Kimi in “Kanada”
MONTREAL — Kimi Raikkonen’s McLaren-Mercedes held together to the end this time.
Two weeks after losing a last-lap heartbreaker at the European Grand Prix, the Finnish driver battled a steering problem and staved off a challenge from seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari to win the Canadian Grand Prix yesterday.
“We were a little lucky to win, but we were so unlucky in the last race,” Raikkonen said. “Maybe we got something back.”
Raikkonen posted his third win of the year before a record crowd of 121,000 at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.
“We got the 10 points (for the win) back that we lost to Renault in the last race, so we’re back fighting for the championship,” Raikkonen said.
The “bad luck” of Jacques “The mouth that roared” Villeneuve, at his home race didn’t change, but he did manage to finish the race for the first time since 1998. “At least we finished the race, which hasn’t been the case every year,” Villeneuve said. “Well, there’s next year.”
Villeneuve started the race on the fourth row, just behind Japanese driver Takuma Sato. Villeneuve said there was an electrical problem when the race started that prevented him from getting off the grid right away.
Once he got going and made it to the second turn, Villeneuve ran into Sato and damaged his front wing, forcing him to come into the pits before completing a single lap to replace his nose. By the time he left pit row Villeneuve was running in last place, and by the 10th lap he was more than a minute behind the leaders.
The incident-filled race saw both powerful Renault cars driven by Fernando Alonso of Spain and Giancarlo Fisichella of Italy retire with mechanical problems while leading the race. Pole-sitter Jenson Button of Britain went into the wall of the chicane just before the straight leading to the start/finish line on the 48th lap.
Raikkonen took the lead on the 49th lap when teammate Juan Pablo Montoya went to the pits.
The Finn held his lead over Schumacher the rest of the way, although he nearly lost it late in the race when he briefly went off the track on the fourth turn.
“next year” for jv? i wonder whether this will be his last canadian gp. he just can’t seem to get out of trouble. he needs to have a good race at indy, after massa’s brilliant performance at montreal.
Jacques’s “freshness date” is long past. I predicted his firing about 6 weeks ago and still think it will happen before the current season ends.
If not there isn’t a way in hell he will be back next year.
The fall-off in his desire to drive is a dircet inverse proportion to the bitching he does. He has been remarkably restrained in his comments this year, until defending himself and his lousy performances against Sauber’s comments.
He will now try and take claim for helping Sauber get BMW power, and bitch some more when Peter doesn’t extend his contract, or fires him at the end of this year. I predict if BMW does go to Sauber it’s the kiss off for JV, as they will have the cash top buy him out and send him to the retirement home.
You’re right George he has “been remarkably restrained,” that includes on track as well with Massa consistently out performing Villeneuve.
This is a test of the newly configured spell checker.Here goes nothing!
OK it found my intentionally mis-spelled word. Let’s try this. Wow that works, I love it!