» Hamilton sees off Vettel to win Canadian GP

Lewis Hamilton has won his second race of the season finishing seven seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel while Valtteri Bottas finished third for Williams.

An alternate strategy call made by Ferrari when the Virtual Safety Car was brought out on Lap 11 after Jenson Button retired his McLaren due to a power unit failure saw both Kimi Räikkönen and Vettel pit to change to the super soft tyre.

Since this race has a mandatory requirement for drivers to use the soft compound tyre, Ferrari had made the switch to a two-stop strategy as they started the race on the ultra-soft tyre.

At the beginning of the race, Vettel made the start of his career and overtook the slow starting Mercedes of Hamilton and Rosberg into Turn One, as Hamilton edged his teammate wide before Turn 2, forcing Rosberg to take the escape road through the corner and re-joining the race in tenth position behind Fernando Alonso.

Daniel Ricciardo was forced to yield his position through the Turn 1 and 2 corners to avoid an accident with his teammate Max Verstappen, who took advantage of the scrapping and moved himself into third position.

Vettel, now fifth due to his early pit stop, was all over the back of Ricciardo as he had much more speed on a fresher set of tyres. He was held up for a lap but managed to pass the Australian on the seventeenth lap for fourth position. He then made his way up to third after passing Verstappen into the final corner.

A few laps later Verstappen pitted to make the change to the soft tyre and re-joined the race in eighth while Ricciardo followed a lap later and came out behind Raikkonen.

Hamilton was one the last of the leaders to not have made a pit stop and his times were dropping, with Vettel gaining at almost a second per lap the Briton made his only pit stop for the race on Lap 29 for the soft compound tyre.

The world champion was able to match the times being set by Vettel, who was on newer tyres and posting fastest laps, and stretched the life of his soft compound tyres to 46 laps which took him to the end of the race.

Rosberg was making his way back through the field after having already made his pit stop a few laps earlier, and was up to and pressuring Bottas for fourth position when a slow right-rear puncture forced the German to make an unscheduled pit stop.

Not to be deterred, Rosberg again carved through the field on a fresh set of soft tyres and eventually returned to fight a two-stopping Verstappen having passed Ricciardo and Raikkonen along the way.

Rosberg was all over the back of Verstappen for the final few laps of the race when he made a move at the final chicane on the penultimate lap and spun into the run-off area. Despite the spin Rosberg finished in fifth, although his championship lead took another hit as the gap to Hamilton is now down to nine points.

Räikkönen was able to hold off Ricciardo to finish in sixth place, while Nico Hülkenberg beat Carlos Sainz – who started 20th on the grid after a gearbox penalty demoted him five places and finished ninth – and teammate Sergio Pérez to eighth place.

Renault’s Jolyon Palmer retired on Lap 19, while the last retirement of the race came from Felipe Massa who retired on Lap 37.

FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX DU CANADA 2016 – FINAL CLASSIFICATION (70 LAPS)
	Driver	Team / Entry	Laps	Result
1.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W07 Hybrid	70	1:31:05.296
2.	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari SF-16	70	+ 5.011
3.	Valtteri Bottas	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW38	70	+ 46.422
4.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer RB12	70	+ 53.020
5.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes AMG Petronas F1W07 Hybrid	70	+ 1:02.093
6.	Kimi Räikkönen	Scuderia Ferrari SF-16	70	+ 1:03.017
7.	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer RB12	70	+ 1:03.634
8.	Nico Hülkenberg	Sahara Force India Mercedes VJM09	69	1 lap behind
9.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR11	69	1 lap behind
10.	Sergio Pérez	Sahara Force India Mercedes VJM09	69	1 lap behind
11.	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda MP4-31	69	1 lap behind
12.	Daniil Kvyat	Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR11	69	1 lap behind
13.	Esteban Gutiérrez	Haas F1 Team Ferrari VF-16	68	2 laps behind
14.	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team Ferrari VF-16	68	2 laps behind
15.	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C35	68	2 laps behind
16.	Kevin Magnussen	Renault Sport F1 Team RS16	68	2 laps behind
17.	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor Racing Mercedes MRT5	68	2 laps behind
18.	Felipe Nasr	Sauber F1 Team Ferrari C35	68	2 laps behind
19.	Rio Haryanto	Manor Racing Mercedes MRT5	68	2 laps behind
	Not Classified	Team / Entry	Laps	Result
DNF.	Felipe Massa	Williams Martini Racing Mercedes FW38	35	Power Unit
DNF.	Jolyon Palmer	Renault Sport F1 Team RS16	16	Water Leak
DNF.	Jenson Button	McLaren Honda MP4-31	9	Engine