Both Force India drivers grab points
MONTREAL: Red Bull’s triple world champion Sebastian Vettel won the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday to capture his first Formula One victory on North American soil and extend his overall lead to 36 points.
The 25-year-old German cruised to his 29th career win without resistance, taking the chequered flag 14.4 seconds clear of Spain’s Fernando Alonso, driving a Ferrari.
Briton’s Lewis Hamilton, who had won in Montreal three times before, made it a podium of champions by finishing third for Mercedes after being passed by Alonso in the closing laps.
Vettel’s Australian team mate Mark Webber was fourth and Germany’s Nico Rosberg, winner of the previous race in Monaco for Mercedes, fifth.
Vettel’s win was his third from seven races this season while Alonso roared from sixth to second to leapfrog Kimi Raikkonen into second-place overall.
Raikkonen, the 2007 champion, finished ninth in his Lotus to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of 24 successive grands prix in the points.
Despite his domination of the sport in recent years, Vettel had never won in either Canada or the United States before breaking his drought in emphatic fashion on Sunday – even if he skimmed the wall at one point.
He made a clean getaway from pole position and led for almost the entire 70-laps. The only time he was not in front was a brief period when he made the first of his two pit stops to get fresh tyres.
Vettel lapped half the field, including Raikkonen, before reaching the half way point of the race and only five cars finished on the same lap as him when he crossed the line.
McLaren failed to score, at a circuit where they have won four times in the last five years, for the first time in 65 races.
Former champions Williams also ended up empty-handed, despite Finnish rookie Valtteri Bottas starting third on the grid, for the eighth race in a row.
Vettel now has 132 points, ahead of Alonso (96), Raikkonen (88), Hamilton (77) and Webber (69).
“It was a great race and I had a great start which was important,” Vettel said. “I just kept that gap through out the race and at some points we had a full pit ahead of others. Finally we got our first win it’s off the list now and it was great to win.
“The sun came out as well so it doesn’t get any better. We had good races here before but it didn’t come together to win, then I lost it in the last lap two years ago which was my fault but I made up for that today.”
Force India’s drivers both bagged points, but the day went better for Paul di Resta, who after starting in 17th place, ended in seventh.
He had a one-stop strategy that worked well for him, but it was a different case for Adrian Sutil.
The German started in eighth, but spun his car, was tagged by Pastor Maldonado and was penalised for ignoring blue flags. All that means that he did very well to finish the race in 10th place. (Reuters)