Untouchable Vettel cruises to Canadian GP victory - MotorSportsTalk

Sebastian Vettel has won the Canadian Grand Prix in emphatic style, only losing the lead during the first round of pit stops as he eased home to claim his first victory at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve by 13 seconds.

The defending world champion cruised home ahead of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, with the battle between Ferrari and Mercedes being the main source of action in the race. Mark Webber could not maintain his early pace and only finished 4th, whilst Nico Rosberg came home 5th ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne and Paul di Resta, both of whom will be delighted with their results. Kimi Raikkonen’s championship charge continued to falter as he could only finish P9 behind Felipe Massa.

The start saw Vettel hold onto his lead without coming under pressure from Hamilton, but Bottas was the big loser, falling behind Rosberg and Webber with Alonso following at the end of the lap. Kimi Raikkonen also struggled off the start, whilst Giedo van der Garde made up four positions on the first lap. The majority of the field elected to start on the supersoft tire, with di Resta, Grosjean, Bianchi and Chilton opting for mediums. Jean-Eric Vergne became the next driver to pass Bottas, but Adrian Sutil could not follow after making a mistake that saw him spin. Vettel continued to extend his lead at the front until the first round of stops with Hamilton and Rosberg unable to match the pace of the Red Bull. Further back, Pastor Maldonado received a drive-through penalty for an incident involving Sutil, dropping him out of the points.

Some of the drivers tried to make a one-stop strategy work, squeezing the life out of their tires and creating some action in the midfield. Jenson Button lost out to Sutil and Massa whilst Raikkonen was informed that he had to save fuel, pitting to release Vergne into 6th place. Webber continued to pressurize Rosberg, but he could not make it through and was soon fending off Alonso for 4th place. Eventually, with the aid of DRS, Webber and Alonso both passed Rosberg to sit 3rd and 4th respectively, with the Mercedes pitting for fresh tires soon after. Bottas continued to fall backwards, losing out to Perez but he did manage to keep 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen at bay for a few more laps until the Lotus passed under DRS. When lapping van der Garde, Webber made contact with the Caterham which had ignored blue flags, losing part of his front wing endplate in a clumsy incident for which van der Garde received a stop/go penalty. Alonso closed on Webber after the Red Bull made a mistake and passed him for P3 heading into turn one, maintaining his lead over the Red Bull into the second rounds of stops.

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There was no change of position at the front during the pit stops, with Vettel rejoining the race in the lead on the harder compound. Paul di Resta and Romain Grosjean ran deep into the race, optimizing their one stop strategies – something Mercedes failed to do with Hamilton, and he was soon losing time to Alonso in 3rd. After many laps of DRS and some great defence from Hamilton, the Ferrari finally made it through into second place. Hamilton was quick to get back on Alonso’s tail though, but the Mercedes just couldn’t quite find a way past. di Resta finally pitted on lap 57, with Rosberg and Vergne making a third stop to cover the Force India. For Sutil though, his weekend took another turn for the worse after receiving a drive-through penalty for ignoring blue flags, leaving him with a late battle with the McLarens, eventually finishing 10th. DRS was disabled late on which hindered Hamilton’s charge on Alonso, but Massa was able to make a late move on Raikkonen for 8th.

The win sees Vettel extend his championship lead over Fernando Alonso, and it hands Red Bull their first win in North America since they entered the sport in 2005. Alonso will be pleased to have finished 2nd after starting in 6th, but for Valtteri Bottas, 14th place will be a very disappointing result.

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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