Sebastian Vettel consolidated his championship lead with a dominating performance at the Canadian Grand Prix. Starting from pole position, the Red Bull driver was never truly threatened at a circuit at which the Milton Keynes team had never hitherto won. Fernando Alonso rebounded from a subdued qualifying to finish second, with Lewis Hamilton completing the podium.
Vettel ended Nico Rosberg's pole position streak during a qualifying session that saw mixed conditions, narrowly securing the top spot from Hamilton. The star of the session however was Williams driver Valtteri Bottas, who, thanks to the adverse weather, hauled himself up to a sensational third on the grid. Behind were Rosberg in the second Mercedes, Mark Webber in the second Red Bull and Alonso's Ferrari.
Race day was a far sunnier and warmer affair, and Vettel made a clean getaway from pole position to lead the race away from Hamilton. Bottas, no doubt a touch nervous about starting from by far his best ever grid slot, was slightly slower away, giving away positions to Rosberg and Webber in the first sequence of corners. Later in the lap, Alonso demoted the young Finn to sixth along the back straight approaching the final chicane.
With tyre wear much less of an issue than it had been in recent races, Vettel immediately began t o press home his advantage. Within two laps, the gap between the reigning champion and Hamilton in second had grown to 2.7 seconds, and after a further five laps, the gap was up to 4.4 seconds.
Despite having free choice because of the rain in qualifying, all of the front-runners opted to begin the race on the super-soft compound tyre, and as such the pit window opened relatively early. Webber was the first of the top five to pit on lap 13, equipping a set of medium compound tyres, with Rosberg coming a lap later for a fresh set of super-softs.
Vettel surrendered the lead to Hamilton as he made his first visit to the pits for medium compound tyres at the end of lap 15, by which stage he had built his advantage to around eight seconds. The Mercedes driver led until he made his stop at the end of lap 19, Vettel subsequently re-taking the lead.
Rosberg's choice of super-soft tyres for the second stint of the race left him exposed to attack from his medium-shod rivals Webber and Alonso, who also pitted on lap 15. The three ran in close formation for many laps as Vettel and Hamilton escaped at the front.
It wasn't until lap 30 that Webber finally took third place, from Rosberg doing so with the help of DRS on the approach to the final chicane. With the Mercedes clearly struggling for pace on worn super-softs, Alonso wasted no time in demoting the defenceless Rosberg a further position, doing so at the very next corner and moving up to fourth.
The Spaniard wasn't done yet - Webber had little opportunity to break clear of Alonso before battle recommenced, though both had been closing on second place man Hamilton once Rosberg had been dispensed of. Suffering less from tyre wear, Alonso was able to pass Webber to take third at the first corner in similar style to his move on Rosberg.
It was at this stage that the second round of pit-stops began to loom on the horizon (although Rosberg had made his second stop at the end of lap 31), and it was Webber who blinked first - pitting for more medium tyres - on lap 46; Alonso, Hamilton and finally race leader Vettel all made their second stops in consecutive laps.
Whilst Vettel continued untroubled at the head of the pack, the final stint of the race saw Alonso dramatically close on Hamilton for second place. After a couple of near misses, Alonso seized the position at the usual location of the first corner at the start of lap 63, with Hamilton unable to respond and forced to settle for third.
Vettel however had a gap of over 15 seconds over the closest opposition by this stage, effortlessly reeling off the remaining laps to secure an emphatic third win of the season and the 29th of his career and thus extending his points lead over Alonso to 36. Webber, who earlier damaged his front wing whilst colliding with a lapped Giedo van der Garde, and Rosberg, after a precautionary third stop on lap 57, completed the top five.
Sixth position went to Toro Rosso's Jean Eric Vergne, who put in a quietly assured performance to secure his best ever F1 finish. The Frenchman started a creditable seventh on the grid, moving ahead of Bottas on the sixth lap, and built an advantage over his pursuers he would maintain for the remainder of the distance.
Behind Vergne finished Paul Di Resta, who was one of only a small handful of runners to start on medium tyres from a lowly 17th on the grid following another disastrous Q1 exit on Saturday. The Scotsman managed to make his tyres last for a mammoth 56 laps, by which stage he was up to seventh, and was able to retain the place to the flag after his sole pit-stop to secure a solid haul of points for Force India.
Teammate Adrian Sutil had been on course to finish eighth, a good recovery after spinning whilst trying to pass Bottas in the opening laps, but lost two places thanks to a drive-through penalty for ignoring blue flags. That promoted Felipe Massa, who had made good progress having started 16th after a crash in Q2, to eighth place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. From tenth on the grid, the Finn failed to make the expected progress, losing time stuck behind slower cars in the first stint after a poor start.
Finishing just outside the points were the McLaren drivers Sergio Perez and Jenson Button, with the Woking team finishing with no points on the board for the first time since the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The cars were never really on the pace all weekend despite more updates being brought to Montreal - the team's prospects for their home race at Silverstone appear gloomy.
Romain Grosjean, who followed a similar strategy to Di Resta but making an unexpected second stop, came home thirteenth in a lacklustre race for Lotus, with Bottas slumping all the way to fourteenth at the flag with Williams still struggling badly for pace. Daniel Ricciardo also appeared to be working his tyres harder than most and could do no more than fifteenth despite running in the top ten early on.
Completing the finishers were Pastor Maldonado, who compromised his race with a drive-through penalty for making contact with Sutil at the hairpin early on, Marussia drivers Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton and Charles Pic's Caterham. The sister car of van der Garde failed to finish after being carelessly squeezed by Nico Hulkenberg whilst being lapped, ending both drivers' races, whilst Esteban Gutierrez rounded off an abysmal afternoon for Sauber by connecting with the barriers with only a handful of laps to go.
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