The 2014 Canadian GP has certainly eclipsed the excitement that the Bahrain GP brought and turned into a thriller of a Sunday afternoon full of controversy, overtakes and crashes. The end result, Red Bull’s new Australian driver, Daniel Ricciardo winning his first ever Grand Prix.
Ricciardo Wins First Grand Prix
You can imagine how wide his smile was, but this was neither expected nor easy. From the outset it looked to be another steal of a race for Mercedes with Rosberg and Hamilton fighting through the first few laps which led to Rosberg, at the time, controversially cutting the final chicane when battling Hamilton for first position; a move for which he was investigated. However, he was cleared and the race continued.
A second pitstop saw Rosberg drop behind Hamilton after a 4.5 second stop and that looked to be race over. But Hamilton went deep into the hairpin, allowing for Rosberg to regain the lead. A fight down the long back straight saw Hamilton copy his teammate’s earlier move of cutting the final chicane. We later found out that Hamilton’s brakes had failed and as well as this, both Mercedes lost power, resulting in Hamilton retiring. Nevertheless, Rosberg continued, 160 horse power down and he drove a blinder of a race to keep his brakes from failing and keep Checo Perez’s Force India behind by making up time in the first two sectors in order to defend in the final stretch.
Crashes and Retirements
By the end of the race, there were 11 retirements, the first of which came in turn 3 of the first lap, courtesy of the two Marussia drivers crashing. After the high of Monaco, they reached an ultimate low in Montreal as Chilton lost the back of his car and slid into his teammate, causing quite a dramatic clash with the whole of Bianchi’s rear crumbling before spinning into the wall, totalling the car. Chilton carried on round the corner but soon stopped. Both cars out and team boss John Booth not a happy man. Most of the cars escaped damage, with only Lotus’s Pastor Maldonado taking to the grass and seemingly pelted with debris, which didn’t seem to damage his car too much. The safety car was now out.
Caterham’s Marcus Ericsson was next, pulling into the pits on lap 7 after losing power due to a “loose pipe”. It looked as though teammate Kobayashi was to be the only backmarker still racing and there to make up ground on Marussia. But this was not to be. A rear suspension failure caused him to spin in the first corner and he pulled up on the inside of turn 3. Caterham and Marussia both out. Pastor Maldonado’s torrid 2014 season continued as he retired on lap 21 with damage and a loss of power followed by Toro Rosso’s Danill Kvyat, having no power, and Romain Grosjean retiring as well.
Classed as finishing, Esteban Guttierez retired with an energy issue and possibly the biggest crash of the season came on the penultimate lap, courtesy of Williams’ Felipe Massa and Force India’s Sergio Perez. After a great race and a podium in his sights due to a one stop strategy, the Mexican could not hold the two Red Bulls back anymore. The second Red Bull of Vettel got through on the back straight with Perez then having a poor exit throughout the final chicane, allowing for the fast Massa to catch him under DRS. Going into the first corner, Massa appeared to be moving down the inside of Perez. Then, Perez jolted left slightly in the braking zone with Massa then collecting his front right with Perez’s rear left causing Perez to spin into the barrier on the right and Massa to hurtle straight on into the run off area between turns 1 and 2 narrowly avoiding taking Vettel out who later confirmed he saw Massa and moved out the way, resulting in him taking to the the grass slightly while Massa dramatically crashed into the barrier, ruining his chance of a race win. Thankfully, both drivers were unhurt but taken to hospital for precautionary checks. At the time, it looked to be 50:50 as to who caused the crash but it was indeed Perez who took the penalty of a 5 place grid drop, next time out in Austria.
In all the chaos, Ricciardo had caught the down on power Rosberg on the back straight who could do nothing to stop the DRS pass. Meanwhile, the anonymous Jenson Button had overtaken Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg off camera and found himself in fourth while the slow Sauber of Adrian Sutil quietly worked himself up the order to place last of the finishers in 13th position.
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