Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix was a success for Mercedes AMG Petronas driver Lewis Hamilton, landing on the podium in third behind Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. While Hamilton sat in second most of the race, he simply didn’t have enough power to hold off the faster car of Alonso. This marks Lewis Hamilton’s seventh race with the Mercedes AMG team, with Hamilton landing on the podium three times out of those seven. A great start to his career with Mercedes.
Team-mate Nico Rosberg, coming off a win on his home track in Monaco, took fifth place. Rosberg started the Canadian Grand Prix strong, sitting in third place behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton, but wasn’t able to keep pace with the leaders and fell back to fifth position midway through the race. Part of the problem with Nico’s speed was the decision to go with option tires over prime due to the warm track conditions.
Although the focus may have been on Hamilton and Rosberg during the race, Mercedes AMG fans and F1 fans in general are wondering what is going to happen to the team (and more specifically Ross Brawn) after word got out that they had a “private practice” with Pirelli after their poor performance in Spain. Rivals claim the practice between Mercedes and Pirelli was held in secret with both drivers wearing unidentifiable helmets.
The issue isn’t the practice itself, however, it’s the car used during the practice. Mercedes has admitted using a 2013 car for the test, which is illegal according to the sporting regulations. As such, Mercedes has been ordered to appear before the International Automobile Federation’s (FIA) tribunal and could face heavy sanctions. Some speculate Mercedes will let team principle Ross Brawn take the fall. Toto Wolff has said that he will stand behind Brawn, but Brawn has already come forward taking credit for the decision to do the test.
| Drivers | Car No. | Chassis No. | Race Result / Fastest Lap |
| Lewis Hamilton | 10 | F1 W04 / 04 | P3 1:16.354 |
| Nico Rosberg | 9 | F1 W04 / 03 | P5 1:16.534 |
| Weather | Fine | |
| Temperatures | Air: 23-24°C | Track: 27-33°C |
Lewis Hamilton
The car felt fantastic today and I had good grip for the low-speed corners but we just weren’t quite on the pace of Seb and Fernando. I was on the maximum that I could possibly drive and we got absolutely everything out of the car today. It would have been nice to have kept second place of course but Fernando was very quick today and it was difficult to keep him behind. I got close to taking the place back but he was just that little bit too fast. Still I’m very pleased with third place and it was a strong points-scoring day for the team with Nico’s fifth place as well. We’ve taken a step up in the Constructors’ Championship which is great for the team and gives us a nice boost going into Silverstone.
Nico Rosberg
I think fifth place was probably my optimum today and, even if my race had gone perfectly, I wasn’t able to match the pace of the guys in front. The guys had a difficult decision to make at the first stop: we were worried about the warm-up of the harder tires, so we went for the option to protect my track position against Webber and Alonso, but in hindsight it would probably have been better to go the other way because I could have run a longer second stint. I scored some good points and we know that there are areas where we can still improve our performance. But looking back to where we were a month ago, we have made some good steps forward, and it was great for Lewis to be on the podium again. We are heading in the right direction and looking forward to the next race at Silverstone, in front of our team-mates from Brackley and Brixworth.
Ross Brawn
It has been rare in recent seasons to have backmarkers become such a factor in a race as they were today. They played a decisive role in the final result but getting through traffic is one of the challenges that you have to tackle in Formula One. The car performed reasonably well but we still had some anxiety about the tyre performance in the high temperatures, so we were managing the situation carefully, particularly in the opening laps of the stints. Lewis drove a very strong race although it was a shame that he could not quite hold on to second position in the closing laps. However, that wasn’t down to him but rather the fact that we still need to find a little more performance from our car to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull. Nico had a reasonably quiet race after a strong first stint and we will have to analyse if we could have made more of the car’s performance today with him. We called him in for a third stop as a precaution, because he had flat-spotted badly the right-front tyre badly and we had nothing to gain or lose in terms of track position. Overall, a positive afternoon and another strong two-car finish that is important for our position in the Constructors’ Championship.
Toto Wolff
Lewis and Nico did a great job on track today and it was nice to see Lewis on the podium again. He tried to hold off Fernando towards the end of the race but the Ferrari was just too quick today. Nico dropped back on the option tyre and our strategy didn’t quite come to him this afternoon unfortunately. Looking ahead, we know that we need to keep bringing performance to the car and that Silverstone will be a bigger test for our tyre management. But it’s the second race in a row that we have had both cars in the top five and that is building a good platform in the championship. Well done, too, to Sebastian and Red Bull today: they didn’t put a foot wrong all afternoon.
