2008 Canadian Grand Prix

The 2008 Canadian Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 8 June, 2008 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montréal, Canada. It was the seventh race of the 2008 Formula One season and the only race of the season taking place in North America. This was also the last time a Formula One race was contested in North America, as this venue was removed from the 2009 Schedule in October of 2008. It was the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Grand Prix occurring on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The race was won by BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica, his first ever win in Formula One. The win was also a first for a Polish driver and for BMW Sauber since its inception in 2006. Kubica's teammate Nick Heidfeld and Red Bull Racing's David Coulthard finished second and third.

The race was first of the 2008 season where neither Ferrari nor McLaren achieved a podium finish. The race was significantly affected by the pit lane incident involving Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Räikkönen and Nico Rosberg, wherein Hamilton hit the back of Räikkönen's car at pit lane exit and was subsequently hit by Rosberg. Hamilton and Räikkönen, in first and third positions before the pit stop, both had to retire from the race. Hamilton and Rosberg were penalised 10 grid places in the next race for their driving.

Report

Background

Ahead of the race, the organizers unveiled a new paddock and media center facilities at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Also the site where Robert Kubica crashed in last year's race was modified. The wall on which Kubica crashed was moved closer to the track to decrease angle of impact. Additionally, a debris fencing was put on the wall to prevent any hazard to cars on the other side of the wall.

Practice

The Friday practice session started in wet conditions which resulted in most of the drivers venturing out in the latter half of the hour, some of them, such as Lewis Hamilton, emerging only during final minutes of the session. 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 two. Kimi Räikkönen recorded third fastest lap time compared to his fifth fastest in the earlier session. Timo Glock suffered a minor accident after he hit the wall on turn four. Nico Rosberg, however, sprung a surprise by topping the Saturday session ahead of Räikkönen and Hamilton. The session was red flagged 45 minutes in when Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel hit the wall after losing control at turn nine, resulting in a number of drivers being unable to complete their flying laps. Further, Vettel's teammate Sébastien Bourdais suffered a crash at turn five.

Qualifying

First session

Lewis Hamilton recorded the fastest time for the session, ahead of Felipe Massa and Heikki Kovalainen. Sebastian 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 place grid penalty due to a gearbox change following the earlier practice session. Button too suffered a gearbox problem during his first lap run and clocked the slowest time for the session.

Second session

Qualifying conditions were hampered by a disintegrating track, which caused most drivers to record slower 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 progress to the next session.

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

Third session

Hamilton recorded quick times during early laps of the session, which were only surpassed by Robert Kubica towards the end of the session. But Hamilton on his final flying lap overcame Kubica's time 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 performances, taking positions four and five respectively.

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

Pre-race

There was severe criticism from drivers about track conditions. The track was said to be breaking up on turn two, the exit of turn seven and also the apex and exit of turn 10. The authorities applied chemicals on turn 2 and carried out further resurfacing of track on turn 11–the hairpin– following Saturday's qualifying session.

In the live interviews prior to the start Martin Brundle said to Bernie Ecclestone, "There are some pikeys there at turn 10 putting tarmac down - what do you think of that?". His use of the word 'pikey' was later criticised by an Equality and Human Rights Commission spokesman. Ofcom, after receiving seven complaints, ordered an assessment for any breach of broadcasting code, based on which the need of formal investigation was to be decided.

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 16th lap and parked his car after turn 3. 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 all of the six lead drivers went in for their pit stops. 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.

Pit lane incident

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 Hamilton sped towards them not noticing the red light at first. Hamilton 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 leaving their vehicles at the exit of the pitlane. Both Hamilton and Rosberg were penalised a 10 place grid penalty at the next Grand Prix in France. Rosberg continued the race, but stopped again for a new wing. Meanwhile, Massa had to make a second stop in the following lap, since his car wasn't refueled during first stop due to technical problem.

There were seven different race leaders over the next section of the race until most of the 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 severely degrading over the course of the race. Nelson Piquet Jr. suffered another retirement, his fifth of the year from seven races, on the 39th lap because of abnormal brake wear. Piquet had also spun off the circuit earlier in the race while running in a points-paying position, but fell to the back of the field before he reversed his car 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. Kazuki Nakajima broke his front wing after hitting the back of Jenson Button in turn ten on the 46th lap, and was forced to retire when the front wing detached itself completely and was stuck under the chassis as he was about to enter pitlane. Giancarlo Fisichella was running last after his car engine stalled during his first pit stop, and later he spun and hit the wall after the chicane at turn nine.

Closing stages

Felipe Massa fought back towards the end of the race, after finding himself last since making three pit stops in total due to earlier incidents. Massa overtook both Barrichello and Kovalainen at the same time through the hairpin at turn ten 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 two.

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 Sauber team. David Coulthard finished third to score his first points of the season and the first podium finish since the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix, but had to run to the podium after his car ran out of fuel 50 meters from where the podium finishers park. Toyota drivers finished fourth and sixth. Massa finished in the fifth thus neither Ferrari nor McLaren got a podium finish the first time since the 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix. Barrichello kept the seventh position and Vettel defended 8th place from Kovalainen thus no McLaren driver finished in the points the first time since the 2006 United States Grand Prix.

The win for BMW Sauber marked the first time a German constructor had won a Formula One Grand Prix since the 1962 French Grand Prix.

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			203
20	15	Sebastian Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	no time4			193

• 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.
• Sébastien Bourdais incurred a five place grid penalty for a gearbox change.
• Started from the pitlane.
• Sebastian Vettel was unable to take part in qualifying due to damaging 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 (Driver) - Robert Kubica
• First Win (Constructor) - BMW Sauber
• First 1-2 - BMW Sauber
• The race marked the first Canadian Grand Prix in which Kimi Räikkönen failed to score championship points.

References

External links

• Official Race Results (formula1.com)