Former world champion Lewis Hamilton crashed out of the Canadian Grand Prix after colliding with McLaren teammate Jenson Button after just eight laps of Sunday’s rain-hit race. Hamilton came off worst when he tried — and failed — to get past his fellow Briton. “Jenson made a mistake into the corner and I got the run on him,” Hamilton, who had already been involved in feisty tussles with Mark Webber and Michael Schumacher, told the BBC. “I felt I was halfway up the outside, but he kept moving across – whether or not he saw me I don’t know, but then I was in the wall.” Button had been stunned by the move.
“What’s he doing?” complained Button over the team radio as the safety car was summoned onto the track. It was a second successive controversial race for the 26-year-old Hamilton. At the Monaco Grand Prix two weeks ago, the Englishman was penalised for collisions with Felipe Massa of Ferrari and Pastor Maldonado of Williams. Afterwards he criticised the stewards in an outburst during a television interview, in which he jokingly suggested, with a reference to the comic character Ali G, that he was being victimised because he was black. He apologised to the stewards in Monte Carlo and wrote a letter of apology to the FIA. Sunday’s race was eventually temporarily halted after 25 laps because of heavy rain.
Earlier, championship leader Sebastian Vettel said he is expecting a close fight for victory in Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix despite qualifying on pole position on Saturday. The 23-year-old Red Bull driver claimed his sixth pole in seven races this season, and 21st of his career, after clocking a lap of the Gilles Villenauve circuit in one minute 13.014 seconds. The world champion said he was pleased with the team’s performance and is feeling positive ahead of Sunday’s race. “I think we made up some ground from last year, we know this is not our strongest track, we love high-speed corners. But we had the fastest package today so we can be confident,” said Vettel.
However, Vettel conceded that he expects a tough challenge from rival teams Ferrari and McLaren who have shown improved race pace in recent weeks.
“Surely it is never easy and it will not be easy tomorrow, like in the last two races. We are ready to fight so we will see what happens,” he said. “At this stage everyone looks after themselves and in qualifying you know it is between you and your car. Tomorrow is a different ballpark. “We have seen in the last two races in particular that it will be close, and we don’t expect anything other than that. Tomorrow is a new day and a new adventure.”
His Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber was forced to sit out the entire final practice session because of a problem with the KERS system on his car.
The 34-year-old recovered well to qualify fourth but conceded that his lack of KERS had cost him grid positions.
“I was happy with how well we recovered,” said the Australian.
“I don’t think I could have got much more out of the car to be honest – I didn’t have any KERS for qualifying so that certainly hurt my performance, a front row start would have been nice.”
