Hamilton claims Canadian GP win after Vettel penalty

Lewis Hamilton emerged victorious once again, but this time inherited first place in the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday in Montreal. 

Ferrari’s Sebazstian Vettel took the chequered flag but was handed a five-second penalty for an incident on lap 48, gifting first place to his Mercedes rival.

Vettel had made a mistake at Turn Three and went wide and onto the grass, but when rejoining the track forced Hamilton off the racing line while in the process keeping his lead.

With 12 laps to go, race stewards announced that Vettel had an unsafe re-entry, which resulted in his penalisation. At that time, Hamilton was still closely chasing Vettel, and the pair soon later crossed the finish line one after the other.

Hamilton officially emerged as the winner with a time of one hour 29 minutes 07.084 seconds. Following his time penalty, Vettel was classified 3.658 seconds behind as the runner-up, while his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc came third 4.696s back.

Valtteri Bottas finished fourth in the other Mercedes, while Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing was fifth.

Completing the points winners from sixth through 10th, respectively, were the Renault pair of Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg, Pierre Gasly of Red Bull, Lance Stroll of Racing Point and Daniil Kvyat of Torro Rosso.

The result earned Hamilton his 78th career victory and fifth of the 2019 season. It was also his seventh at the Canadian Grand Prix, making the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve his most successful track for F1 race victories.

Bottas took an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race of 1m 13.078s.

After the race, Hamilton commented: “I’m really, really grateful – I had a crash on Friday, so I was on the backfoot, and then this morning we had an engine problem. The guys worked so hard and did a great job to fix it, so they truly deserved to have a car out there. I was trying to drive for them and really wanted to get the best result I can for them.

“It’s not easy to follow around here, so I was trying to build the pressure on Sebastian to maybe push him into an error and he made one. I still wanted to win the right way and overtake him on the track, so I was fighting until the finish line, but my tyres were gone.

“Ferrari did a fantastic job this weekend, they were so fast on the straights and Sebastian drove a great race, it took absolutely everything from me to try and keep up with them. It’s not a great feeling and ultimately that’s not how I want to win races, but I drove my heart out today to make my team proud and I feel like I did that.”

Hamilton (162 points) leads the Drivers’ Championship by 29 points from Bottas (133 points), while Mercedes (295 points) lead Ferrari (172 points) by 123 points in the Constructors’ Championship.

The Formula 1 season continues with the French Grand Prix on June 23.