Read Giles Richards’s race report:
Updated
Sebastian Vettel speaks, after his 50th GP win. “I said yesterday how much this place means to Ferrari,” he says. “To have a race like we had today is unbelievable. After a long stretch without a win here, we’re all happy. It’s a day to remember the great Gilles Villeneuve. Everybody will have a blast tonight. There’s still a long way [to go in the championship].”
Valtteri Bottas, the Mercedes who finished second, says: “From P2, I think we maxxed out so we were happy.” Max Verstappen, the Red Bull who secured a podium finish, adds: “It was good, I enjoyed it.”
Updated
Vettel wins at a canter. A timely, morale-boosting Ferrari success. Race result:
1 Vettel
2 Bottas
3 Verstappen
4 Ricciardo
5 Hamilton
6 Räikkönen
“Grazie,” shouts Vettel, before breezing into a little dance in the Ferrari. Happy days for them after their first win in Canada since 2004. Not so for Hamilton, who surrenders his lead at the top of the drivers’ championship after finishing fifth. Qualifying was close, but the race was a foregone conclusion once the safety car departed.
Updated
Sebastian Vettel wins Canada GP!
The chequered flag is raised prematurely, by the model Winnie Harlow, for a moment angering the German. But, that’s job done, he’s over the line and retakes the championship lead. From start to finish, Vettel has done a fine, professional job in Montreal.
Updated
Lap 69/70: Now is the time for the spectacular ...
Lap 68/70: “Hopefully Daniel [Ricciardo] has got Lewis [Hamilton] covered, it’s all about if Max [Verstappen] can get to Valtteri [Bottas],” Christian Horner says. “It’s a straight fight now.” The only man breathing easily in the top five at the moment is surely the race leader, Sebastian Vettel. He’s cruising out there.
Lap 67/70: Verstappen has surrendered a little time in the middle sector to Bottas. Hamilton, for a moment, eyes up a challenge on Ricciardo but he doesn’t seem to have the grip to cause him problems upon the exit of the hairpin.
Lap 66/70:
1 Vettel
2 Bottas
3 Verstappen
4 Ricciardo
5 Hamilton
6 Raikkonen
The top six look nailed on; can anything change from here on in?
Lap 64/70: “Leave me alone,” Hulkenberg urges down the team radio, when warned that Ocon is breathing down Sainz’s neck.
Lap 63/70: If Hamilton stays fifth, and Vettel retains his lead, the Briton will concede his lead at the top of the drivers’ championship this evening. A win for Vettel, as it stands, would nudge him a point ahead of the Mercedes.
Lap 62/70: The Haas of Grosjean is catching Gasly, in 11th.
Lap 61/70: Not an awful lot of movement at the front, with Vettel opening up his legs and extending his lead in front of Bottas to almost 8secs.
Lap 60/70: Crikey, Hulkenberg trails Raikkonen by nigh on 59secs. Seventeen drivers remain out on track, with Alonso, Stroll and Hartley, the latter who has gone to hospital for routine checks after that clash, having already exited. Stroll, meanwhile, is debriefing his version of events to the baying media.
Updated
Lap 59/70: Renault are having a good day in seventh and eighth, but they are still getting lapped out there; a sign of the pace in Montreal. Everybody has been lapped, right up until Hulkenberg in seventh.
Updated
Lap 58/70: And Hamilton is within DRS zone of Hamilton. Is it all a little too late for the Mercedes? A reminder that he trails Ricciardo by 1.3secs.
Lap 57/70: Vettel has just set a new fastest lap. Lovely jubbly.
Updated
Lap 56/70: Bottas might be left to rue that clumsy error, bumbling off track for a moment after soaring beyond Sainz. The gap to Vettel is back over five seconds, approaching 5.6secs. Can he cut the margin to the Ferrari?
Lap 55/70: Now Bottas makes a mistake when faced with Carlos Sainz, who is down in eighth. He has just lost 1.8secs on Vettel in a sluggish first sector ...
Lap 54/70: The gap between Bottas and Vettel? 3.6secs. And Vettel needs to re-engage, bogged down by lapping those cumbersome back markers. Can Bottas assault the Ferrari?
Updated
Lap 53/70: Vettel has just lapped Ocon. “Pretty sure there was more overtakes at Monaco race then there has been this race so far ... “ tweets Lando Norris, the F2 driver. “We are fighting for points,” 11th-placed Gasly is told over the team radio.
Updated
Lap 52/70: Verstappen fancies a run at Bottas, who has just set a new fastest lap. As for Ricciardo, he’s opened up a small gap between him and Hamilton.
Updated
Lap 51/70: Exhaust failure, according to Renault, forced Alonso out.
Lap 50/70: And, finally, Romain Grosjean pits! He’s got rid of the ultrasofts and he will run out in 12th. “Did you see what Ocon did?” Grosjean says upon entry into the pits, with the Force India cutting it fine as he flew past him.
Lap 49/70: Hamilton is 1.5secs behind Ricciardo, in fourth.
Lap 47/70: Vettel leads, and it’s still business as usual. As it stands, he could nip in front of Lewis Hamilton in the drivers’ championship.
Updated
Lap 45/70: Christian Horner, the Red Bull chief, admits they are being a little bit conservative with the tyres at the moment, with Verstappen not exactly bearing down on Bottas in second. He’s 6.4secs behind, with Ricciardo, his team-mate, trailing him. And now Perez pits once more.
Lap 43/70: Where does Alonso go from here? Le Mans, next weekend. That must nudge him another step closer to Indy 500.
Updated
Lap 42/70: Disaster for Fernando Alonso, who is forced to retire on his 300th grand prix meeting. That sinking feeling strikes again for the Renault. Ah, that’s miserable. He comes into the pits, lifts his visor and looks absolutely seething. At the front, what can Mercedes and Red Bull do to hound down Vettel? He has led from pole but, listen to this, Ferrari have not won in Canada since Michael Schumacher in 2004. Vettel looks good for his first win in five.
Updated
Lap 41/70: Raikkonen has sensor alarms going off in his Ferrari but he is reassured, over the team radio, that they are unconcerned about his car’s temperature.
Lap 40/70: Romain Grosjean, whose engine blew up yesterday, has not stopped on the ultrasoft. It’s the motor-racing equivalent of goal-hanging.
Lap 39/70: Sergio Perez is chasing Gasly from 14th, having never recovered from that clash with Carlos Sainz on the opening lap. He has work to do.
Lap 38/70: The gap between Vettel and Bottas? 5.6secs.
Lap 37/70: Vettel is tucked up with back markers of sorts, with Fernando Alonso in 11th for company ... that’s until the Ferrari trundles into the pits. That is 21 laps later than Hamilton and those pesky Red Bulls. Vettel goes on to the supersofts.
Updated
Lap 36/70: Hamilton remember has six wins in Montreal. A seventh looks elusive at the moment. Bottas is told to box by Mercedes, and he’s flown into the pits.
Lap 35/70: At the halfway mark, we’re as we started in many ways, with Vettel dictating the pace at the front of the pack. Raikkonen, meanwhile, has just set the fastest lap on those new grooving tyres. He has his eyes on Hamilton.
Updated
Lap 34/70: Vettel leads Bottas by 5.7secs, and then Verstappen is almost 24secs behind the Mercedes. Oh, and Michael Douglas is here.
Lap 33/70: And here comes Kimi Raikkonen into the pits, making his way out on the supersofts ... and Sergey Sorotkin’s attempt to get out of the way almost blocked Lewis Hamilton’s path. “I’m giving it everything already,” a moody Hamilton steams down the team radio. Hamilton – just – remains in front of Raikkonen, who had done a solid, slick job in the pits.
Lap 31/70: Surely Raikkonen will pit soon and chop in the ultrasofts. He’s 14 seconds behind Bottas. The leading Ferrari however, Sebastian Vettel, is making light work of this, having just lapped Stoffel Vandoorne.
Updated
Lap 30/70: As it stands in Montreal; 1 Vettel 2 Bottas 3 Raikkonen 4 Verstappen 5 Ricciardo 6 Hamilton. “Why did we pit so early?” Hamilton asks. “We needed to sort this PU problem – it’s helped,” the race engineer replies.
Updated
Lap 28/70: Ocon and Grosjean are battling it out for ninth, but he cannot clear the Haas. Ocon’s pursuit of Hulkenberg and Sainz needs to think of a route through.
Lap 27/70: “You are still half a second quicker than the cars that have changed tyres,” Bottas is told by Mercedes. Vettel is cruising out in front. There’s no one to worry him at the moment, with Bottas nearest, trailing by 3.5secs. Fernando Alonso, meanwhile, has surged past Charles Leclerc and into 11th.
Lap 26/70: When Raikkonen pits, that will surely provide another slice of action. An easy overtake for Sainz, past Romain Grosjean, who’s racing lightly.
Lap 24/70: Things are looking good for Ferrari, with Vettel out in front, controlling the race and Raikkonen 17secs behind, in third, with Bottas sandwiched in between. Hamilton is down in sixth, behind the Red Bull pair. Ricciardo and Verstappen are cruising, eking out what they can from their tyres.
Updated
Lap 23/70: Magnussen heads for the pits, so Ocon nips in front into 11th.
Lap 22/70: It is another wretched afternoon for Williams, who are devoid of anything positive to cling on to really. Their remaining car in this race is down in 16th, with Sergey Sirotkin trailing Sergio Perez.
Lap 21/70: Brendon Hartley shrugs his shoulders, jumps on the golf buggy and he’s heading back to the pits. His race finished on the opening lap, squeezed up against the wall by Lance Stroll. “He had made such a good start,” says Clare Williams. “Lance was minding his own business.”
Lap 20/70: “We’re on Plan B,” Vettel says down the team radio, though it very much looks like Plan A out there, with Vettel the quickest man out there since the get-go. He’s sitting pretty ahead of Bottas, with Raikkonen third.
Lap 19/70: Red Bull pat each other on the back, with Hamilton’s pace having hurt him as Ricciardo slides in front of Hamilton out of the pits. They’re both on supersofts. “Good stuff,” Ricciardo says. Toto Wolff does not look quite so enthused.
Updated
Lap 18/70: And now in comes Ricciardo ...
Lap 17/70: Hamilton and Verstappen pit, with supersofts going on. Hamilton wobbles his way out of the pit, slow and wide as he trudges out.
Lap 16/70: “Looks like Lewis is struggling a bit,” Ricciardo, in fifth, tells Red Bull over the team radio. The gist of the reply is, go and get him son. He’s 0.7secs behind the wobbling Mercedes, which is struggling with grip on ultrasofts.
Updated
Lap 15/70: Vettel is ahead by 4.4secs, with fourth-placed Hamilton 10.6secs off the lead. Sainz and Hulkenberg, meanwhile, exit the pits.
Updated
Lap 13/70: Verstappen is told Bottas’s tyres are on the verge of overheating. How Red Bull know Mercedes have problems is difficult to know, but either way, they may have at least found a way to soothe him. Hulkenberg, caught up behind Ocon, has ditched the hypersoft for the supersofts in search of pace. Plenty of early pitting. The tyres aren’t working out, unless you’re Vettel, on the ultrasofts.
Lap 11/70: “I’m really being held up here,” moans Hulkenberg, with Ocon almost 4secs in front of him. It’s seemingly more a case of he cannot find a route past him. Ocon, though, promptly heads for the pits.
Updated
Lap 10/70: Perez comes into the pits in search of damage limitation. Can he do 60 laps on the newly-fitted supersofts? It’s a gamble but he has to do something to salvage a result in Montreal. Elsewhere, Verstappen has lost ground on Bottas, with the Mercedes trailing the race leader Vettel, who sets a new fastest lap.
Lap 8/70: Leclerc and Alonso are having a ding-dong, but the McLaren is forced wide in his attempts to breeze beyond the Sauber.
Lap 7/70: “I’m having drop outs of power guys,” Hamilton says down the team radio. That doesn’t sound brilliant battery-wise for Mercedes.
Lap 6/70: Vettel is leading the way, almost 1.7secs ahead of Bottas in second. Behind him, there’s Verstappen and then Hamilton.
Updated
Lap 5/70: Perez v Sainz is being investigated, as is that Hartley-Stroll incident with the next race, the France GP at Circuit Paul Ricard, in mind.
Lap 4/70: Nuggets of information down the respective Toro Rosso and Williams’ team radios. “I’m fine, he just ran me out of road,” says Brendon Hartley. As for Lance Stroll: “I had a puncture,” comes the message. And as the race restarts, Perez goes wide in the Force India, those icy tyres and brakes catching him cold. Sainz, in turn, has taken a thud from Perez.
Updated
Lap 3/70: The front six remain in the same order as they left the grid, with Vettel still leading and, despite that bustling between Bottas and a revved-up Verstappen, Mercedes clung on to second. The fun and games will presumably begin again at the restart.
Lap 2/70: The safety car is out leading the pack after that hoo-ha on the first corner. That might benefit those a little skinny on fuel.
Updated
Lap 1/70: A lively start ends with Hartley and Stroll, the local lad, both trudging back to the pits. That’s their race run. Put that stash of Canada flags away.
Updated
Lights out!
And away they go, with Bottas and Verstappen going wheel-to-wheel in the first corner. But the Mercedes puts his elbows out and retains second. Ah, and for the second race running, Brendon Hartley is out after crashing into Lance Stroll, who left him no room whatsoever. Other than that, not a lot going on ...
Updated
We’re almost there ... as the formation lap draws to a climax.
Martin Brundle has just done a marvellous gridwalk; he just bumped into “Bono” (Peter Bennington), Hamilton’s race engineer, as well as NBA’s Serge Ibaka, and Winnie Harlow, who he interrupted while she was talking to the Arsenal defender Héctor Bellerín. Anyway, here comes a spine-tingling national anthem of sorts.
Before the get-go, a reminder of the drivers’ standings:
1 L Hamilton 110pts
2 S Vettel 96
3 D Ricciardo 72
4 V Bottas 68
5 K Räikkönen 60
6 M Verstappen 35
With that in mind, a bit more from Vettel, who starts on pole. “It’s a long race here, a lot of laps, a lot of things to look out for,” he says. “In terms of race pace, as we’ve seen many times this year, it’s very close between the three teams and between the six drivers so we will see, but for sure if you start on pole you want to win.”
Updated
A word on Lewis Hamilton, who has a habit of coming up trumps in Canada; he is looking for his seventh victory at an electrifying circuit Gilles Villeneuve, a record that would match Michael Schumacher’s numbers here. Five of those came from pole, one from second in 2012. But, to savour another win here, Hamilton will have to become only the second man to win from fourth on the grid in Montreal (Gerhard Berger did it last, in 1992). Hamilton looks relaxed, though, and has been chatting with the Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, among the guests trackside.
Updated
Time for a few soundbites; Vettel has been flying the Ferrari flag out on the circuit. “There’s so much support for us, which is incredible,” he says. “So many passionate fans. Thanks for coming out on a beautiful day, and we hope to make it more beautiful.” Daniel Ricciardo, meanwhile, has been chatting about his own biggest fans – his parents – after they celebrated with him last weekend. “The last time they were there for a win was 2014 in Spa,” he says. “To win Monaco with their presence was huge. They have been part of the journey from day one.” As for Alonso, making that special bow, he says: “I think today’s a perfect day for the 300 and now we need to execute the race properly.”
Updated
The grid!
1 Vettel 2 Bottas
3 Verstappen 4 Hamilton
5 Räikkönen 6 Ricciardo
7 Hulkenberg 8 Ocon
9 Sainz 10 Pérez
11 Magnussen 12 Hartley
13 Leclerc 14 Alonso
15 Vandoorne 16 Gasly
17 Stroll 18 Sirotkin
19 Ericsson 20 Grosjean
Preamble
Sebastian Vettel will start on pole, confident in the knowledge that he could have fared even better in qualifying, boasting he could have gone “even faster”. A glorious day in Montreal provides the German with the chance to show as much, with Valtteri Bottas second, Max Verstappen third and Lewis Hamilton fourth on the grid respectively. It’s a race that is poised nicely: Ferrari-Mercedes-Red Bull-Mercedes-Ferrari-Red Bull, a love-in of sorts. One man determined to celebrate, despite beginning his 300th grand prix meeting down in 14th after a miserable Q1 is Fernando Alonso. “I am one of the best to have raced in F1,” the Spaniard mused earlier this week. “I am probably not fastest in qualifying, or the wet, but I am 9.5 in all areas. I try to benefit from that.” An engine failure on Saturday means Romain Grosjean will start as the back marker. The racing at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is scarcely dull.
Lights out: 7.10pm (BST)
Updated
