I wonder if that was just kinda "lucky" for McLaren or if they knew what they were doing?

If nobody had pitted it would have just been a race of attrition and Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel would probably all have been passed by Grosjean and co.
By pitting and then getting back within 14s of Vettel and Alonso, McLaren pretty-much forced Vettel and Alonso to stay out and hope for the best, thus harming their end result even more.

Vettel must be thinking that even if he'd pitted after Hamilton (and, thus, ended up behind him) he'd have had more laps to catch and pass Alonso.

Nice to see Grosjean doing well too.
It's great to see somebody who was considered unfit for F1 outperform a team-mate who was a world champion.

Also, congratulations to Button for a hard fought, erm, 16th place in the same car as the winner.

Great win Lewis.

Jenson button..... oh dear

S'funny, basically, out of Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel, whichever one of them decided to pit around lap 55 would have probably gone on to win the race.
Just good for Hamilton that he was the one who's team made the call.

I bet Ferrari and RBR (and probably all the other teams as well) will be making a note of that in case something similar ever happens again.

Lewis - 1st. Jenson - 16th and lapped. This is more than just a slump for Jenson and he needs to sort out any issues with the car now to get his championship back on track. He's certainly not out of it but he needs to sort out the balance and braking of the car.

A stunning race for Lewis, and it shows that Alonso and Vettel should have responded to Hamilton's stop. Hamilton's drive was excellent, but I had a feeling that Hamilton would run out of laps to pass them and it looked to be a bit of an error pitting him. As it turns out, it was the right decision, but if he'd stayed out, Grosjean, Perez and maybe Rosberg, could have had a chance of the podium positions and/or the win.

Shows that pole position doesn't always mean a dead cert race win, especially in this unpredictable season. I'm sure we all thought Vettel would race away into an unassailable lead, and indeed, he didn't.

Two dodgy pitstops though, having said that. Very hairy, and pretty tardy getaways on both counts as regard Lewis. Lucky he didn't lose more time in the pits.

Delighted for Lewis. And he leads the Championship now. Doubly good day before him.

So happy for lewis.

While having drivers on as pundits is a good thing, there is always the risk you get Jacque ****ing Villeneuve.

Fair point regarding the pitstops.

In the end the margin was such that it didn't interfere but he screwed-up his launch after the 1st stop and the right rear wheelnut didn't go on in his 2nd.

Given that he was complaining about the clutch at Monaco, I wonder if they've changed something and even though Hamilton thought it was an improvement it obviously didn't feel completely natural to him when he was under pressure.

So true, loved him as a driver, moaning little fu**** as a pundit

As a driver, he was a bit greedy going to BAR for the money more than anything. If he'd stayed at Williams beyond 1998, he could have been world champion more than once, as they had a decent car in 2001, great car in 2002 and especially 2003 as well. And shafted out of what was his own team at BAR as well by Button's performances there. And somewhat ironic that after he left, the car was competitive.

One thing I have to note is Grosjean's performance. He beat Raikkonen comprehensively, and I for one was concerned that Lotus were enduring a similar mid-season slump to last season, so good that they've bounced back.

I thought the guy that started BAR (I forget his name) was supposed to be a good mate of JV's and pretty-much promised to build the entire team around him?
Just a shame he built a big jobbie of a team.

Craig Pollock, I think he was. He was a bit of a pillock in the first place.

Hamilton reported a clutch issue at his pitstops. Didn't McLaren ask him to change his clutch settings at Australia and Monaco?

Oooh....

Ron Dennis saying that the "state of the ecomony might impact Hamilton's new contract".

I hope they can sort it out and avoid a situation where Lewis ends up sloping off to ForceIndia or some other 2nd-rate team who happen to have a heap of money to pay him.

I think Hamilton is more interested in his chances for Driver Championships, imo he wouldn't go for a middling to lower team even if the pay was slightly better.

Also I think he would take note of drivers like Alonso and Senna who left teams where they were part of the family and ended up having a culture shock at their new teams.

I do actually like Jaques Villeneuve but he was a bit annoying the way he kept asking everybody about whether they thought DRS was "proper racing" or not.

Yes, Jaques, we know it's not perfect but in a world where the cars simply cannot run nose-to-tail any more it's better than f**k-all.

I hope they can decide that DRS is unneccesary when they reintroduce turbo engines with variable boost but, then again, it might be decided that (like KERS) adaptive aero' is technology with "real world" benefits and keep it for that reason.

WOW

SEVEN different winners now!!!!!

It is a shame for Button that the apparent unwritten cost saving agreement means each team just concentrates on one car.

Makes for interesting racing though.

I'm not necessarily a Hamilton fan, but I found myself wanting him to win just to add to the statistic of seven different winners, in seven different races this season. I was also unsure of whether his second pitstop would pay-off, considering Alonso and Vettel didn't, but with their tyres going off, Hamilton had an easy job of catching back up with them, to my delight. On the other hand, Jenson had a miserable race. It pretty much emulated Massa's performances from the first five Grand Prix.

As for Jaques Villeneuve, well, I found him bareable at the beginning of the coverage, but after the race, his constant questioning of DRS made me find him irritating; it was just constant. I also don't think DRS was necessarily needed for Canada - it could actually do without, in my opinion. The track itself has many overtaking opportunities. Other tracks, such as Valencia (I was also going to include Monaco, but let's face it, that track should most likely be removed from the racing calender), are where DRS is needed to added a much needed aid in overtaking.

McLaren must be kicking themselves for extending Button's contract, now that they know he can't drive the car with these tyres, especially when I put a bet on him early on, to win the championship, thinking he was the best driver to take advantage of the new tyres.

I suspect that when they go over his car with a fine toothcomb they will find a significant fault hidden deep somewhere.

An exciting race especially after the tedium of Monaco and good to see Hamilton get a deserved win. Ferrari must be kicking themselves for not abandoning a one-stop strategy but it did make for an unusual podium. Bizarre performance from Button whose car obviously had some serious issues.

Bad decision by the BBC to only show highlights for a race that starts so late in the day here especially when it is nearly always an exciting race. They should have covered it live and done highlights for Monaco.

Yes.

I'd suggest they concentrate their efforts on the area just behind the steering wheel.

But then there is a rule that they can't show three consecutive races live in a row. If they showed Canada live, it would have been Canada, Valencia and Silverstone live and they would have had to have dropped Valencia.

I am sure they would gladly drop Valencia if Sky gave them the chance. It's the dullest GP of the year.