The best day of the weekend greeted the assembled F1 Circus as they took to the grid at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal.  This was a mixed blessing: the sun had heated the asphalt to a level where the tires would work beautifully... but it was also hot enough that people were talking about a chance of overheating the tires, too.  But all eyes were turned to the two Silver Arrows poised at the head of the pack.  Mercedes was angling for the first undefeated season, but the two teammates, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, had been sniping at each other for weeks.  Everything was shaping up for a great race.  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2014 Grand Prix of Canada!

*LIGHTS OUT:  Clearly the two Mercedes drivers were completely unconcerned by the 20 cars behind them when the race began.  Hamilton had the better start and was in front of polesitter Rosberg as they headed to Turn 1, but Rosberg had the racing line.  Quite correctly, he made darn sure his teammate respected that fact, leaving him zero room as they went through the turn.  This resulted in Hamilton having to slow down and leave the circuit briefly, allowing Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel to move past into second place.  Surprising, but it was the first turn and Hamilton certainly had the better car.  Then the race changed.

*SAFETY CAR:  Two weeks ago in Monaco, backmarker team Marussia earned their first ever World Championship points.  Whatever the exact opposite of that feeling is, is what they felt at Turn 4 on the first lap today.  Max Chilton, who had finished every one of his 25 races in F1, lost control and collected his Marussia teammate, Jules Bianchi, sending them both into the wall.  The amount of debris left behind had to be seen to be believed, and a Safety Car was immediately summoned.  It took seven laps for the cleanup to be completed and the race to be resumed.

*DOLDRUMS:  The next 30 laps or so seemed to be a replay of pretty much every other race this season.  The two Mercedes pulled away from the rest of the field, opening up an 18 second lead over third place.  By this point, the F1U! team found itself dozing in its comfy chairs and seriously considering turning off the TV and taking full-fledged naps.  Then the race changed.

*BULLETPROOF, NOT HEATPROOF:  Around Lap 40, Lewis Hamilton called in to the pit wall, reporting a loss of power, losing a full second to leader Nico Rosberg in less than a lap.  Shortly thereafter, Rosberg, too, called into the Mercedes pits, reporting a loss of power.  Both cars carry on, but both are visibly slower and losing a second a lap to the rest of the field.  And then something that hadn't happened all season occurred.

*MASSA?  REALLY?:  On Lap 45, Rosberg pitted for new tires and the bad news that there was nothing the team could do about the power loss.  His teammate took over the lead.  The next lap saw Hamilton pit for tires, and return to the track in second place, just ahead of Rosberg, and just behind the Williams of Felipe Massa.  This was the first lap led by someone other than Rosberg or Hamilton all season.

*TIRED.  RETIRED.:  The first sign there was something terribly wrong with Hamilton's car was in the hairpin on Lap 47.  What should have been a relatively easy slow-down-and-turn became a desperate attempt to drag the car through the right-hander while Nico Rosberg went underneath him for second.  On the long back straight with the aid of DRS, he easily repassed Rosberg, but then completely blew the chicane at the end.  He was forced to give the position back to his teammate, at which point there was visible smoke coming from the right side of the car, which slowed to horse-and-buggy pace.  Upon returning to the pits, the car was retired.  The official reason was brake failure caused by an overheating ERS-K unit... clearly the same problem Rosberg had.  All eyes then turned to the remaining Silver Arrow.

*STILL LEADING:  On Lap 40, Nico Rosberg had a 21 second lead over Force India's Sergio Perez in third.  On Lap 50, the lead to Perez, now in second due to the retirement of Hamilton, was 0.9 seconds.  The next two places, Ricciardo and Vettel, were less than a second behind Perez, and Nico Hulkenberg's Force India was a couple seconds behind them.  While Perez tried to figure out how to get past the Mercedes, the rest of the top six close in behind them, everybody dicing for position, looking for any sign of an opening.

*SHAKING FREE:  This situation lasted for some 15 laps, a masterful piece of driving from Rosberg in a less-than-healthy car.  Sergio Perez then suffered a brake casualty, allowing the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo to get past and into second.  It took him less than a lap to then pass Rosberg for the lead, for which Rosberg had no answer.  The Red Bull mechanics went wild.

*THE END: And that's effectively how it ended, with Ricciardo leading Rosberg, ahead of Seb Vettel.  At the start of the final lap, Felipe Massa in 5th tried to get past the wounded Perez in 4th.  The two made contact and both went into the wall outside of Turn 1 at high speed (nearly collecting Vettel in the process).  Immediately the race was Safety Car'd, effectively ending the amazing race that started so... um... less-than-interestingly.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  You would expect first-time winner Daniel Ricciardo to win this award today.  You would be wrong.  Nico Rosberg wins this for managing to coax an unhealthy Mercedes home in second place, despite a ERS-K system that wasn't working worth a darn and potentially being over a second per lap slower than his rivals.  All of this while his teammate retired almost immediately with the same problem. 

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Red Bull.  Finally, someone took the fight to Mercedes and made it stick.  We just wish it had been any other team.

*MOMENT OF THE RACE:  It's hard not to be happy for Daniel Ricciardo.


*SELECTED DRIVER COMMENTS OF THE RACE:


"Maximum Smile Level Achieved." - Daniel Ricciardo

"Team leader.  That's me.  Shut up, Hamilton." - Nico Rosberg

"He's a good kid.  Should learn his place, but he's a good kid." - Seb Vettel

"I didn't deserve 4th place, are you kidding me?" - Jenson Button

"Okay, give it to me then." - Nico Hulkenberg

Right, that's it tonight.  In two weeks, we find ourself in a new (old) track, the RedBullRing (formerly the A1-Ring) in Austria!  F1 last raced there in 2003, so it'll be new to everybody... but the Red Bull team, of course.

See ya then!

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