The Canadian GP took place already a week ago but I haven´t had a proper chance to sit down and update my blog since I´ve been travelling around Finland (I made a quick visit in Norway as well) on a camper with my family. We arrived home yesterday evening so now I finally have time to write down a few words on last Sunday´s race!
There have been some really colourful and exciting races in Montreal in recent years but this year´s GP didn´t turn out to be as eventful as I had been hoping for. There wasn´t any huge drama at the start: Hamilton kept his lead, Rosberg maintained his 2nd place although Kimi tried to get past the German in turn one. Bottas in his Williams managed to keep his 4th place although Grosjean in his Lotus gave the Finn some pressure from behind. By lap 3 Sebastian had already jumped 4 positions making his way in P14. Also Massa in his FW37 had jumped two places and the Brazilian was ahead of Sebastian in P13. It seemed that Kimi could match Rosberg´s pace and the Iceman could stay within DRS distance from Rosberg.
Sebastian pitted already on lap 8 and his pit stop didn´t unfortunately go to plan but was delayed by several seconds. Sebastian was dropped down to P20 when he rejoined the track! At that point it definitely didn´t look good for the German Ferrari ace! Little by little the gaps between the top four started to grow: Hamilton in the lead had already a 3,5-second gap over his team-mate. Kimi was already four seconds off Rosberg and Bottas some three seconds behind Räikkönen. At this point of the race Sebastian seemed to be in trouble. Pace didn´t seem to be there at all!
The super soft tyres seemed to last excellently and unexpectedly and it started to look likely that it was going to be a 1-stop race for the most drivers. Kimi pitted on lap 27 and everything went well -until the Finn rejoined the track. Right after the pit stop there was drama for Kimi at the hair pin: Kimi suddenly span and lost over 10 seconds! It seemed that Kimi suddenly lost the control of his car and there wasn´t anything the Iceman could have done to avoid the incident. Right after the spin Kimi reported on the team radio that an exactly similar incident had happened to him in Canada last year! It had probably something to do with the engine mapping but it hasn´t been confirmed for sure yet. Williams responded to this immediately and called Bottas in on the following lap. Bottas managed to rejoin the track ahead of Kimi in P3! What a devastating moment for Kimi, he lost the 3rd place without his own fault! With wrong engine mapping no one could have controlled the car in the similar situation, that´s what I believe. I was so gutted that Kimi lost the third place right when the weekend had gone to plan so far!
Hamilton pitted not until on lap 30 and his team-mate Rosberg a lap later and the situation in the lead stayed unchanged. On lap 41 Kimi was called in for his second pit stop and a fresh set of super soft tyres. After the stop the Iceman was 18 seconds behind his countryman Bottas in P4. Of course I was hoping that Kimi could catch Bottas by the end of the race but I had my doubts whether that was actually possible. Kimi was, however, setting stunning lap times and decreasing the gap to Bottas lap by lap. Kimi´s team-mate Sebastian was fighting with Force India´s Hulkenberg and the Germans ended up touching each other.
With 14 laps to go Sebastian made a classy overtaking move on Lotus´s Maldonado and Sebastian was already 5th in the race! That was an impressive job from Sebastian, who had started to the race at the very back of the grid. In the lead there was no real fight for the win: Rosberg had closed the gap to Hamilton into 1,5 seconds but there was no way Rosberg could really have challenged his team-mate for the lead. Sorry to say this but in my opinion it was another dull 1-2 for the Mercedes team-mates! Bottas made it on the podium for the first time this year and Kimi had to settle for P4. Sebastian finished 5th, Massa 6th, Maldonado 7th, Hulkenberg 8th, Kvyat 9th and Grosjean 10th.
Next week it´s time for the Austrian GP at Red Bull Ring. I would definitely like to see Ferrari taking the fight to Mercedes there! The season is starting to get boring if no one is able to challenge the Silver Arrows for wins. But I strongly believe in the Ferrari team-mates. Kimi and Sebastian are definitely the guys, who can get the most out of the SF15-T! Roll on Austria!
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