2011 Canadian Grand Prix

The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix (formally the Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada 2011 ) was a Formula One motor race held on 12 June 2011 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve , in Montreal, Quebec , Canada. It was the seventh race of the 2011 Formula One World Championship and the 48th Canadian Grand Prix . McLaren driver Jenson Button won the 70-lap race starting from seventh position. Sebastian Vettel , who started from pole position , finished second for Red Bull Racing with teammate Mark Webber finishi...

The victory was Button's first of the season, and put him into second place in the World Drivers' Championship , sixty points behind leader Vettel, who had extended his lead despite finishing second. Webber remained in third, and Hamilton's retirement meant he slipped to fourth. In the World Constructors' Championship Red Bull extended their lead to 65 points from McLaren, with Ferrari a further 85 points behind. At over four hours (including a red flag period) the race set the record as the lon...

The Grand Prix was contested by twelve teams, each of two drivers. The teams, also known as constructors , were Red Bull Racing , McLaren , Ferrari , Mercedes , Renault , Williams , Force India , Sauber , Toro Rosso , Lotus , HRT and Virgin . Tyre supplier Pirelli brought four different tyre types to the race: two dry compounds, the soft "primes" and the super-soft "options"; and two wet-weather compounds , the intermediate and full wet. [ 3 ] The drag reduction system (DRS) had two activation z...

Prior to the event Virgin Racing announced they would end their partnership with Wirth Research , the company responsible for designing and developing the team's racing cars. [ 6 ] In order to cut costs, Wirth Research had designed the cars exclusively using computational fluid dynamics , [ 7 ] and unlike their competitors Wirth had not utilised a wind tunnel . The approach was not successful as the team had failed to qualify higher than 20th so far in the season, [ 6 ] leading to the partnershi...

Several teams made major technical updates to their cars for the Grand Prix. McLaren and Ferrari altered the brake ducts on their cars, [ 9 ] improving the cooling to manage the high brake temperatures encountered in Montreal. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] Ferrari and Mercedes revised their rear suspension layouts, [ 9 ] while Red Bull brought a new front wing optimised for lower downforce . [ 9 ] Renault and Williams brought new rear wings, which were designed specifically for low-downforce circuits such as Ci...

Vettel achieved his sixth pole position of the season, and his first at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, with a time of 1 minute and 13.014 seconds. [ 20 ] He was joined on the front row of the grid by Alonso, with teammate Massa in third, giving Ferrari their best qualifying performance of the season. [ 21 ] Webber had not been able to use his car's KERS and qualified fourth, four-tenths of a second behind Vettel. [ 20 ] Hamilton and Button qualified in fifth and seventh respectively and McLaren ...

The fastest lap in each of the three sessions is denoted in bold .

Torrential rain prevented the resumption of the Grand Prix for over two hours, [ 31 ] until the rain eased at 15:50 local time. The race was restarted behind the safety car with the drivers in the positions held before the suspension. [ 30 ] Vettel was first, followed by Kobayashi, Massa, Heidfeld, Petrov and di Resta. Webber was in seventh place with Alonso, de la Rosa and Button behind. The safety car remained out for seven laps, during which the circuit began drying enough to be suitable for ...

DRS was enabled on lap 46, as Barrichello and Rosberg were contesting eighth position. Button had caught Maldonado and Alguersuari, and passed both cars for tenth place. Mark Webber was the first driver to switch to slick tyres, and was followed by Barrichello and Buemi. [ 32 ] Kobayashi and Massa, fighting for second place, were both passed by Schumacher on lap 51; Massa then passed Kobayashi for third place. [ 25 ] As the drivers pitted for slick tyres over the next three laps, [ 32 ] Massa da...

Following the pitstops and safety car deployment, Petrov had gained sixth place while Barrichello, Alguersuari, Rosberg and Maldonado were in the remaining point scoring positions. Schumacher and Webber, who had contested second place before the safety car, resumed their fight as the race resumed on lap 61. Barrichello was passed by Rosberg and Alguersuari before Massa, who had been in eleventh place, overtook both Williams cars for ninth. Kobayashi lost fifth place to Petrov, and Maldonado reti...

Vettel led by 0.9 seconds on the final lap, before he ran wide at turn six. Button passed him to take the lead, and held it to win the race. [ 3 ] Vettel recovered from going off-track and finished second, ahead of Webber in third and Schumacher in fourth. Petrov took fifth place, while Massa passed Kobayashi on the finish line for sixth place. [ 25 ] Alguersuari, Barrichello and Buemi filled the final point scoring positions, and Rosberg's car had lost the front wing, dropping him to eleventh. ...

"I enjoyed it very much coming through the field, fighting your way through the field is almost as good as winning the race. That feeling of getting one up on someone. A great race for people who are sat here, to be on the podium is a pretty exceptional result and to fight my way through from last position... It is definitely my best race."

The top three finishers appeared on the podium to collect their trophies, and in the subsequent press conference. Button felt the win was the best of his career so far, and stated that he had to fight hard to win the race: "It was really a fight. I got a drive-through for speeding behind the safety car and I had to fight my way through about three times. Eventually, on the last lap I was chasing down Seb. He ran a little bit wide onto the wet part of the circuit and I was able to take the opport...

Martin Whitmarsh , McLaren's team principal, praised Button's win, believing that it was one of the finest performances in Formula One:

I think it was one of the best wins in the history of F1, let alone his. There were punctures, he had to change the front wing, and from 21st I don't know how many times he had to overtake people. He just drove fantastically well. He kept focused. He applied as much pressure as he had to get past and really did a fantastic job. This was 90 per cent him and 10 per cent the car. He did a great, great, great job. [ 43 ]

The stewards did not impose a penalty on Button for his collisions with Hamilton and Alonso, having judged that no driver was to blame in either incident. [ 44 ] Hamilton agreed with the stewards that Button did not intentionally collide with him, and although he felt he was alongside Button at the time, later reflected that "he probably hadn't spotted me". [ 36 ] He went on to praise his teammate's race as "an utterly fantastic performance, from a truly great driver." [ 36 ] Alonso also did not...

The usage of the safety car came under criticism from figures within the sport. Fernando Alonso disagreed with the decision to start under the safety car as he felt it prevented him from attacking Vettel, [ 45 ] while Sauber technical director James Key thought his team was put at a disadvantage when Kobayashi could not defend against the quicker cars after the fifth safety car period. [ 36 ] Martin Brundle , who competed in Formula One for twelve years, stated "the fact that the drivers came in...

With a total time of four hours, four minutes and 39 seconds (including the two-hour suspension), the race was the longest in Formula One history. Button set records for the lowest average race winning speed, at 74.864 km/h (46.518 mph) and with five stops (plus one drive-through penalty) the most pit stops by the winner of a world championship race. [ 50 ] The race also had the highest number of safety car deployments, with six appearances. [ 35 ]

Drivers who scored championship points are denoted in bold .