F1 2018: Sebastian Vettel takes crucial win in Canadian Grand Prix

Scuderia-Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel led from start to finish at the 2018 Formula 1 (f1) Canadian Grand Prix (GP). With this, the German reclaimed the driver’s championship lead by just one point over his rival Mercedes-AMG’s Lewis Hamilton.

Vettel had a good start off the line and quickly secured pole position. He was followed by a tight battle for second place between Mercedes-AMG’s Valtteri Bottas and Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen. Both maintained their positions unscathed in second and third, respectively.

Meanwhile, Williams’ Lance Stroll oversteered at turn five, and squeezed Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley into the wall in spectacular fashion. Hartley collected Stroll in the process. Both drivers retired due to the damage as the safety car came out for three laps.

On the restart, Vettel easily pulled away from the trailing Bottas and Verstappen. Renault’s Carlos Sainz, who was running in ninth place, tried a late move at turn one only to bang wheels with Force India’s Sergio Perez. Perez would slide across the grass while Sainz received minimal damage on the wing. Luckily, both were still able to rejoin the race.

As for Hamilton, he reported power problems after the restart. Mercedes-AMG opted to pit the Briton in an effort to fix the issue. It turned out to be an engine cooling issue. Whatever the team did, it worked but at the expense of dropping Hamilton down to fifth place and promoting Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo to fourth.

With the pace settled down mid-way through the race, Vettel steadily built an eight second lead over Bottas to win the Canadian GP.  Verstappen completed the podium places in third.

Here are the results:

The next race of the 2018 Formula 1 season will be on June 24 at the returning Circuit De Paul Ricard in France. Will Vettel extend his lead? Or will the high speed track be at the advantage of Hamilton? The close fight for the championship is brewing an exciting season so far.