all the while Red Bull are complaining about the tyres.
The tyre compounds are not due to change only the construction, so the degradation we have seen so far this year should return at other tracks unless Pirelli go all conservative. But if Red Bull can win so convincingly even with the tyres not how they’d like them, then the other teams will not be looking forward to the rest of the year.
Now I’m not saying Vettel and Red Bull are about to go on a winning streak, but while teams such as Lotus and Ferrari have fantastic race pace, they have shown an inability to qualify well enough to exploit their advantage with the tyres.
Even when they haven’t had the outright pace to win, Red Bull, especially in the hands and feet of Vettel have consistently been up there getting the best result they can.
Vettel’s title challengers have a lot to fear, and a lot of work to do if they are to get back on terms with the potential four time champions.
Jean-Eric Vergne and Paul di Resta take starring roles
Vergne took a fantastic 6th place this weekend for Toro Rosso. Starting from 7th, he made a good start and had good pace too. He passed the out of position Valtteri Bottas’ Williams in the early laps, and from then on ran a fairly lonely race with no one really to play with.He wasn’t going to catch two Red Bulls, two Mercedes and a Ferrari without a dash of precipitation so 6th was a well-earned result and the best he could have achieved. He ran a two stop strategy and despite the alternative one stopper strategy being run by Paul di Resta behind, he had that covered too stopping a lap after Paul to cover his fresh tyres.
After Daniel Ricciardo looked to have gained the ascendency within Toro Rosso (the Aussie could only manage 13th after starting 11th and running high in 7th at one point) Vergne has produced two consecutive great performances. They’ve been nothing flash, but they got the job done. If he can continue this form maybe Red Bull will start to look at him instead of Ricciardo to replace Mark Webber should he leave…and if Kimi decides to stay at Lotus.
His recovery drives after being knocked out of Q1 have impressed. He was the only driver to really make a one stop work and keep up a great pace. He just got faster and faster, his Force India is generally kind on its tyres but after the displays of both Lotus’ this afternoon I think it could be said that this team have the kindest car to their contact patches.
Anyway after 57 laps on the medium compound tyre he finally pulled into the pits and re-joined where he left off in 7th. He was out of reach of the rest of the top 10 and could happily cruise to a superb six points in the closing laps.
As di Resta commented after the race if they can just get a clean race then a really decent result is on the horizon. I’m sure a podium can’t be too far away.
Valtteri Bottas shines
Of course those lesser cars still need to be good on a wet track, and it did help that Bottas had a high down force set up in anticipation of rain that never came on Sunday. So really he was a sitting duck, but I found this even more impressive.
He did lose a lot of places, but the way he defended at times was extremely impressive. Holding off Alonso for a lap, the fight with Vergne and Sutil, it was good driving, not careless, and he didn’t hit anyone. It was very good for a rookie and showed he was tough but fair, something some of the other drivers have yet to learn.
It’s been a quiet start for him this year, but he’s regularly been on the pace of his race winning team mate Pastor Maldonado and beat him a number of times too. Bottas is a star of the future.
Filling the podium…
Alonso got by Bottas quite quickly, but it took him a while to move up the order. He didn’t immediately attach himself to the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and Webber but calmly caught them. It wasn’t until Webber passed Rosberg in the first DRS zone that he had his chance. Rosberg was left vulnerable and the Ferrari was instantly through in the second DRS zone, sweeping past into turn 1.
It took damage to Webber’s front wing for Alonso to really get on terms with the Red Bull and he passed him on lap 42. Ten seconds up the road was the second silver car of Hamilton. Everyone may have been able to push this weekend on the tyres but some cars will always be better than others with them.
Ever since they were warring team mates at McLaren in 2007, it’s always something to look forward to when these two battle on the track. They’re never anything but fair with each other but you know that despite their present easy going relationship, they enjoy it when they put one over the other. Lewis defended brilliantly, but it was inevitable eventually in a DRS zone the Ferrari was going to get through and it did on lap 63, seven from the end.
Alonso needed Ferrari to be back on the pace and they were. They’re still lacking something in qualifying, but for that I think he could have been a bit closer to Vettel at the chequered flag. But they need more if they’re going to actually challenge for the title. Being 37 points adrift is not a challenging second place, it’s just second.
Still, Vettel was 40 points behind last year so all is not lost. Alonso is never one to give up, but they need to roll off some back to back victories because I can see Vettel scoring heavily in every race unless they have a problem.
Lewis will be glad to have got the better of Rosberg who was beginning to look increasingly dominant within the team. He says he still finds it difficult to brake the way he likes, but with time that will come.
Lotus suffer another poor weekend
If the rumours are true and Kimi Raikkonen is being courted by Red Bull then displays like this might convince him to make the move away from Enstone. A lowly 9th after starting 10th with no real signs of consistent pace was a poor return after a pretty rubbish Monaco.
They tried to make a one stop work, but it was no good and he was well off the pace in the first stint particularly, possibly down to having to work the tyres so hard when he was battling Ricciardo. This leaves him 44 points off Vettel in the title race. They need to step up their game quickly.
Lotus also dropped to fourth in the constructors, not helped by Romain Grosjean suffering another poor weekend. He started last after a grid penalty from Monaco, and eventually had to concede a one stop wasn’t working and that lost him any chance of a good points finish. For a team which prides itself on looking after the tyres, this was not good at all.
Rest of the top 10
Rosberg’s shot at a podium dived when his rear tyres were over-heating, he was the only one to do a three stopper, so in the end fifth was pretty good.
Massa battled with everyone but the leaders and eventually got himself up into the points to take eighth. He suffered a qualifying ending accident, so at the British Grand Prix he’d probably not like to make it three weekends in a row with a big crash.
Adrian Sutil got the final point after surviving a spin while trying to get passed Bottas and being savaged by Maldonado in the other Williams.
Reflection and Future
It was a good race, not a great one. I wonder if we consistently got races like this if people would stop moaning about the tyres degrading all the time. It wasn’t helped by Vettel being so in control, however it was nice to know they were all going flat out for most of the race.
British Grand Prix in three weeks, Vettel has over a race win advantage now, if anyone is going to mount a challenge, Silverstone is as good a place as any to start it.
all photo's taken from autosport.com
Good Article. And you predicted right about PDR doing a one stop strategy. How you did that?
ReplyDeleteThank you. I don't know if I did though, I predicted he would could get a podium and that McLaren would do well too. Can't be right all the time!
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