Formula 1: Canadian GP Overview

Seventh Heaven: Lewis Hamilton celebrates his third win in Montreal

Lewis Hamilton was in seventh heaven and back to his brilliant best in Canada, sealing his third win around the Circuit du Gilles Villeneuve in style. He finished ahead of an impressive Romain Grosjean Lotus and Sergio Perez's Sauber. 

From the start of the race three distinct drivers seemed to control proceedings; Vettel from Hamilton from Alonso. It was at the first round of pit-stops that the order reshuffled; Hamilton emerged the leader with Alonso between himself and Vettel. The Brit then set about a decisive middle-stint that gave him a comfortable-ish margin to Alonso.

After pitting a second time, it soon became clear that Hamilton's rivals would try to make it to the end having just stopped once. Gaining over a second a lap, Lewis carved past the Red Bull and the Ferrari and retook the lead with just six laps to go.

It was kind of fitting to see Lewis take his first win of the year in Montreal; a track at which he often excels and took his first win at back in 2007. His win puts his two points ahead of Alonso at the top of the leader board.

Whilst he drove flawlessly, Hamilton's win was challenged for 'drive of the day' by Mexico's Sergio Perez. Starting a distant 15th, the Sauber worked his way through the field to take 3rd, his second podium of the year. Likewise, Lotus' Romain Grosjean was impressive with his second podium of 2012. Whilst Vettel and Alonso struggled to make their strategy work, Romain was calm, cool and stayed out of trouble. His result was a career best second.

Behind them finished Vettel and Alonso in 4th and 5th. With ten laps to go the two of them were first and second. They had opted to run a one-stop strategy but unlike Grosjean, had failed to make it work. Vettel admitted defeat and pitted for fresh rubber just 8 laps from the end. As it turned out, he made the better call of the two; Alonso gritted his teeth and tried to reach the end dropping back to 5th. One more lap and he would have most likely been relegated to 8th or worse.

The shock of the day was Mclaren's Jenson Button. His turnaround from outright leader in Melbourne to 16th here is remarkable. Struggling to find any ounce of pace in the car, Jenson was made to look absolutely amateur by his team-mate. How quickly he can turn it around remains to be seen; 2 points in 4 races is disastrous and could have already blown his chances of a second championship win.

Whilst Hamilton's run of bad luck ended in Canada, Michael Schumacher's stretches on and on. 5 retirements in 7 races is a horrendous record for the 7-time World Champ. Here, a faulty DRS caused him to admit defeat. He also must doubt his chances of ever featuring in the title race. We may yet see Michael on the podium however; don't count him out, we learnt from that mistake in Monaco.

In comparison to Grosjean, Raikkonen had a disappointing race, only 8th at the chequered flag. Another man who never really managed to light it up was Mark Webber; a mediocre 7th was all the Australian could manage around Montreal.

A race completely devoid of stoppages and safety cars, this year's Canadian Grand Prix was a delight from start to finish regardless. Hamilton can now breath a sigh of relief and look to keeping his strong form going. The same can be said for Vettel and Alonso; their roll of the dice could have been a lot worse and they managed to salvage at least something.