Canadian GP

FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX DU CANADA 2013 - 09th June 2013

Canadian GP

The first winner in Montreal was Quebec native Gilles Villeneuve who died in 1982 on the final qualifying lap for the Belgian Grand Prix. A few weeks after his death, the race course in Montreal was named Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after him. Gilles Villeneuve was one of the first inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame, and the only Canadian winner at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

The 1982 Canadian Grand Prix, in the shadow of the death of Villeneuve a month earlier, saw another accident when Villeneuve’s teammate Didier Pironi stalled on the grid. Raul Boesel struck the stationary vehicle, and Riccardo Paletti then struck the rear of Pironi’s Ferrari. Pironi and F1 doctor Sid Watkins came to Paletti’s aid to try to extract him from his car, which briefly caught fire. After a half hour, Paletti was extracted and flown to a nearby hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.

In 1987, the race was not held due to sponsorship dispute between two local breweries, Labatt and Molson. During the break the track was modified, and starting line moved to its current position.

Ferrari’s Jean Alesi won the 1995 edition, which occurred on his 31st birthday and which would be the only win of his career. Alesi had inherited the lead when Michael Schumacher pitted with electrical problems and Damon Hill’s hydraulics failed. the victory was a popular one for Alesi, particularly after several unrewarded drives the year before, namely in Italy. Alesi’s win at Montreal was voted the most popular race victory of the season by many, as it was the number 27 Ferrari—once belonging to the famous Gilles Villeneuve at his much loved home Grand Prix. Schumacher gave Alesi a lift back to the pits after Alesi’s car ran out of fuel just before the Pits Hairpin.

The 1997 Canadian Grand Prix was stopped early due to a crash involving Olivier Panis. He was sidelined for nine races and some see it as a turning point in the career of the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix winner.

In 2001, there was the first sibling 1–2 finish in the history of Formula 1, as Ralf and Michael Schumacher topped the podium. The Schumacher brothers would finish 1–2 in the 2003 edition as well. 2001 was also noted for Jean Alesi achieving Prost’s best finish of the season; he celebrated his fifth place by doing several donuts in his vehicle, and throwing his helmet into the crowd.

The 2007 race was the site of rookie Lewis Hamilton’s first win. On lap 67, Takuma Sato overtook McLaren-Mercedes’s Fernando Alonso, to cheers around the circuit, just after overtaking Ralf Schumacher and having overtaken Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen earlier in the race. The race saw Sato move from the middle of the grid to the back of the pack and to a high of fifth before a pit-stop error caused him to move back to eleventh. Sato fought up 5 places in the field in the last 15 laps to finish sixth. Sato was voted "Driver of the Day" on the ITV website over Lewis Hamilton’s first win. The race also saw a horrific incident involving Robert Kubica (who went on to win the race the following season).

Read more about the Canadian GP on Wikipedia

Info

Circuit Information

Circuit Name: Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve
Number of Laps: 70
Circuit Length: 4.361 km
Race Distance: 305.270 km
Lap Record: 1:13.622 [Rubens Barrichello, 2004]

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