F1 - Canada 2007 (Hamilton\'s First Win!)

6th June 2007

Rookie star Lewis Hamilton realised the dreams of a lifetime in Montreal on Sunday, storming to his first Formula 1 victory after dishing out a lesson in composure to his more experienced rivals in the most trying of conditions.

The British sensation withstood everything that the afternoon's action could throw at him to take a fantastic maiden victory in just his sixth F1 race on Canada's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

There were four safety cars periods, the difficulties of driving on an increasingly treacherous track and constant order changes behind him to deal with - but Lewis kept his head throughout to take a flawless win.

The wild race, which featured a horrifying accident for BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica, made fellow championship Fernando Alonso and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen look like the rookies.

But while the established stars faltered, Hamilton added the most important chapter in his F1 story so far and now leads the championship ahead of Alonso by eight points.

Indeed the contrasting fortunes of the two McLaren drivers were settled at the start.

Hamilton was slower away off the line than his team-mate and Alonso looked set to sweep around the outside of the sister MP4-22 going in to turn one.

But in a mistake reminiscent of his one at last month's Spanish Grand Prix, Alonso outbraked himself and was forced to cut across the grass at the turn two hairpin.

Crucially the mistake dropped the double world champion behind the BMW of Nick Heidfeld, allowing Hamilton the opportunity he needed to dictate the race from the front.

And that's where he would stay, despite all that one of the most chaotic races in recent years served up.

By the end of lap one, the Briton was 1.5 ahead of Heidfeld, with Alonso stuck behind the German.

However rather than climbing all over the back of the BMW, the Spaniard was consistently around two seconds behind it for the opening 10 laps while his team-mate was waltzing away at the front.

No doubt frustrated by his predicament, on lap 15 Alonso made his second mistake at turn one, running across the grass and losing a further two seconds to his team-mate.

The world champion though would surely ensure he wouldn't make the same mistake for a third time though, right?

Well, amazingly, it wasn't as just three laps later he slid across the turn one grass again, but this time the mistake was even more costly as it allowed Massa to nip inside the McLaren and nab third place.

But in the next few laps the whole complextion of the race changed.

Hamilton pitted on lap 22 and looked set to continue on his way until his old F3 Euroseries team-mate and friend Adrian Sutil threw a spanner in the works - or rather threw his Spyker hard in to the turn four wall.

The incident brought out the safety car just seconds after Hamilton had rejoined, eroding his comfortable lead.

While Nick Heidfeld remained a threat, he soon didn't have to worry about Alonso, who along with Nico Rosberg, made his first pit stop when their respective teams wrongly thought the pit lane was still open.

The pair were immediately placed under investigation by race control and were soon handed a 10s stop-go penalty - which they would serve later.

More drama befell Massa and Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella when the pit lane was reopened.

As they made to rejoin the circuit, they jumped a red light at the exit of the pit lane - an infraction that would later see both black-flagged from the race with just 19 laps to go.

The next man along, Kubica, did obey the lights, but the Pole was soon the unfortunate passenger in a terrifying accident.

On lap 27, when the race went green, the BMW driver had enormous crash after touching the right-rear wheel of Jarno Trulli's Toyota while heading towards the hairpin flat-out at 180mph.

The impact launched Kubica's F1.07 into a massive impact with the concrete wall, before it slewed back across the track, rolled, and finally came to rest against the guardrail on the outside of the hairpin.

The safety car was immediately dispatched once again to allow medics to attend to the Pole and marshals the chance to clear the huge amounts of debris littering the circuit.The accident cast a menacing cloud over the afternoon, but miraculously Kubica was awake and alert when he was taken to the circuit medical centre.

He was airlifted to hospital and the team later confirmed that he was uninjured.

When the race resumed on lap 33, leader Hamilton immediately picked up from where he had left off and left Nick Heidfeld standing when the safety car pulled in to build an immediate three-second advantage.

But the safety car was to make two more appearances still, just to make Lewis' life a bit more difficult.

The first came on lap 50 after Christijan Albers became the second driver to spread orange carbon fibre debris following an off-track moment.

Then just six laps later Tonio Liuzzi, on course for a healthy haul of points for Toro Rosso, added his name alongside the likes of Michael Schumacher, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve by ploughing into the infamous wall at the final turn.

But while Liuzzi may not be a champion yet, one man who looks set to be, maybe even this season, is Lewis Hamilton - who after what must have seemed the longest afternoon of his life crossed the line to take a magnificent first F1 victory.

Heidfeld, who had been the McLaren drivers' closest challenger all afternoon, picked up BMW's best result since it bought the Sauber team at the end of 2005, with a superb second place.

Undoubtedly the biggest winner from the madness was Alex Wurz who from 19th on the grid kept his head above the confusion to come home a remarkable third.

The result ended Williams' two-year podium drought and was the prefect way for the likeable Austrian to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of his F1 debut.

It was also a landmark day for Renault's Heikki Kovalainen, who despite all the trails and tribulations of his weekend up until Sunday, came through from the back of the field to claim fourth place, his own F1 high so far.

Raikkonen was perhaps lucky to end up fifth after a scrappy performance in which he never lived up to his 'Iceman' nickname.

The Finn, whose championship challenge is slipping away by the race, touched the back of team-mate Massa at the first turn and then survived queuing behind the Brazilian while pitting under the safety car and several other misadventures.

Raikkonen's four points were all Ferrari had to show from a weekend in which it once again was unable to challenge the now dominant McLarens.

Then to cap a quite extraordinary afternoon, Takuma Sato pulled off something that you thought you would never witness - a Super Aguri passing a McLaren on merit.

The McLaren was the double world champion of Fernando Alonso, no less, whose nightmare afternoon ended with a demotion to seventh place after the feisty Japanese ace outbraked the Spaniard into the final chicane.

The final point went to Toyota's Ralf Schumacher, who himself was a late victim of the Sato charge.

But the day belonged to super Lewis after what will surely be the first win of many.

Race Results

  1. Hamilton
  2. Heidfeld
  3. Wurz
  4. Kovalainen
  5. Raikkonen
  6. Sato
  7. Alonso
  8. Schumacher
  9. Webber
  10. Rosberg
  11. Davidson
  12. Barrichello

Fastest lap: Alonso  1m16.367s

* Laziness has caught hold once agin, this is an edited report taken from itv