2010 Montreal GP, ey?

After last weekend's exciting romp across Montreal, I think the FIA would do well to propose that at least half of next year's F1 races be held on freshly-paved track. The 'green' surface of the Giles Villeneuve circuit provided for one of the most exciting races ever, with drivers struggling for grip on the high-speed, low-downforce track and wearing down even the notoriously durable Bridgestone "hard" prime tires down in just over a dozen laps.

It was a sweet victory for Lewis Hamilton, his maiden win and McLaren's first 1-2 of the season. He did it all last weekend, setting a blistering pace in qualifying that the other front-runners struggled to match, and performing a "hero lap" to clinch pole after his early time was eclipsed late in the third session of qualifying as the track rubbered in... on a car running on fumes and on the wrong end of the wear curve on the "soft" option tires.

The race didn't always go his way. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was on his tailbone for almost the entire race. Those option tires wore down very quickly, and he saw the lead cushion he built up over the Red Bull Racing cars evaporate as Mark Webber overtook him down the main straight... As Mark Webber's Red Bull Racing car zoomed past, Lewis dived into the pits and changed onto the prime tires, and Alonso did the same.

Alonso beat Lewis out of the pits by fractions, and Lewis raced him to the line. He eventually had to settle behind the Spaniard as they chased down the Red Bulls. It soon became evident that the hard tires on the Red Bulls were wearing out incredibly quickly, and they also had to pit. When the dust settled and all the pits had worked themselves out, Mark Webber was in the lead on a long stint in the hards, having made up places all the way to first after a gearbox penalty dropped him from P2 to P7 on raceday; Vettel's RBR had fallen afoul of Jenson Button's Mclaren, the Brit making up time for graining his tires early on in the race; and Lewis Hamilton had overtaken Alonso on a daring dive behind Sebastian Buemi, who was actually racing them for position (Indeed, the Torro Rosso's performance in this race would be headline material if it weren't for all the other drama going on).

Mark Webber had built up a thirteen second gap, but unfortunately would be forced to go onto the soft tires at his next pit stop. He heroically tried to preserve his tires, but it soon became apparent that nothing of the sort would be possible. They were cut to ribbons. Hamilton and Alonso zoomed past him, and after his pits, he had to settle for a distant fourth place. Button, through canny tire conservation, caught up with Alonso and Hamilton, and through backmarker traffic, in which the Spaniard struggled to keep up with Lewis, Button pounced, taking second place from Alonso.

With Hamilton and Button sewing up first and second and Alonso in third, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel had to settle for fourth and fifth. Vettel, in frustration, asked if he could at least go for "fastest lap", but was informed that his gearbox was on the brink of failure, and that he'd have to take it easy to the checkered flag.

Elsewhere in the order, chaos reigned. Renault's Vitaly Petrov suffered two drive-through penalties, one from a jump-start and one from a collision. Felipe Massa in the other Ferrari fell afoul of a Force India sandwich. Renault's Robert Kubica and Mercedes GP's Michael Schumacher traded paint as Kubica tried to overtake Michael, who was coming out of the pits. Both Saubers failed, and a lot of nose-cones were replaced in frantic pitstops.

After a disastrous start, and an even more disastrous collision with Schumacher, Massa managed to earn some distinction for performing perhaps the best overtake of the day, going three abreast into a chicane. The Force Indias, after falling back down in the order, with Liuzzi replacing his nosecone twice, managed to clinch ninth and tenth by passing a struggling Schumacher... whose many battles and collisions earned him the nickname "Dick Dastardly". I think it'll stick.

-

Red Bull Racing downplayed the loss, as many both inside and outside the organization are aware that Montreal is perhaps the track least suited to an RBR that relies on good aerodynamics. In fact, going by the slow motion replays showing relative tire wear, the Ferrari appears to be the car best suited to the high-speed circuit. And yet, McLaren has been pushing them hard for the last few races, and in Turkey, was able to push Vettel to the edge. In this race, McLaren's performance was utterly dominant, with the car a clear two to three-tenths faster than anything else given the same track conditions in qualifying. Whether that results in absolute parity on tracks which favor the RBR is unknown, but the signs are surely pointing in that direction.