F1 Paddock Notebook - Canadian GP Sunday

With a final run-down of the various news and notes following Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, Crash.net F1 Editor Luke Smith brings you his paddock notebook.

- Sebastian Vettel recorded the 50th victory of his Formula 1 career on Sunday in Montreal, becoming only the fourth driver in the history of the sport to pass that milestone. Vettel’s next target on the all-time wins list is Alain Prost, who is just one clear on 51 victories.

- The result marked Ferrari’s first win at the Canadian Grand Prix since Michael Schumacher’s success in 2004. It also came 40 years after it first won in Canada courtesy of Gilles Villeneuve.

- Villeneuve’s car from the 1978 race was demonstrated in the lead up to lights out by his son, 1997 F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, who was joined by much of the Villeneuve family for the event.

- Vettel led every single lap en route to victory in Canada, but missed out on a ‘grand slam’ as Max Verstappen took the fastest lap of the race by one-tenth of a second. Verstappen’s time was actually beaten by Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo on the 70th lap, only for the chequered flag mix-up to result in the classification being taken from the end of Lap 68.

- The confusion was caused due to a misheard call between race control and those in charge to telling supermodel Winnie Harlow when to drop the chequered flag. Harlow hit back at criticism on Twitter, stressing she was simply following orders.

- The nature of how the FIA regulations are written means the race result was taken on Lap 68, given the incident could have affected the racing on Lap 69, with Lap 70 not actually existing. It ultimately had no bearing on the finishing positions for any of the drivers, though, although may have denied Ricciardo a bonus for the fastest lap!

- Valtteri Bottas was very limited on fuel in the closing stages, explaining his drop in pace. A big lift going across the finish line meant Max Verstappen was just 0.1 seconds behind at the end of Lap 70, only for the result to be counted back and the difference to come in at 0.9 seconds.

- Teammate Lewis Hamilton feared his engine would fail throughout the race, having experience power outages on his car early on. It was the seventh race that his power unit had completed, with a fresh unit required for Paul Ricard when a Mercedes engine update is due, one race later than originally planned.

- Today marked the first time Lewis Hamilton had not reached the chequered flag in Canada and finished on the podium.

- Kimi Raikkonen had a disappointing race, finishing 27 seconds behind his teammate in sixth. Ferrari had tried to get the overcut on Verstappen, Ricciardo and Hamilton, only for the Finn to emerge at the back of the train and never get close to making a pass.

- Charles Leclerc picked up his third points score in the last four races, following his runs into the top 10 in Baku and Spain to add to Sauber’s haul for the year.

- After scoring points in all of the first five races this year, McLaren failed to score for the second grand prix in a row. Fernando Alonso had an exhaust failure when running ahead of Leclerc on-track, while an early puncture compromised Stoffel Vandoorne’s race.

- Alonso is now set to fly straight to Le Mans for scrutineering with Toyota on Monday ahead of his debut in the 24 hour classic on Sunday.

- Finally, Saturday night saw the annual F1 Raft Race take place on the Olympic rowing lake at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, with Williams taking victory. The hearty Grove crew overcame the fast-starting team from FOM to secure a tight win. Defending champion team McLaren was left to settle for third, while the F1 Media crew - captained by FIA F1 head of communications Matteo Bonciani - was third-last, beating Red Bull and the F1 Fans team.