2015 Canadian Grand Prix

2015 Canadian Grand Prix
Race 7 of 19 in the 2015 Formula One World Championship
Layout of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
Race details
Date	7 June 2015
Official name	Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada 2015
Standort	Circuit Gilles Villeneuve Montreal, Canada
Course	Street circuit
Course length	4.361 km (2.710 miles)
Distance	70 laps, 305.270 km (189.700 miles)
Pole position
Driver	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes
Zeit	1:14.393
Fastest lap
Driver	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari
Zeit	1:16.987 on lap 42
Podium
First	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes
Second	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
Third	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes

The 2015 Canadian Grand Prix, formally known as the Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada 2015, is a Formula One motor race took place on 7 June 2015 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada. The race is the seventh round of the 2015 season, and marks the 52nd running of the Canadian Grand Prix. Daniel Ricciardo is the defending race winner, having won his first ever grand prix the year before. The race was won by Lewis Hamilton of the Mercedes team with teammate Nico Rosberg finishing second.

Bericht

Background

Coming from the previous race in Monaco, the pit-stop decision that seemingly cost Lewis Hamilton a victory was still a talking point when the paddock arrived in Canada. In Thursday's press conference however, the world champion insisted that he "couldn't care less" about the incident, saying: "I can't do anything about the past so there's honestly no point in thinking about it, it is about trying to shape the future."

For causing a collision with Romain Grosjean in Monaco, Max Verstappen received a five-place grid penalty for the Canadian Grand Prix. During the final practice session, Toro Rosso had to equip his car with the fifth internal combustion engine of the season. As he exceeded the limit of four units per power unit element per season, he received an additional ten-place grid penalty.

Minor changes were made to the last right-left chicane of the track. Prior to the first session of the weekend, the stewards placed a bollard in the run-off area to keep the drivers from re-entering the track too early. Ahead of the third practice session on Saturday, an additional orange-coloured kerb was added on the apex of turn 14. The stewards stated that "any driver who fails to negotiate turn 14 by using the track, and who makes contact with any part of the new kerb element, will not be required to keep to the left of the red and white polystyrene block, but must re-join the track safely."

Going into the race, Hamilton was leading the world driver's championship by ten points from teammate Nico Rosberg, who had won the two previous rounds in Spain and Monaco. Sebastian Vettel was third, a further 18 points behind Rosberg. In the constructor's championship, Mercedes was leading Ferrari by 84 points, with Williams down in third.

Free practice

Three free practice sessions were held for the race, two on Friday and another one on Saturday morning ahead of qualifying. During first practice on Friday morning, Lewis Hamilton posted the fastest time, being over a second quicker than last year's time at the same session and four-tenths of a second ahead of his teammate Nico Rosberg in second. Both Lotus and Force India showed good pace with Romain Grosjean and Nico Hülkenberg being third and fourth fastest respectively, though over 1.5 seconds behind Hamilton. Incidents during the session included Hamilton spinning out when his car locked up and Carlos Sainz Jr. stopping at the end of pit lane when he set out to post a last timed lap towards the end of practice.

Events repeated themselves in second practice, as Hamilton was again quickest but was also caught out again. He went off at the turn ten hairpin and crashed his car while he was doing an intermediate tyre run in wet conditions, as a downpour of rain effected the second half of the session. Most teams sent their drivers out only in the dry first half, setting times on the super-soft tyre compound. Scuderia Ferrari looked to be significantly closer to Mercedes, with Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen finishing second and third respectively, inside 0.4 seconds of Hamilton. Lotus confirmed their good pace from the first session when Pastor Maldonado was fifth fastest, behind Rosberg.

The third practice session on Saturday morning was marred by two red flag periods. Twenty minutes into practice, Felipe Nasr lost control of his car when he weaved from side to side on track to increase his tyre temperatures while his DRS was open on the first part of the last straight. He crashed into the barrier at the inside of the track. After the red flag was lifted, only twelve minutes of the session remained and all drivers took to the track to try out the super-soft compound. It was a short-lived running however as Jenson Button had to park his car in turn seven, reporting a problem with his power unit, bringing out the red flag once again, effectively ending the session. Nico Rosberg was fastest, half a second ahead of Räikkönen, while Hamilton drove just nine laps, ending the practice with the slowest time set.

Qualifying

Qualifying was devided into three parts, with the five slowest in each session eliminated from further participation after the first two. The 45 minutes of qualifying were split into parts of eighteen, fifteen and twelve minutes of running respectively. While Sauber were able to place Felipe Nasr in a new car in time for qualifying following his accident in practice, Jenson Button's problems could not be sorted out and he missed the session, meaning that his participation in the race would be left to a decision by the race stewards.

During the first part of qualifying (Q1), Mercedes was able to refrain from using the faster super-soft tyres, nevertheless setting times below 1:16 minutes. Fastest in the session was Romain Grosjean, who was narrowly quicker than the Mercedes drivers, but on the softer tyre compound. With Button not participating, four drivers were left to be eliminated. The two Manors once more did not make the cut and took 18th and 19th on the grid, with Roberto Merhi out-qualifying his teammate Will Stevens for the first time in a qualifying that both drivers participated in. Joining them on the sidelines were two prominent drivers: Both Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa suffered from problems with their power units, finishing 16th and 17th respectively.

Lewis Hamilton was quickest in Q2, just twelve thousandths of a second ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg. The Mercedes power unit proved its superiority on the high-speed Montreal track, when all remaining Mercedes-powered cars made it into Q3, leaving Kimi Räikkönen and the two Red Bulls to take the remaining three places. This marked the first time in 2015 that Force India was able to bring both cars into the top ten.

As the top ten took to the track for the final part of qualifying, Nico Rosberg was unable to beat his time set in Q2 with his first fast lap. Hamilton however improved on his time, being more than three-tenths of a second faster than the German. When both drivers were unable to improve on their times with their second timed laps, Hamilton took the 44th pole position of his career. Row two was taken up by the two Finns of Räikkönen and Valtteri Bottas, who narrowly beat the two Lotus of Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado. Both Lotus drivers had emerged from their pit boxes simultaneously for their final timed laps, entering the track side-by-side. The two Red Bulls finished eighth and ninth, splitting the two Force Indias of Nico Hülkenberg and Sergio Pérez.

Post-qualifying

In an interview following qualifying, Lewis Hamilton expressed that it "was incredibly special and to get another pole here" since Canada had been the scene of his first pole position and race win in 2007. Sebastian Vettel lamented his qualifying performance, telling German TV that a small part of the car was broken but that he was confident to be able to make up places during the race, pointing to Kimi Räikkönen's fast pace in qualifying.

Since he did not post a lap time within 107% of the fastest time during Q1, Jenson Button was required to apply to stewards to be allowed to the start the race. The stewards decided to grant him the permission. After qualifying, McLaren had to fit his car with a fifth heath motor generator unit (MGU-H) and a fifth turbo charger for the season. As this exceeded the limit of four units per power unit element, Button was later handed a ten place an a five place grid penalty. As he was already slated to start from the back of the grid, the penalty was substituted with a drive through penalty, to be served within the first three laps of the race, instead.

Sebastian Vettel was handed a five place grid penalty for overtaking Manor's Roberto Merhi under red flags during the third free practice. After Max Verstappen qualified twelfth for the race, he was unable to be placed the full fifteen places back on the grid from both his penalties. As grid penalties were no longer carried over to subsequent races in 2015, he was handed a ten-second penalty, to be served with his first pit stop, for the race instead.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Q3	Grid
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:15.895	1:14.661	1:14.393	1
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:15.893	1:14.673	1:14.702	2
3	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:16.259	1:15.348	1:15.014	3
4	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1:16.552	1:15.506	1:15.102	4
5	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Mercedes	1:15.833	1:15.187	1:15.194	5
6	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Mercedes	1:16.098	1:15.622	1:15.329	6
7	27	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1:16.186	1:15.706	1:15.614	7
8	26	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull-Renault	1:16.415	1:15.891	1:16.079	8
9	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-Renault	1:16.410	1:16.006	1:16.114	9
10	11	Sergio Pérez	Force India-Mercedes	1:16.827	1:15.974	1:16.338	10
11	55	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso-Renault	1:16.611	1:16.042		11
12	33	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Renault	1:16.361	1:16.245		191
13	9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	1:16.796	1:16.262		12
14	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda	1:17.012	1:16.276		13
15	15	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	1:16.968	1:16.620		14
16	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:17.344			182
17	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	1:17.886			15
18	98	Roberto Merhi	Marussia-Ferrari	1:19.133			16
19	28	Will Stevens	Marussia-Ferrari	1:19.157			17
107% time: 1:21.141
—	20	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	no time			203
Source:

Notes

^1 – Max Verstappen received a five place grid penalty for causing an avoidable collision during the previous race and a ten place grid penalty for exceeding the allowed internal combustion engine allocation.
^2 – Sebastian Vettel received a five place grid penalty for overtaking under red flags during free practice 3.
^3 – Jenson Button received permission from the stewards to start the race despite not setting a qualifying time. He later received a ten and five place grid penalty for exceeding the allowed allocation of two of his power unit components.

Race

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts.
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	70	1:31:53.145	1	25
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	70	+2.285	2	18
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	70	+40.666	4	15
4	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	70	+45.625	3	12
5	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	70	+49.903	18	10
6	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	70	+56.381	15	8
7	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Mercedes	70	+1:06.664	6	6
8	27	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	69	+1 Lap	7	4
9	26	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull-Renault	69	+1 Lap	8	2
10	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Mercedes	69	+1 Lap	5	1
11	11	Sergio Pérez	Force India-Mercedes	69	+1 Lap	10
12	55	Carlos Sainz Jr.	Toro Rosso-Renault	69	+1 Lap	11
13	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-Renault	69	+1 Lap	9
14	9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari	69	+1 Lap	12
15	33	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso-Renault	69	+1 Lap	19
16	12	Felipe Nasr	Sauber-Ferrari	68	+2 Laps	14
17	28	Will Stevens	Marussia-Ferrari	66	+4 Laps	17
Ret	98	Roberto Merhi	Marussia-Ferrari	56		16
Ret	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda	53		20
Ret	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda	43	Engine	13
Source:

Standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings

	Pos.	Driver	Pts.
	1	Lewis Hamilton	151
	2	Nico Rosberg	134
	3	Sebastian Vettel	108
	4	Kimi Räikkönen	72
	5	Valtteri Bottas	57

Constructors' Championship standings

	Pos.	Constructor	Pts.
	1	Mercedes	285
	2	Ferrari	180
	3	Williams-Mercedes	104
	4	Red Bull-Renault	54
	5	Lotus-Mercedes	23

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.