Track Torque: Faultless race from Hamilton
It was Lewis Hamilton's fourth win this season.
LEWIS Hamilton drove faultlessly in Montreal, Canada last weekend after his mishap in Monaco a fortnight ago.
He streaked away at the start and, except for periods where he had to slow down to conserve fuel, looked untouchable.
His teammate Nico Rosberg also drove a good race and ended up at the finish just a couple of seconds behind.
Hamilton now has 151 points, while Rosberg has 134.
Behind them Kimi Raikkonen spoilt what could have been a third place for Ferrari by spinning halfway through the race, allowing Valtteri Bottas in his fast-charging Williams Mercedes to join the other two Merc engines cars on the podium.
In fifth place, after a fantastic drive from 18th place on the grid, came multiple world champion Sebastian Vettel in the other Ferrari.
Felipe Nasr, in a similar drive to Vettel, took his car from 15th to sixth position at the finish after an excellent drive.
The Lotus twins, Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean, were having a particularly good weekend and should’ve done better than seventh and tenth respectively.
Grosjean had spolit his chances of a fifth position when, on the 49th lap, he collided with Wolf Steven’s Mauricia resulting in a visit to the pits for repairs.
Nico Hulkenberg finished one lap down in eighth place after a spin and Daniil Kvyat came home ninth.
The McLaren Honda’s had another shocking day with both cars retiring with exhaust problems.
Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen did not perform as well as we had hoped.
Remember, the Le Mans 24-hour race starts this Saturday at 4pm.
The winner should come from one of Porsche, Audi or Toyota.
Porsche, with ex grand prix star Mark Webber in the team, are looking very good for a possible win in their 2-litre V4 turbo charged hybrid which develops over 500 horsepower from its petrol engine.
The electric motors add another 400 horsepower to the 870kg mean-machine.
This year’s Audi R18 ETRON Quattro has a 4-litre V6 turbo diesel engine developing similar power to the Porsche but it only has a fuel tank with a maximum 54.2-litre capacity and has a target of fewer than five litres of diesel for each of the 13.5km laps.
Toyota has a 3.7-litre V8 normally aspirated engine and is based very much on their grand prix car.
It is potentially a very quick car and has a more than even chance of making it home first.
The gruelling endurance challenge will also depend very much on the weather – there is very often rain and also some accidents to add to the drama which is Le Mans.
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