2008 Canadian Grand Prix

2008 Canadian Grand Prix
Race 7 of 18 in the 2008 Formula One World Championship
Race details
Date	June 8, 2008
Official name	XLV Grand Prix du Canada
Location	Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Canada
Course	Street circuit
Course length	4.361 km (2.71 miles)
Distance	70 laps, 305.27 km (189.7 miles)
Weather	Sunny
Pole position
Driver	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes
Time	1:17.886
Fastest lap
Driver	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari
Time	1.17.387 on lap 14
Podium
First	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber
Second	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber
Third	David Coulthard	Red Bull

The 2008 Canadian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race which is held on 8 June, 2008 at 17:00 UTC (13:00 EDT, local time), at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montréal, Canada. It is the seventh race of the 2008 Formula One season and the only race of the season taking place in North America. It is the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Grand Prix occurring on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Heading into the race, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton led the drivers title by three points from Kimi Räikkönen and a further point to Räikkönen's Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa. Scuderia Ferrari lead the Constructors' Championship by 16 points from McLaren and a further point to BMW Sauber.

Of the 2008 drivers, only Räikkönen, Hamilton and Renault's Fernando Alonso have previously won the Canadian Grand Prix, although Honda's Jenson Button and Red Bull Racing's David Coulthard have previously sat on pole. The race marked the first time since the 1999 European Grand Prix when neither Ferrari, McLaren nor Renault got a podium finish.

Report

Practice

The Friday practice session started in wet condition which resulted in most of the drivers venturing out in the later half of the hour. Ferrari's Felipe Massa recorded the fastest lap in this session, followed by Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen. In the second session of the day, Lewis Hamilton aced while Kubica continued to record good timings at number 2. Kimi Räikkönen recorded third fastest lap time compared to his fifth fastest in the earlier session. Nico Rosberg, however, sprung a surprise by topping Saturday's session ahead of Räikkönen and Hamilton. The session was red flagged 45 minutes into the session when Toro Rosso's Sebastien Vettel hit the wall after losing control at turn nine, resulting in number of teams unable to complete their flying laps. Further, Vettel's teammate Sébastien Bourdais suffered a crash on turn five.

Qualifying

First session

Lewis Hamilton recorded the fastest time for the session, ahead of Felipe Massa and Heikki Kovalainen. Sebastien Vettel's poor season continued after he could not compete the qualifying following his crash in third practice session. Others eliminated in this session were Sébastien Bourdais, Adrian Sutil, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jenson Button. Bourdais received a five grid penalty due to gearbox change following earlier practice session. Button too suffered a gearbox problem during his first lap run and clocked slowest time for the session.

Second session

Qualifying conditions were hampered by a disintegrating track, which caused most drivers to record lower times than in Q1. Track officials were seen clearing the track of debris in between sessions. Toyota's Jarno Trulli suffered significantly from these conditions, his car spinning twice during the second session. Trulli, along with Timo Glock, Kazuki Nakajima, David Coulthard and Nelson Piquet Jr., was unable to qualify to next session.

Hamilton once again topped this session , with Massa and Räikkönen coming second and third respectively.

Third session

Hamilton recorded quick timings during early laps of the session, which were only surpassed by Robert Kubica towards the end of the session. But Hamilton in his final flying lap overcame Kubica's timing claiming his second pole position at Montreal. Räikkönen came in third with teammate Massa pushed down to sixth position. Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg exhibited remarkable performance, taking positions four and five respectively.

Mark Webber, who also became a victim of breaking track surface, could not compete Q3 after damaging his car at the end of second session.

Race

Start

After overnight track work to fix problems with the track at turn 10, the race started with Hamilton holding his lead and all the cars making it through the first corner. Hamilton built up a lead of over 5 seconds over Robert Kubica before Adrian Sutil had a gearbox failure on the 6th lap and parked his car after turn 7. Sutil's car was off the track but after it caught fire the safety car was brought out, and there was a rush of drivers into the pits as most of the top drivers went in to fuel up and change tyres. Hamilton led Räikkönen and Kubica into the pitlane but Räikkönen took the lead as they left their garages, with Kubica alongside him and Hamilton behind, but only one of the three left the pit lane.

Pit Lane Incident

"We expected the incidents would occur on track, not in the pit lane. "

David Coulthard, at the post-race press conference.

Räikkönen came to a stop at the end of the pit lane as the exit was closed, with the red indicator light on. Räikkönen was alongside Kubica at the end of the pit lane when the McLaren team released Hamilton who sped towards them not noticing that they had stopped. In a strange incident, Hamilton locked up his wheels and slid into the back of Räikkönen's car, with Nico Rosberg further hitting the back of Hamilton. Both Hamilton and Räikkönen retired from the race, each exiting their vehicles and taking the short walk back to their respective garages. Both Hamilton and Rosberg will be penalised a 10 place grid penalty at the next Grand Prix in France. Rosberg stopped again for a new wing, while Massa had to immediately make a second stop as his garage was not ready for him during his first stop.

There were seven different race leaders over the next section of the race until most of the top drivers each took pit stops leaving Heidfeld in the lead. Kubica was in a much lighter and faster car and overtook Heidfeld after only his first lap out of the pits.

Retirements

The remainder of the race was relatively incident-free, despite the surface of the circuit severly degrading over the course of the race. Nelson Piquet Jr. suffered another retirement, his fifth of the year after seven races, on the 39th lap because of a gearbox failure. Piquet had also spun off the circuit earlier in the race while running in a point-paying position, but fell to the back of the field before he reversed his car up to get back onto the track. Piquet's team-mate at Renault F1 and former world champion Fernando Alonso was running in a strong third place and was pushing Nick Heidfeld for second place before retiring from the grand prix after spinning off due to a damaged gearbox. Kazuki Nakajima broke his front wing after hitting the back of Jenson Button in turn 10 on the 46th lap, and was forced to retire after losing control of his car and hitting the pit wall while attempting to make it back into his garage. Giancarlo Fisichella was running last after his car stalled during a pitstop, and he spun and hit the wall after the chicane at turn 9. For a moment it looked like the Fisichella incident would see the safety car come out again, but the track marshals managed to remove the car while that section of track was under double-waved yellow flags.

Closing Stages

Felipe Massa staged a brave fight back after finding himself last after being forced to make three pit stops in total due to earlier incidents. Massa overtook both Barrichello and Kovalainen at the same time through the hairpin at turn 10 as his rivals struggled for grip. With a few laps to spare the Brazilian overtook Jarno Trulli when the Italian got caught up behind Timo Glock, who was recovering from running wide at turn 2. Massa salvaged a 5th place and 4 points from the race meeting. The remainder of the drivers fought to keep their cars on the track and generally ran much slower lap times than earlier in the race as the track surface was extremely worn and there was only a single line upon which a driver was able to find adequate traction.

Kubica had built up a substantial lead over the course of the race and was never threatened while he raced towards the finish. Heidfeld held onto second place leading to the first one-two finish for the BMW team, the first ever win for Kubica and the first ever win for a Polish driver. David Coulthard finished third on the podium to score his first points of the season.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Name	Constructor	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3	Grid
1	22	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:16.909	1:17.034	1:17.886	1
2	4	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:17.471	1:17.679	1:18.498	2
3	1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:17.301	1:17.364	1:18.735	3
4	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:17.415	1:17.488	1:18.746	4
5	7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:17.991	1:17.891	1:18.844	5
6	2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:17.231	1:17.353	1:19.048	6
7	23	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:17.287	1:17.684	1:19.089	7
8	3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:18.082	1:17.781	1:19.633	8
9	17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:18.256	1:18.020	1:20.848	9
10	10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:17.582	1:17.523	no time1	10
11	12	Timo Glock	Toyota	1:18.321	1:18.031		11
12	8	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:17.638	1:18.062		12
13	9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	1:18.168	1:18.238		13
14	11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:18.039	1:18.327		14
15	6	Nelson Piquet Jr.	Renault	1:18.505	1:18.393		15
16	14	Sébastien Bourdais	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:18.916			182
17	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	1:19.108			16
18	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	1:19.165			17
19	16	Jenson Button	Honda	1:23.565			20
20	15	Sebastian Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	no time3			19

• Template:Fnb Mark Webber spun into the wall and damaged his right front suspension during the second part of qualifying, thus he was unable to compete in the third part.
• Template:Fnb Sébastien Bourdais incurred five place grid penalty for gearbox change.
• Template:Fnb Sebastian Vettel was unable to take part in this qualifying due to the damage of his car during third practice.

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	4	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	70	1:36:24.227	2	10
2	3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	70	+16.495	8	8
3	9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	70	+23.352	13	6
4	12	Timo Glock	Toyota	70	+42.627	11	5
5	2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	70	+43.934	6	4
6	11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	70	+47.775	14	3
7	17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	70	+53.597	9	2
8	15	Sebastian Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	70	+54.120	19	1
9	23	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	70	+54.433	7
10	7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	70	+54.749	5
11	16	Jenson Button	Honda	70	+1:07.540	20
12	10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	70	+1:11.299	10
13	14	Sébastien Bourdais	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	69	+1 Lap	18
Ret	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	51	Spun off	17
Ret	8	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	46	Accident	12
Ret	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	44	Spun off	4
Ret	6	Nelson Piquet Jr.	Renault	43	Brakes	15
Ret	1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	19	Collision	3
Ret	22	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	19	Collision	1
Ret	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	13	Gearbox	16

Notes

• Lap Leaders: Lewis Hamilton 18 (1-18), Nick Heidfeld 10 (19-28), Rubens Barrichello 7 (29-35), David Coulthard 1 (36), Jarno Trulli 2 (37-38), Timo Glock 3 (39-41), Robert Kubica 29 (42-70)
• First win: Robert Kubica and BMW Sauber
• This was the first podium finish for David Coulthard since 2006 Monaco Grand Prix.
• This was the first Grand Prix win for a Polish driver.
• This was the first 1-2 win for the BMW Sauber F1 team.
• This was the first time since the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix that a BMW powered car won an F1 race.
• The win for BMW Sauber marked the first time a German constructor had won a Formula 1 Grand Prix since the 1962 French Grand Prix.
• This was the first time since the 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix that neither Ferrari nor McLaren got a podium finish.
• This was the first race since the 2006 Japanese Grand Prix that neither Ferrari nor McLaren won the race.
• This was the first race since the 2006 United States Grand Prix that no McLaren driver finished in the points.

External links

• Official Race Results (formula1.com)

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