Button wins final lap thriller

The Canadian Grand Prix was hugely affected by rain this evening, the first time the Canadian race had been troubled by rain for over a decade.

While the track was quite wet, F1 race control decided to take the very cautious decision to start the race under a safety car, if they thought it was wet then, they would have been very surprised just 20 laps later!

The opening laps will be remembered as the Lewis Hamilton show, he was involved in an incident with Red Bull’s Mark Webber, which resulted in the Brit being under investigation by the race stewards, no sooner was that cleared, he was under investigation for speeding behind the safety car, but before a decision could be made regarding that, he was involved in a collision with his team-mate Jenson Button which ended his Grand Prix.

Jenson Button was also found guilty of speeding during the safety car period and he was forced to have a drive through penalty which dropped him down the field, but due to being on intermediate wets following the collision with Hamilton, Button was at an advantage compared to the rest of the field on full wets and Button was able to carve his way up through the field, before the rain came down and the safety car was out again.

On Lap 25 race control gave up the ghost on waiting for the rain to ease and threw the red flag with Vettel leading.

That proved to be the best decision as over two hours later, the race resumed behind the safety car once more; however the wait wasn’t over as over another half dozen laps were completed before the safety car finally pulled over and part two of the race got going again, the over cautious approach from race control was further highlighted when a number of cars opted to immediately switch to intermediates as the race got back under-way!

But the wait was well worth it as Canada once again served up a classic, with Button involved in another incident almost immediately.

Having closed the door on Lewis Hamilton down the straight in part one of the race, after just two laps of being back racing again, Button went for a move on the inside of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, Button’s front left hit the Spaniard’s rear right, with the Spaniard beached on the curb the safety car was out again. Button was able to creep back to the pits to fix the damage, dropping to the back of the field, but Alonso was not so fortunate and he was forced to retire.

Thankfully there wasn’t much of a wait to get back racing and from this point of the race to the chequered flag the drying Montreal track served up a treat to the patient Formula One spectators at the circuit who had been soaked through for several hours!

Michael Schumacher started to show glimpses of his previous best, outperforming his younger rivals to get his Mercedes up to fourth, before pulling off a spectacular move to get passed both Ferrari’s Massa and Sauber’s Kobayashi to go second. Behind him, Jenson Button was also doing a great job of carving his way through the field from practically last place.

With the track drying out, the drivers started to come in and switch to Pirelli’s Super-soft compound slick tyres, this proved to be the correct strategy as it was a lot quicker than the wet intermediate, however some drivers were caught out when they went off the dry line onto the wet, with Renault’s Nick Heidfeld falling victim of a slow Kobayashi who had gone slightly off line.

The Renault was unable to slow down fast enough and clipped the back of the Sauber. This was enough to break his front wing, which on the next straight he ran over causing a rather scary incident and a lot of debris which brought out the safety car again.

On the re-start Vettel was leading from Schumacher, with Webber third and Jenson Button now incredibly fourth.

Vettel pulled away from Schumacher which left Webber to battle for second with Button watching on.

Webber briefly got past Schumacher for second, but then had to surrender the position as he gained an advantage for cutting the corner. He very cleverly gave the position back to the seven time champion without getting passed by Button, but that didn’t last long as the McLaren soon passed Webber for third and then Schumacher for second.

With four laps to go Button began to eat away at Vettel’s lead, while behind him Webber passed Schumacher for third.

Going into the final lap, it didn’t look like Button had enough to pass Vettel, but astonishingly the defending World champion made a mistake and gifted Button the lead with a half a lap remaining.

Button went on to take the victory with Vettel second and Webber third in another classic Canadian Grand Prix.