But Alonso limits damage after winning late Hamilton duel
Sunday 9 June 2013 23:58, UK
Sebastian Vettel emphatically broke his and Red Bull's Canadian GP duck after producing by far the most dominant lights-to-victory of the season so far to increase his grip on the 2013 title race.
Nonetheless, any secret hopes the 2008 World Champion had of challenging for the title again this year are fast fading given he's now 55 points adrift of the runaway Vettel. Indeed, the German's overall lead is up to 36 from Alonso, who leaprogged Kimi Raikkonen after the Finn's miserable weekend ended up in a lowly ninth place. The result meant the Finn equalled Michael Schumacher's ten-year-old record for 24-consecutive points finishes but that small piece of history will be scant consolation for both team and driver over the upcoming three-week break given he also only scraped into the points last time out in Monaco. After being passed by Alonso in the second stint, Webber faded to fourth in the closing stint, although did end up with the race's fastest lap, having earlier damaged his frontwing in a tangle with the lapped Caterham of Giedo van der Garde, which earned the Dutchman a stop/go penalty. Two weeks on from his own supreme race victory, Nico Rosberg just escaped being lapped by the flying Vettel after being forced to make three pitstops amid more severe degradation than Hamilton. Elsewhere, however, there were some standout performances. After five eight-place finishes, Jean-Eric Vergne finally achieved a better finish after an impressive drive to sixth place, capping the most impressive weekend of his nascent career so far. Somewhat against the odds given his lowly grid position, Paul di Resta gave a masterclass in tyre management and controlled, consistent pace to take his one-stopping Force India all the way to seventh place. With Felipe Massa recovering to eighth after his Q2 crash, and Raikkonen and Adrian Sutil rounding out the points finishers despite a drive-through penalty for the latter for holding up Hamilton, McLaren's underwhelming season hit a new, depressing low as for the first time since the 2009 Abu Dhabi GP neither of their cars finished in the points. Just twelve months on from their third straight victory in Canada, Jenson Button languishes tenth in the Drivers' Championship with the team sixth and 14 points adrift of Force India in the Constructors'. Right at the very top though some things never change...