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Lewis Hamilton has emerged from the grave which many Formula One observers had dug for him a couple weeks ago.

On Sunday, Hamilton won his second straight race as he dominated the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

The victory, combined with a second straight off-key performance by Mercedes AMG teammate Nico Rosberg, moved Hamilton back into position to capture a second straight F1 championship. He now trails points leader Rosberg, who dominated F1 up until the last race in Monaco, by nine points.

Rosberg, who was forced off the track by Hamilton on the first lap, finished fifth. An unhappy fifth as he and his teammate have tangled several times in the past.

“I was very pissed off in the moment, but that’s racing in the end,” Rosberg told Sky Sports. The shunt allowed Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to take a shot at the win.

“Sebastian had a great start, I had a decent one and Lewis had a really bad one,” Rosberg said. “In Barcelona I gave it a go around the outside of Lewis and it worked out really well.

“(I) went for the same again today and he did a really hard racing manouver, we touched and I was off, and that’s it. It didn’t work out.”

Hamilton called the collision unfortunate.

Vettel of Ferrari finished second.

The race boiled down to the fact that Vettel and his team opted for a two-stop pit strategy while Hamilton opted to run a one-stop race.

Bottas finished third while for Williams while Max Verstappen was fourth.

Esteban Gutierrez of America’s Haas F1 racing finished 13th while teammate Romain Grosjean was 14th.

“It wasn’t an easy race,” Gutierrez said. “I was struggling a lot to get the tires to work and then at the end of every stint it was difficult to keep the temperature in them, and once you start losing that the car starts to slide and it’s like driving on ice. This weekend we knew it was going to be very tough with the cool weather, but now we need to analyze how we can compensate and try to put more emphasis into the tires to make them work to give us an easier race. I didn’t enjoy it too much as I’m not feeling very well, but the weekend is now over and I’m looking forward to Baku.”

Grosjean had to replace a broken front win during his second pit stop.

“We’re not far from the points,” the Frenchman said. “I was up to P11 or so, trying to fight hard and doing everything I could, and then the front wing went. That third pit stop definitely cost us everything we had been working for. We need to look more deeply into that issue to get it sorted. There are plenty of other areas where we can improve but, generally, the more we do, the more we understand the car and the better things get. Flying to Canada and not scoring any points is difficult. I’m sure the next race will be another step, and if we learn more, the better we’ll get.”

 

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