Day 6: Sunday June 8

Day 6: Sunday June 8
Race day! Visibly more people here today, way crowded, not an empty seat to be seen. Great weather during the day.

One subject of discussion overnight was the physical condition of the racetrack. At dinner Saturday evening, I spoke with a guy whose seat was at the hairpin turn, and he described the pavement there breaking up. Immediately after the Showroom Ferrari cars finished their race on Sunday, track staff went to work with some kind of wet patch on the race line in the Senna turns, and at the hairpin. This was within 2 hours of the F1 race start! There’s always a drivers’ parade when they ride around the course, waving from classic Austin-Healy roadsters, and a couple of drivers (Heidfeld and Kubica, both BMW Sauber) saw the fresh patches and jumped out of their cars to examine them. This attention to detail would pay off later…


The race got off to a clean start with no mishaps through the first turns, much to the disappointment of everyone in my seating area.

It is unfortunate that "the" highlight of the race will be the collision between Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen at the pit exit, but there's also a sense of balance in that both pre-race favorites to win (and front-runners in the championship points) were suddenly out of the race. This happened during lap 20 of 70 laps. I saw it all -

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2008/6/7898.html

In video tape replays on the big screens, there clearly was some confusion with the pit lane traffic control light – it quickly changed from red to green and back again while Raikkonen and Heidfeld waited to exit the pits and get back into the race, just as Hamilton approached from his pit stop. That’s when Hamilton rear-ended Raikkonen. Didn’t seem to be entirely Hamilton’s fault.

Other notable action: Massa’s advancement up through the field was the drive of the day. There are lots of video replays showing some of his passing.

Final race results -
http://www.formula1.com/results/season/2008/793/

World Championship points after Canadian GP -
http://www.formula1.com/results/driver/

Post-race video (click on Archived and select Canada) -
http://www.formula1.com/services/play_video.html

Slideshow -
http://www.formula1.com/gallery/race/2008/793/general/