Canadian GP: Strategy Summary

Jenson Button’s race, the winner of the Grand Prix, was nonetheless one of the most chaotic on the grid, as evidenced by the 6 pit stops made by the Briton, two of which were due to accidents and another to serve a penalty.

After his clash with his teammate, Jenson Button, then in 6th place, seized the opportunity to switch to intermediate tires. Rejoining in 14th position, the Brit had nearly regained the lost positions by occupying 8th place when the rain intensified, forcing him to pit for new wet tires. Once again, after the race restarted, he was one of those with the keenest instincts, pitting to switch to intermediate tires that were already proving effective on Mark Webber’s Red Bull. Then came the incident with Fernando Alonso, also on intermediate tires, during which Button suffered another puncture, forcing him to pit again for intermediates. In the final stage of the strategy, once again inspired by Mark Webber, the McLaren driver was among the first to switch to Super Soft tires.

But Button’s strategy, and especially the settings adopted on his McLaren, cannot alone explain the British driver’s victory. Indeed, Sebastian Vettel himself admitted to providing the rod for his own beating by showing excessive conservatism. In his position as leader, especially having been rid of two of his championship rivals, the German was among the last to fit the intermediate tires and then the Super Soft tires, while adopting a race pace he mistakenly thought was sufficient to secure victory.

It should be noted that at the start and during the restart after the red flag, the drivers were instructed by race control to use wet tires. At the restart, many of them kept their wet tires, indicated on our chart as being used.