The Canadian Grand Prix 2017 was the 7th round of the 2017 F1 season, and took place at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada, on June 11th.
Lewis Hamilton won the race from the pole, followed by Valtteri Bottas, and Daniel Ricciardo completing the podium.
Final results
Race evolution
Pit Stops
There were a total of 21 pit stops during the race.
The most popular pit stop windows were:
The fastest pit stop was Daniil Kvyat's, stopping the clock at 18.088 seconds during his pit stop on lap 15, while the slowest one was was Daniil Kvyat's, who stopped the clock at 1 minutes, 46.374 seconds, 1 minutes, 28.286 seconds slower than Kvyat, during his pit stop on lap 53.
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 1 stop. Only Pascal Wehrlein, Sebastian Vettel, Daniil Kvyat and Kimi Räikkönen decided to try something different with a 2 stops strategy.
The race winner, Lewis Hamilton, was on a 1 stop strategy.
1 stop
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4Romain Grosjean
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2Nico Hülkenberg
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4Jolyon Palmer
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6Marcus Ericsson
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3Daniel Ricciardo
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3Sergio Pérez
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1Valtteri Bottas
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8Lance Stroll
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-Lewis Hamilton
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3Esteban Ocon
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4Fernando Alonso
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2Stoffel Vandoorne
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6Kevin Magnussen
2 stops
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5Pascal Wehrlein
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2Sebastian Vettel
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6Daniil Kvyat
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3Kimi Räikkönen
Excluding those drivers who could not finish the race, those on a 1 stop strategy gained 3.5 positions on average, while those on a 2 stops strategy didn't gain or lose any positions on average.
This difference in possitions gained, together with a deeper nalaysis of each strategy, reinforces the conclusion that a 1 stop strategy was the best option.
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 were some incidents during the race, with 5 drivers who didn't manage to cross the finish line.
These included, Fernando Alonso, and Daniil Kvyat, both had a power unit failure, Max Verstappen, who suffered from electrical problems on lap 10, and Felipe Massa, and Carlos Sainz, both retired dure to damage caused by a collision with other cars.
Power Unit
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Fernando AlonsoLap 66
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Daniil KvyatLap 54
Electrical
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Max VerstappenLap 10
Collision
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Felipe MassaLap 0
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Carlos SainzLap 0
Qualifying
Lewis Hamilton managed to get the pole position by 0.33 seconds and a final lipe time of 1:11.459. Right next to him, completing the first line of the grid, was Sebastian Vettel.
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 12 out of the 15 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 all of the drivers that took place in Q3 managed to improve their times in this last session.