The Canadian Grand Prix 2016 was the 7th round of the 2016 F1 season, and took place at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada, on June 12th.
Lewis Hamilton won the race from the pole, followed by Sebastian Vettel, and Valtteri Bottas completing the podium.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 36 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
- Laps 13-15: 4 stops
- Laps 20-24: 7 stops
- Laps 37-39: 6 stops
The fastest pit stop was Valtteri Bottas's, stopping the clock at 22.184 seconds during his pit stop on lap 23, while the slowest one was was Romain Grosjean's, who stopped the clock at 32.114 seconds, 9.930 seconds slower than Bottas, during his pit stop on lap 46.
These times include the time the driver spent going through the pit lane, as well as the actual time he stopped for the mechanics to work on his car.
Strategy
We saw a variety of options in terms of pit stop strategies during this race, however most drivers chose a 2 stops. Only 5 drivers tried a 1 stop, and 1 driver tried a 3 stops.
The race winner, Lewis Hamilton, was on a 1 stop strategy.
1 stop
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1Fernando Alonso
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12Felipe Massa
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4Valtteri Bottas
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-Lewis Hamilton
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6Kevin Magnussen
2 stops
-
-Felipe Nasr
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1Sebastian Vettel
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-Kimi Räikkönen
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-Pascal Wehrlein
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11Carlos Sainz
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-Esteban Gutiérrez
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6Marcus Ericsson
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-Rio Haryanto
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3Daniil Kvyat
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1Max Verstappen
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3Daniel Ricciardo
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3Nico Rosberg
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1Nico Hülkenberg
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1Sergio Pérez
3 stops
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-Romain Grosjean
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 1 stop strategy gained 2.25 positions on average, the ones on a 2 stops strategy gained 1.29 positions on average, while those on a 3 stops strategy didn't gain or lose any positions on average.
Despite of the average possitons gained or lost, and considering a deeper analysis of the performance of each strategy, we consider the 2 stops strategy as the optimal for this race, even if Lewis Hamilton managed to win the race making 1 stop.
It is important to note that this might not always be the case for other races held at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, as the conditions might change from year to year, in terms of wheel degradation, accidents, safety cars, etc.
Incidents
There race went on mostly with no incidents. Only 3 divers were involved in circumstances that were severe enough to prevented them from finishing the race.
These included, Felipe Massa, and Jolyon Palmer, both had to retire, and Jenson Button, who had a power unit failure on lap 9.
Retired
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Felipe MassaLap 35
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Jolyon PalmerLap 16
Power Unit
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Jenson ButtonLap 9
Qualifying
Lewis Hamilton managed to get the pole position by 0.062 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:12.812. Nico Rosberg was right behind him, helping Mercedes score a one-two and monopolize the first line of the grid.
Track evolution
As the qualifying session went on, with the track rubbering in, and the drivers testing the limits of the grip of their cars, the times per lap dropped, and 15 out of the 16 drivers that took place in Q2 were able to improve their times.
The Q3 is the time were all the remaining drivers put all their cards on the table, even those with a superior car who might have been managing their times in Q1 and Q2 push their cars to the limit in Q3. It therefore comes as no surprise that 9 out of the 10 drivers that took place in Q3 were able to improve their times.