Vettel dominates in Montreal to take championship lead

Sebastian Vettel took a comfortable victory in Montreal, adding a fifth grand slam win to his name. Valtteri Bottas finished second ahead of Max Verstappen in third.

The opening lap saw the safety car brought out almost immediately, Lance Stroll putting Brendon Hartley into the barriers at turn five. Off of the line, Max Verstappen was under pressure from Valtteri Bottas with the Mercedes man getting second at turn two. Daniel Ricciardo was also able to move up a position, taking Kimi Raikkonen at the exit of the same corner.

Sebastian Vettel restarted very well and was able to pull away from Bottas comfortably. Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez had a coming together on the restart, the Mexican holding a slide very well to stay out of the barriers but was swamped by several other cars as he re-joined the track. Mercedes struggled on their tyres and Hamilton was forced to pit first, Verstappen joining him however it was the other Red Bull who gained the most, Ricciardo overcutting the Mercedes easily.

Poor initial pace on supersoft tyres as the early stoppers had to nurse their tyres left them vulnerable to Raikkonen who was running long, when it was time for the Ferrari to pit, he came up just short as Hamilton just about managed to stay ahead despite some traffic making things interesting on pit exit.

Bottas eventually pitted on lap 36 which brought Vettel in the following lap, positions remained the same however and Vettel looked comfortable from there on. Elsewhere Romain Grosjean was able to put 45 laps on his ultrasoft tyres, prompting questions that tyres could be too durable for exciting racing.

With the closing stages looming, Mercedes appeared to ramp up their pace, with both drivers catching the cars in front. Bottas made a mistake however and lost almost two seconds immediately undoing his hard work. His teammate made a late attack on Ricciardo but couldn’t find a way past the Australian.

A blunder not seen since the 2014 Chinese Grand Prix, the chequered flag was waved one lap early, model Winny Harlow jumping the gun a lap too soon.

The result means that Sebastian Vettel retakes the lead of the championship over Hamilton by a single point heading into the French Grand Prix.