Hamilton Leads Home McLaren 1-2 But The Title Race Is Closer Than Ever

Lewis Hamilton took the Chequered flag in Montreal for his 2nd successive Grand Prix victory, but the Canadian GP showed just how close the 3 contending teams are in the race for the World Championships.

Hamilton lead home teammate Jenson Button for the 2nd time in as many races, with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in 3rd followed by the 2 Red Bull's of Sebastien Vettel and Mark Webber, but it was a dramatic and tight race that could have gone 1 of 5 ways.

Alonso later blamed traffic for his loss citing both incidents where he was overtaken by the McLaren's taking place when he was pre-occupied with backmarkers, but in Montreal the situation was the same for everyone and when push came to shove Fernando lacked the true pace to overtake the McLarens.

Red Bull's reliability issues came to the forefront again as Sebastien Vettel had to sacrifice his attempt at a race win in order to make it to the finish, whilst Mark Webber suffered at the hands of his team's strategical inadequacies on his race plan, with the Australian forced to stay out on shredded tyres which cost him 11 seconds against Hamilton, the margin that he was left behind the Englishman after his belated pit stop which resulted in him fighting traffic for the remainder of the race and giving up the ghost to finish 5th.

The tyres played a major role in Canada, with the hard compound disintegrating dramatically in the first stint and also following the same path in the 2nd stint, whilst the soft tyres gave up after 10 laps on whichever car wore them. This counted against the Red Bull's, who opted for the hard tyres at the start believing they could go 10/15 laps longer than the McLaren's on the 1st stint, only to find they were pitting at the same time, and by the end of the race with Vettel's technical problem and Webber's strategical error, the Red Bull's were 35 seconds behind.

The benefactors were ultimately McLaren, who went with soft tyres in qualifying and it ultimately paid off, and with some luck from the backmarkers they were able to secure a comfortable 1-2. However there was a little battle that added a little spice to the relationship between Hamilton and Button. With about 12 laps to go, Button started pushing and closing on Hamilton to a gap of just 2.2 seconds, and the pressure was on Lewis, could he respond, or would we get another Turkey?.

Hamilton indeed responded with several fast laps to keep Jenson in check, and to stamp his authority in the pitlane with a second successive win, but it just shows the rivalry in the team and even with the McLaren's looking comfortable Jenson still tested Lewis, letting him know he wouldn't take 2nd lying down. It has all the hallmarks of a tense and exciting rivalry that could go down to the absolute wire as these guys are so difficult to seperate, Hamilton's advantage being his qualifying pace and ability to pull off stunning laps, Jenson's ability to be tactically precise and consistant and put the pressure on his opponents.

The battle now goes to Valencia, with Hamilton 3 points clear of Button in the title race, and Webber only 3 points further back. Alonso kept himself in it in 4th, 15 points behind, while Vettel dropped to 19 points behind. Felipe Massa's dismal showing left him 52 points behind, and looking at a miracle to keep himself in the hunt as Ferrari will lean towards Alonso to head their title charge.

One thing's for sure, the battle is only just beginning.