Grand Prix of surprises sees Kubica top F1 podium

Räikkönen's chances in Canada blighted by Hamilton gaffe

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When Poland’s Robert Kubica took the chequered flag at the Canadian Grand Prix as the winner of the season’s seventh Formula One event, it seemed there would be no end to the BMW-Sauber team’s rejoicing in the pits.
      At the awards ceremony the Polish national anthem was heard for the first time at the end of an F1 race.
     
”It was fantastic to win my first race for BMW, the team where I have matured to become an F1 pilot”, Kubica said. “Our car still isn’t fast enough, but today we made good use of our chances.”
      Like many times before, the Montreal GP once again proved a competition of surprises.
      The most astonishing upset took place on lap 17 after a safety car had been deployed on the track in the aftermath of Force India driver Adrian Sutil's hammering his car into the wall.
      The race leaders at that stage, Lewis Hamilton (McLaren), Robert Kubica, Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari), and Nico Rosberg (Williams), all took the opportunity to visit the pits.
     
The first ones to leave the pits were Räikkönen and Kubica, who at the end of the pit lane durifully stopped side by side at the red light. Hamilton, on the other hand, failed to notice the stop light until it was too late, and ploughed straight into Räikkönen’s rear-end. Both Hamilton and Räikkönen subsequently retired from the race. Equally careless was Rosberg, who crashed into the back of Hamilton's McLaren.
      After having had his nose cone replaced, Rosberg was able to continue the race, ultimately finishing out of the points in tenth place.
      “I meant to thank Hamilton for choosing to crash into Räikkönen instead of me”, Kubica said after the race, prompting a roar of laughter from the press audience.
      Räikkönen in turn saw little humour in the situation. “When there is a red light and the car is equipped with a speed limiter it is plain silly to rear-end someone”, Räikkönen said of Hamilton's gaffe.
      Räikkönen was particularly annoyed because his car had appeared very fast. “Only at the beginning did we have some problems when the left tyre started peeling, but once that was over we were very fast. We would have definitely fought for victory”, the Finn sighed.
     
Räikkönen’s countryman Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren) finished ninth after what he considered the lousiest race of his F1 career to date.
      “The tyres worked for the first three or four laps. After that all grip just disappeared. The team’s instructions were simply to keep the car on track and bring it to the finish line and that’s what I did. But when the tyres aren’t working there is not much more you can do”, Kovalainen complained.
     
The upset result - until now it has been only the Ferraris of Räikkönen and Massa and Hamilton's McLaren that have won races this season - means the admirably consistent Kubica heads the drivers' championship table with 42 points, four ahead of Hamilton and Massa (5th on Sunday), and seven ahead of Räikkönen.
      BMW-Sauber also moved past McLaren into second place in the constructors' race, three points behind Ferrari.
      The next race, at Magny-Cours in France, will be on June 22nd.
      Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg will both find themselves well down the grid for the French GP, regardless of how well they do in qualifying: the race officials in Canada ordered the pair to be given a ten-place penalty for their colour-blindness and failure to tell red from green.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Hamilton wins in the wet; Räikkönen rues a succession of mishaps (26.5.2008)

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