British driver Jenson Button endured six pit stops, two accidents and a drive-through penalty to win the wet Canadian Grand Prix held on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal on Sunday.
Let’s face it: by lap 8, McLaren’s race had reached calamitous proportion, with Button inadvertently taking off his teammate Lewis Hamilton on the pit straight when he didn’t see him in the spray around his mirrors, and an investigation being held into the speed of both cars behind the initial Safety Car.
Button lost ground serving a drive-through penalty, then having to change back from intermediates to wets again, and was only tenth by the time the race was red flagged on lap 24 because of the downpour.
Thereafter a brilliant drive, allied to some superb strategy by McLaren, helped him to recover, but then there was a front wing and left front tire-damaging brush with the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso on lap 37 which dropped him to last place.
After that a charging performance enabled him to make maximum advantage of slicks and DRS to pass the Red Bull of Mark Webber and the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher towards the end and set himself up for the pursuit of Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) that prompted the German to make a mistake on the ultimate lap!
Let’s face it: by lap 8, McLaren’s race had reached calamitous proportion, with Button inadvertently taking off his teammate Lewis Hamilton on the pit straight when he didn’t see him in the spray around his mirrors, and an investigation being held into the speed of both cars behind the initial Safety Car.
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| Mark Webber's spin at the start. (Photo: WRI2) |
Button lost ground serving a drive-through penalty, then having to change back from intermediates to wets again, and was only tenth by the time the race was red flagged on lap 24 because of the downpour.
Thereafter a brilliant drive, allied to some superb strategy by McLaren, helped him to recover, but then there was a front wing and left front tire-damaging brush with the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso on lap 37 which dropped him to last place.
After that a charging performance enabled him to make maximum advantage of slicks and DRS to pass the Red Bull of Mark Webber and the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher towards the end and set himself up for the pursuit of Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) that prompted the German to make a mistake on the ultimate lap!
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