The Canadian GP of 2008 in the F1 calendar was held yesterday.  It was a race filled with drama, heartbreaks, accidents, errors of judgement and unlikely winners!  Sounds a lot like the plot of Bollywood masala movies huh? You bet!

The first corner proved to be completely uneventful, in total contrast to the rest of the race.  I expected Massa to move up the order quickly, perhaps by grabbing a couple of positions right at the start, but that was not to be. Massa apparently was running a heavy fuel load and could not really seem to find the pace to get past an ultra-lightly fuelled Renault driven by two-time world champ Fernando Alonso.  Then the action started. The heart-break kid of Monaco, Adrian Sutil, of Force India (Vijay Mallya’s team) had to retire when his engine blew up spectacularly, bringing on the safety car.  Within seconds of the arrival of the safety car, the pits were declared open, leading to a mad scramble for pitstops.  All the top-runners, including race-leader Lewis Hamilton, went into the pits, but there was drama and heartbreak in store.  Kimi, after a super-quick pitstop, left the Ferrari garage, leaving Kubica behind, but had to stop at the end of the pit lane, as it was flashing a red light. (Drivers have to wait for the green light before exiting the pit-lane. This is to stop them from possibly colliding with the back-runners or the safety-car itself).  Even as Kimi was waiting for the green,  Hamilton, plowed his McLaren right into the back of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari, in a very bizarre and questionable manner.  Game over for both of them. William’s Nico Rosberg decided to join the party and collided with the crippled car of Hamilton!  Nico race continued after a forced pit for a new nose-cone, but couldn’t finish with points.

At this time, Massa, who came in to the pits for his own stop was shocked to find that his crew were not ready for him!  He had to continue out and come back on the next lap, ending up in P17.  After that, it was Robert Kubica all the way.  Though Massa raced the race of his life to recover 13 positions, running as high as P4 which was possible largely due to a brilliant double-overtaking in one corner, an accident involving Alonso further complicated Massa’s and Ferrari’s race.  Ferrari took a gamble and brought in Massa for a slap-and-dash (a very short pit-stop), thinking that they could take advantage of the safety car, but the safety car was never deployed as the wrecked car of Alonso was cleared away very quickly.  This put Massa back in 7th position, with his opponents having a comfortable lead.  Once again, Massa showed great determination and skill as he hunted down his opponents.  He ran out of laps when he was just a whisker behind the Toyota of Timo Glock, as BMW completed their first 1-2 finish powered by Robert Kubica’s first ever race win and a strong P2 by Nick Heidfeld.  Veteran David Coulthard was coolness and experience personified as crossed the checkered flag with his unheralded Red-Bull in P3. A most unlikely leaderboard!

The point positions:-

1) Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber 2) Nick Heidfeld, BWM Sauber 3) David Coulthard, Red Bull-Renault 4) Timo Glock, Toyota 5) Felipe Massa, Ferrari 6) Jarno Trulli, Toyota 7) Ruebens Barrichello, Honda 8) Sebastien Vettel, Torro Rosso-Ferrari

Thanks to his perfect finish, Robert Kubica has now taken over the championship lead from Lewis Hamilton who failed to finish today. Massa, with his four points in this race, climbs over teammate Kimi Raikkonen, into a joint second place with Lewis Hamilton.

The championship standings after 7 races (11 remaining) :-

1) Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber                  44 Pts 2) Felipe Massa, Ferrari                             38 Pts 2) Lewis Hamilton, McLaren Mercedes       38 Pts 4) Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari                          35 Pts 5) Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber                   28 Pts 6) Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren Mercedes   15 Pts

That was fun! Now to get some shut-eye as I have a major presentation tomorrow! :)