Button celebrates in Montreal
The Canadian round of the 2011 championship was started in torrential rain behind the Safety Car, but as the visibility got worse and the standing water on the circuit began to 'float' the cars, the race stewards wisely brought out the red flag and then suspended the race, resulting in a delay of a couple of hours.
Before the race was stopped, Lewis Hamilton was involved in some arguably controversial manoeuvres, first with Mark Webber, who was spun around in the contact, and then with the second McLaren of Jenson Button, which saw Hamilton hit the pit straight wall and damaging his car into retirement.
Once the race was restarted at 15h50 local time behind the Safety Car, Fernando Alonso was an early casualty when his Ferrari was spun around and beached onto a high kerb after coming together with the MP4-26 of Jenson Button, which also sustained damage to the left front tyre, forcing him to pit for a wheel change.
Photo credit McLarenOn lap 51 of the 70, while Kamui Kobayashi and Felipe Massa were like two dogs fighting over a bone for track position, Michael Schumacher showed why he has won 7 world titles and opportunistically ran off with the second position by cleanly passing the Japanese racer and leaving the Brazilian with nose damage from contact with the wall.
Mark Webber in the second Red Bull caught the 42 year old German in the Mercedes on lap 56, but the Safety Car was again deployed on lap 57 to clear debris off the track created by the Lotus Renault of Nick Heidfeld when he drove into the back of the Sauber of Kobayashi, sending the German down a slip road and out of the race.
With the field bunched up behind the 4th Safety Car of the day, the order was Vettel, Schumacher, Webber, Button, Kobayashi, Petrov, Barrichello, Alguersuari, Rosberg, Madonado, Massa, Buemi, De la Rosa, Di Resta, Glock, d'Ambrosio, Liuzzi, karthikeyan and Trulli.
The race got under way on lap 61 releasing a high speed nose to tail race between Schumacher, Webber and Button with Vettel opening up a sizeable lead over the trio.
On lap 64 Webber lunged at Schumacher, but ran wide and jumped the chicane to make the pass, but handed the place back after gaining an advantage and in trying to keep Button behind him, got the RB7 very loose allowing the Englishman through into third and then a few corners on, in the DRS zone, the McLaren passed Schumacher for second place.
With three laps to go, while Button was cutting into Vettel's lead, Webber hounded Schumacher and passed him before the final chicane, depriving Schumie fans around the world from seeing their hero on the podium in his return to the sport.
As Sebastian Vettel once again looked to peerlessly go on for another victory, on the final lap Button positioned the McLaren under the butt of the Red Bull, forcing the reigning world champion to request more from his tyres than they could deliver, locking up the rear wheels, going wide with the tail hanging out, handing the lead, and the win, to the 2009 World Champion prompting celebrations in the McLaren pit from his father John and partner, Jessica.
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