Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel drove a superbly controlled race yesterday at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve to claim his first Formula One Canadian Grand Prix victory. The German youngster, starting from pole for the third consecutive time at the Canadian race, cruised to victory, finishing with over 14 seconds between himself and runner-up Fernando Alonso of Ferrari.

The Spaniard drove impressively, too, starting from sixth on the grid and fighting his way past top drivers such as Vettel’s Red Bull Racing team-mate Mark Webber and Mercedes AMG duo Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton, who had started on the front line alongside Vettel, finished the race in third place.

Webber was poised to finish on the podium but an error by Caterham’s Giedo van der Garde at the hairpin on lap 36 saw the two drivers come into contact, with Webber’s Red Bull suffering some damage. He ended in fourth place and was followed by Rosberg, some distance behind, in fifth place.

Behind them were Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne and Paul di Resta of Force India in sixth and seventh places, respectively.

After them was Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, who arguably was the most impressive of the day. After starting at 16th on the grid due to a crash during qualifying, the Brazilian managed to complete the race in eighth place.   

At the start of the race he quickly made up two places to lay fourteenth, and then one by one he overtook all that were in front of him. He seemed unstoppable until he came up against Lotus’ Kami Räikkönen. However, on the very last lap, he slipped past the Finn to claim a very hard-fought eighth place.

Räikkönen had to settle for ninth place and was followed by Force India’s other driver Adrian Sutil, who rounded out the top ten.

With his latest win, Sebastian Vettel now extends his points lead in the Drivers’ Championship. The triple world champion now has 132 points versus the 96 points of Fernando Alonso and the 88 points of Kimi Räikkönen.

In the Constructors’ Championship, Red Bull Racing remains the clear leader with 201 points, followed by Ferrari in second with 145 points. Due to the continuing solid performance of its drivers, Mercedes AMG now overtakes Lotus to move into third place in the championship with 134 points.

One third of the 2013 F1 season is now over and now teams can pause for breath and enjoy a bit of the summer until the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in three weeks’ time.

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