F1 needs Kubica back and Honda gone

The much-anticipated battle between Mercedes and Ferrari vanished into the ether within seconds of the start, so - as a race - the Canadian Grand Prix was a somewhat pedestrian affair.

Lewis Hamilton, very much having one of his 'on' weekends, had a car entirely to his liking, and was imperious on both Saturday and Sunday, pulling himself back to within a dozen points of Sebastian Vettel.

"Excellent, Lewis," said his race engineer Pete Bonnington on the slowing-down lap. "A walk in the park all weekend."

So it was, but that was not, of course, what a full house Montreal crowd had wished to see.

Six laps from the end Hamilton set the fastest lap, perhaps to keep from dropping off on a hot afternoon.

"It's a long race here," he said, "and it feels like a very long race when you're out there on your own."

Had he not overdriven on what was a scruffy final qualifying lap, Vettel might have run Hamilton close for the pole, but he started second and was expected to take a shot at Lewis into the first corner.

As it was, though, a meteoric getaway took Max Verstappen into second place, and as he went by Vettel there was momentary contact, resulting in damage - that'll be two hundred grand, please - to the Ferrari's front wing. So ridiculous, these current Formula 1 rules.

Once Vettel had stopped to change it, on lap five of 70, he was of course at the back, but a fine drive brought him through the field, and in fact the highlight of the day - from a racing point of view - came in the closing laps, when he remorselessly chased down the Force Indias, which were pressuring Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull for third place.

In this quest he was much aided by Sergio Perez, who had a while earlier been asked to let through his faster team-mate, Esteban Ocon, to allow him to take a run at Ricciardo.

Given that it was promised that, should Ocon prove unsuccessful, their positions would be reversed again before the flag, this seemed a more than reasonable request. But Perez swiftly concluded that being a team player was not for him, and blocked every move his team-mate made.

This allowed Ricciardo to move out of reach, and Vettel to catch - and pass - Ocon a couple of laps from the end. There may come a time when Ocon will remember this.

If this late-race skirmish brought excitement to the race that was much needed, in the paddock there were lots of talking points, far and away the most diverting of which was Robert Kubica's recent low-profile run in a grand prix car, his first since a pre-season test for Renault in 2011 immediately before his appalling accident in a minor rally.

Ye Gods, can it really be six years Formula 1 has been without the driver Fernando Alonso described as "the most talented of all of us"?

A couple of days before the clans gathered in Montreal, Kubica tested a 2012 Lotus, painted up in current Renault livery, at Valencia, and although he was somewhat guarded afterwards, saying the experience had made him 'aware of what he had lost', for the first time he expressed an ambition - previously thought out of reach - to return to what he so much loved.

Frequently in times past Kubica lamented that, while he could - and did - compete in rallies once again, the post-accident shape of his right arm made it impossible to contemplate driving an F1 car again. Simply, it would be impossible for him to operate properly in the tight confines of the cockpit.

Now, though, the arm has been straightened to a point that this is no longer a problem, and Kubica was untroubled by it in the course of no fewer than 115 laps in the pre-hybrid 2.4-litre V8 car.

What's more, he greatly impressed those who conducted the test: on hand, too, was Sergey Sirotkin, currently Renault's third and reserve driver, and I'm told that Kubica comfortably outpaced him, both over one lap and a full race distance.

It's undeniable that Kubica adored rallying, but his real passion always lay with Formula 1, and he says that now he knows he can drive a car 'with good pace, and for an entire race distance' he can at least think about trying to return to what he thought gone forever.

I can think of nothing in motor racing I would like to see more.

Close on the heels of it, though, would be something other than a Honda engine in the back of a McLaren. In Canada there was yet more farce, Alonso effectively missing practice one and half of practice two, then retiring two laps from the flag when he and the team looked set to score their first championship point of 2017.

On Thursday Fernando, whom McLaren is desperate to keep, said he would stay if the team was winning by September, and patently that ain't going to happen.

At the same time Zak Brown said that the Japanese company seemed 'lost', and I don't believe that word was a slip of the tongue.

There had been hopes that Honda's updated engine would make its debut in Canada, but it was decided that it was not ready, and I wonder if this was the final straw.

All the beleaguered Yusuke Hasegawa could say was "It's unfortunate that I can't convince them that we are going in the right direction."

Yes, but when, Hasegawa-San, when?

In 1967, John Surtees said his biggest frustration was trying to introduce an element of urgency into Honda's way of doing things. Fifty years on, little appears to have changed.

Will Alonso drive a McLaren in 2018? I don't know, but - barring an Act of God - it won't be a McLaren-Honda.