Kubica takes maiden victory

Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld achieved a dream ending for BMW Sauber as they clinched a one-two finish at the extremely dramatic, at times almost unbelievably so, Montreal GP. The win takes Robert Kubica to top spot on the Drivers’ Constructors and BMW Sauber eases into second place in the overall team standings.
It was a brilliant day for BMW all round. They achieved the fairy tale ending of one-two on the podium, with two different strategies and two very different drivers, both of whom came through for the team. Robert Kubica claimed both his and BMW’s maiden Canadian GP victory in a perfect race where he took every advantage of the failures of others and made no mistakes of his own. Although he was on a two-stop strategy as opposed to many other drivers who chose one pit stop for this circuit, Kubica drove like a fiend for the intervening laps between his planned stops to get a safe 25 second advantage over the rest of the field, made his second pit stop and kept his position as race leader till the very end. A full 15 seconds ahead of the second place driver, Kubica cruised to his victory in fine style. BMW’s day of glory was made complete by Nick Heidfeld, who held his own with a one pit-stop strategy and came second. This comes as a shot in the arm for the driver, whose racing seat in BMW was looking shaky after a slump in the past couple of races. Kubica’s win takes him into first place in the Championship, four points ahead of Lewis Hamilton. But we cannot get ahead of ourselves since this victory was partly a gift thanks to the errors of McLaren and Ferrari.
McLaren had a day at the tracks that they would like to forget as soon as possible. After Hamilton took pole on Qualifying, he cruised to a comfortable lead right from the start of the race, and a McLaren victory seemed almost assured. But what followed soon after changed the race like no one could ever have predicted.
During lap 18, Force India’s Adrian Sutil slammed into the barriers, resulting in a safety car period for three laps. As the rules demand that cars cannot pit when the safety car is on track, almost all teams made their pit stop at the same time once the yellow flags were off. It was chaos in the pit lane with the top five cars rushing to beat each other to exit. The first two to head out of the pit lane traffic were Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and BMW's Robert Kubica, both of whom noticed that the pit lane exit was still showing a red light and slowed down in time. Lewis Hamilton however was caught napping behind the wheel. In his urgency to maintain track position and exit at the soonest, he did not notice either the red lights or the two stationary cars ahead of him. He rammed into the rear of the stopped Ferrari resulting in a retirement for both the title contenders. An annoyed Kimi even gestured to Lewis, showing him the red light once he got out of the car as though reminding him of the sheer silliness of such an error! Hamilton was equally miffed with himself, retiring to the paddock and angrily shooing away the waiting press.
Nico Rosberg of Williams, right behind Hamilton, was also involved in the thick of things. He bumped into the McLaren and lost his front wing but managed to stay in the race. The incident quite clearly highlighted the lack of thought behind existing safety car rules, a fact that was heavily commented upon and critiqued by race observers
Following the pit lane accidents, the stewards penalised both Hamilton and Nico Rosberg 10 grid positions for the next race to be held in France. It means that both drivers will start 10 places lower than what they can manage in Qualifying. The decision comes as a heavy blow for McLaren as it is almost certain to negate any chance of Hamilton securing a podium there.
David Coulthard in the Red Bull secured an impressive third place, spotting an opportunity opening up for him soon after the bizarre pit lane incidents. A podium finish in his 245 th grand prix start gave Team Red Bull crucial points on the Constructors. So desperate were the Englishman and his team to get this place that they did not re-pit towards the very end. Coulthard drove his car to the chequered flag with whatever fuel was left. Literally running on fumes, the car stopped in the pit lane after the victory lap and Coulthard had to jog up to the podium to collect his trophy. This Montreal finish bodes well for the steadily rising fortunes of the Red Bull team, which was once relegated to the back-enders.
Timo Glock of Toyota also performed a personal best and came fourth after a tough battle with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa for the position. Massa was the unnecessary casualty of the pit lane chaos and another pit lane goof up by Ferrari. He drove into the pits along with Kimi and had to return a second time since they did not have enough fuel for both drivers at one go. He was originally in fourth place, but the added pit stop put him down to 17th. Fighting to the very end, the Brazilian clawed his way through the traffic with some hair-raising overtaking to claim fifth place.

Jarno Trulli added to Toyota’s joy by coming sixth and bringing in more points for the team. Although the Toyota’s form had not been note-worthy in Qualifying, both drivers drove a smooth race, defending their positions with grit. Trulli would have finished fifth behind Glock, but a small mistake by his team-mate on a tight turn forced him to suddenly slow down, giving Massa the opportunity to overtake him.
Rubens Barrichello started in ninth place, one of his best start positions in the season so far, and finished seventh for Honda. He showed some aggressive form the whole time and used his extensive race experience to hold him own against some very hard driving by the rest.

The star of Sebastian Vettel continued to rise, with him securing the last scoring point in the race. The position was impressive since he began his race in 19 th place. Things looked a bit shaky as the second McLaren, driven by Heikki Kovalainen, began to tail him for the P8, but he fought off all advances in the final five laps to claim the final hard-earned point.
Fernando Alonso’s race came to a sudden end as he ran wide on Lap 45 in the Renault and hit the barrier. Much to the delight of his fans, he was cruising for third place and posing a real threat to Heidfeld in second when the unfortunate incident occurred. What initially looked like a gearbox failure turned out to be Alonso overdoing it on the second corner and losing control of the R28. The second Renault driver, Nelsinho Piquet Jr. also retired with unspecified mechanical problems.

Force India could not repeat their performance of the previous race, with both drivers retiring due to mechanical failures. In an almost eerie turn of events, poetic justice was doled out at Montreal, as it was Adrian Sutil’s crash (which caused the safety car period, which caused the pit lane chaos) that saw Kimi Raikkonen being literally ‘knocked out’ of the race.
This time it was Kimi who was rammed, for no fault of his own, by an experienced driver’s foolish error. In the previous race at Monaco, Raikkonen had rammed the back of Adrian Sutil’s Force India car, putting the driver out of contention when he seemed certain for a fourth place finish.

The FIA World Championship has suddenly been thrown open after this race. Both the Team and Driver Championships are now up for grabs as the top three teams and top five drivers are separated by only a few close points