How Ferrari blew another victory chance

Ferrari denied it of course, but the similarities in how the Australian and Canadian Grands Prix played out were almost uncanny.

Mercedes had the fastest car, but lost its Montreal advantage to bad starts. Ferrari stole the initiative, but again ultimately failed to win the race after a debatable strategic call.

Oh, and the two Mercedes drivers collided at the first corner - again, just like they did in Australia. Only this time it was "pissed off" championship leader Nico Rosberg who lost out, rather than arch-rival Lewis Hamilton, who won his second Formula 1 race on the bounce.

The clutch difficulties that caught Mercedes out earlier in the season also resurfaced in Canada, as polesitter Hamilton bogged down off the line while Rosberg - though less affected - was also slow away from second on the grid.

By contrast Sebastian Vettel hooked up what Ferrari team boss Maurizio Arrivabene called "one of the greatest starts I've ever seen in Formula 1" to jump both and grab an unlikely lead.

"The formation start was fantastic," said Hamilton. "I let the clutch out and it was perfect torque, no wheelspin. I came round, did exactly what they asked me, and the damn thing just slipped!

"They're going to investigate to understand why. It's not the first time. Having seen the data I'm happy I didn't make any mistakes, but this clutch is definitely catching us out."

More collaboration with parent company Daimler required perhaps...

In yet another repeat of events in Melbourne, Rosberg got a slightly better start than Hamilton and drew alongside as they reached the braking zone for Turn 1.

But Rosberg's momentum was not sufficient to carry him clean past Hamilton and they rounded the opening left-hander side-by-side.

The two W07s banged wheels on the exit, which forced Rosberg onto the grass on the outside.

He jinked right onto the escape road that rejoins the circuit at the exit of Turn 2, but was swamped by both Red Bulls and the two Williams drivers on the run to the first chicane.

He also lost a place to Fernando Alonso's McLaren-Honda, before Nico Hulkenberg's Force India swept around the outside into the second chicane.

Rosberg finished the first lap in 10th place, and fuming.

"I was massively pissed off in the moment," he said. "But in the end it's just tough racing on the edge and that's it.

"I gave it a go round the outside - in Barcelona it worked out and here it didn't."

Hamilton suggested he picked up understeer through the first corner, perhaps because of a tailwind, or following closely behind Vettel, and played down the significance of what he described as "the smallest tap" with Rosberg.

"On my side I barely felt it," said Hamilton. "I don't see it as something the team has to look at because you couldn't have predicted we'd be side-by-side going into the first corner.

"Nico was on the outside, I was on the inside; I was on the racing line. Vettel was close in front of me, so I couldn't have braked later if I'd wanted to. Sometimes you make it around the outside, sometimes you don't..."

One wonders if Mercedes is simply powerless to prevent its two cars coming together in these marginal situations.

Rosberg is desperate to win his first world championship; Hamilton is desperate to stop him. That's now three times in seven races they've collided this year, and in two out of the last three...

"From the team's perspective, starting one and two and coming out of Turn 1 two and nine is not pleasant," said Wolff, who called Hamilton's move "hard".

"The question is how much can you really manage it from the outside? Turn 1 in Canada is a difficult one.

"There is a concrete runoff area. If there would be a wall probably we wouldn't have the discussion. But then if you are on the inside, you dictate the line.

"I guess I have a deja vu - we are having these discussions after every race."

The stewards saw no reason to investigate, and Rosberg was consigned to a difficult afternoon battling his way back through the lower points positions, while up front the stage was set perfectly for Ferrari to possibly steal an opportune win away from Mercedes.

Vettel held a slender advantage of 1.3 seconds over Hamilton before Jenson Button stopped his McLaren-Honda at the side of the track on the back straight, following an engine failure on lap 10 of 70.

Officials briefly deployed the virtual safety car while marshals shifted the McLaren out of harm's way. Ferrari decided to use this moment to make the first of its two planned pitstops, and the Scuderia switched both its drivers onto the super-soft tyre.

Vettel rejoined fourth, but made short work of closing down and passing the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen, though he heavily locked his front right wheel diving past Ricciardo at the hairpin.

By the end of lap 18 he was back up to second and only 10s behind Hamilton, with a pitstop already in the bag.

The Ferrari driver whittled that gap down to less than six seconds before Mercedes brought Hamilton in for his first stop on lap 24. Here Mercedes chose to fit the soft compound Pirelli tyres and attempt to make the finish without stopping again.

"The two-stop strategy was the faster strategy by a couple of seconds, but it was clear that the virtual safety car came too early for us to really commit to the best possible two-stop," explained Wolff. "This is why we decided to stay out.

"Even with a slightly hotter track, we thought that the one-stop was feasible and you could see that most of the other teams had the same thinking.

"Interestingly, the soft was really robust. We could see that Alonso had seven laps more on the tyre so it was a pretty good indication how far it would really go, and we knew we would have warning if his tyres would suddenly fall off the cliff, and they never did."

Hamilton's pace on the soft tyre in the middle of the race put Ferrari on the back foot. Vettel's tyres were softer, but 13 laps older than Hamilton's on account of that early stop. He lost an average of 0.287s per lap to Hamilton before diving into the pits for a second time on lap 37.

By this point it was clear Hamilton would attempt to get to the end of the race without stopping again. The similarities to Melbourne were again striking - Vettel needing to hunt down Hamilton and overtake him, having conceded the precious advantage of track position.

Vettel charged after his rival, but only took 0.017s per lap on average out of Hamilton's lead. The reigning world champion not only nursed his 13-lap older Pirelli tyres brilliantly, he was also fast too.

"The one-stop was the team's decision, which was a great call on strategy," said Hamilton. "I felt there was a long way to go, but it actually went pretty quick, and I had a really nice balance with the car.

"There are certain corners where you can push, others where you have to lift and coast, so if you get that right balance then the tyres can go forever, and I had the perfect balance."

But for all Hamilton's brilliance there were also a few key moments that cost Vettel during his pursuit and gave Hamilton some extra breathing space.

Vettel lost time lapping Romain Grosjean's Haas on lap 42 and gave away more than a second by locking up and missing the final chicane on lap 56.

He regrouped, but another mistake at the same spot on lap 61 while lapping Pascal Wehrlein's Manor looked an error too far. The gap stabilised over the final few laps. Hamilton was off the hook.

Hamilton's pace and longevity on the soft tyre suggested Ferrari ultimately misread this race.

In Melbourne Ferrari inexplicably failed to fit the mandated compound to both cars during the mid-race stoppage, which forced it to make an extra pitstop unnecessarily.

The call in Canada was not quite so clear-cut, but nevertheless Ferrari should know from the way it beat Mercedes to victory in Malaysia in 2015 how vital it is to retain track position at all costs.

Mercedes reckoned it enjoyed little or no straightline speed advantage in the race in Canada, so Vettel would not have been an easy target for Hamilton even though the W07 remains a slightly faster car than the SF16-H overall.

Mercedes pitted under an early safety car in Malaysia last season and couldn't recover. Ferrari returned the favour in Canada this year.

Ferrari claimed it couldn't predict the soft tyre would perform so well, or be so durable, but there are numerous examples of the Pirelli rubber lasting longer in the race when the track has rubbered-in.

Also, Kimi Raikkonen completed a very strong long run on the soft tyre in the early stages of Friday's second practice session, when track conditions were far less evolved.

Not only was one stop possible, several different teams had it down as a potentially viable strategy going into the race.

Red Bull tried it, but abandoned when it became clear the RB12 wasn't getting on so well in the cool conditions. Alonso managed an even longer stint than Hamilton. Rosberg would have pulled off a one-stop without a late puncture, and third-placed Valtteri Bottas also delivered, as did Renault's Kevin Magnussen.

A two-stop strategy made sense for those starting behind on the grid and needing to be aggressive, but once Vettel jumped both Mercedes off the line it seemed odd that Ferrari wasn't prepared to adjust its plan to the evolving situation.

Arrivabene admitted Ferrari would have stuck to its guns even without the deployment of the VSC, which means it never even considered a one-stop, or simply waiting to see how Mercedes reacted to being on the back foot after the start.

And by making such an early first stop under VSC conditions - which no one other than Wehrlein did - Ferrari also compromised Vettel's tyre life for the latter part of the race, when he needed to attack.

It seems a lack of strategic flexibility cost Ferrari here, but Vettel refuted comparisons to Melbourne and defended his team after the race.

"I will always defend our strategies," he said. "Others favoured two stops [as well], with hindsight maybe they would do it different.

"Put yourself on the pitwall, to make that decision is tricky. I wouldn't criticise the team because the guys are on the money and reacting very well."

But ultimately this is now the third time this season Ferrari has failed to take a real chance to score a victory. The opportunities are presenting themselves, but the Scuderia has suddenly lost the ability to grasp them.

This was not the case in 2015, when there was relatively little to lose. Now the pressure to succeed is firmly back on, mistakes are coming frequently.

The good news for Ferrari is that it endured no repeat of the mysterious tyre problems it suffered in qualifying for the Spanish and Monaco Grands Prix. Vettel qualified within two tenths of pole in Canada, and Ferrari's latest turbo update seemed to help it maintain serious competitiveness in the race.

"The team reacted very well and we start to understand clearly how to find the right balance with the car," Arrivabene said. "The gap that we have from Mercedes is now short, but we need to work more to be able to win."

Winning is suddenly something Hamilton could be beginning to make a habit of again. After such a trying start to the season he's now won two grands prix on the spin, and slashed the championship gap to Rosberg from 43 points to just nine.

A title race that looked utterly under Rosberg's control suddenly seems far from a foregone conclusion.