The Start of Something Big

Lewis Hamilton won his first Grand Prix in Canada on Sunday. What odds now on a rookie world champion? By MARK HUGHES

Anthony Davidson called the race 'Groundhog Day', a clever play on words that referred to four safety cars and one of the little furry creatures that ruined his race by getting embedded in his front wing. Lewis Hamilton would probably happily go through a repeat of Sunday time after time.

It was an incident-packed day that imprinted many images - not least that of Robert Kubica's terrifying accident - a day that ruined many strategies and made many others, but through it all was a thread of consistent perfection at the head of the field.

Only one guy was controlling his own destiny regardless of safety cars, a yellow-helmeted study in millimetre-perfection on a track that punishes error. On a weekend when Ferrari didn't even have the second fastest car - that was the BMW - the spectre of an exclusively McLaren-Mercedes fight for the title appears on the horizon.

And if that's the case, Hamilton's dazzling debut victory, in combination with an error-filled performance from Fernando Alonso, brings a yet more dizzying prospect into focus: that Hamilton, eight points clear at the top of the table, could win a world championship in his rookie season.

It's been mentioned only in passing before, but now it's looking like a serious possibility. It couldn't happen, surely? Don't bet against it. If it's rookie errors that are supposedly going to prevent that, how come he made not one on a track littered with marbles, contained by concrete walls? Lewis is redefining what is possible and on last weekend's performance anything seems within his grasp.

Actually, he did make one error: he got his revs slightly wrong at the start. Yet ironically that probably ensured his taking the lead, for it triggered a choreography between him, Nick Heidfeld and Alonso that forced Fernando into a crucial mistake.

"I didn't get a great start," Lewis admitted. "We have certain revs that we're supposed to have at the start and at first I was over it, then I was under it - and the lights changed."

Consequently Heidfeld's BMW was all over him like a rash, feigning for the inside, then when that move was blocked, switching to the outside - where Alonso already was. If Alonso was to win this race, he could not afford to get stuck behind Heidfeld while Hamilton escaped.

This, combined with the BMW's faster start and the interlinked left-right opening turns, funnelled Alonso into staying outside Heidfeld into the left. But to translate this to the inside for the right, you need to be committed.

There was no lack of commitment, but a little too much speed for the not-yet-warm tyres and Alonso was forced to take to the grass, clattering over the kerbs as he rejoined while Hamilton and Heidfeld shot by.

It was the moment the race was won. All Hamilton needed to do now was keep it out of the walls and rely on his team to make the right calls to cover any safety cars. Driving beautifully, Hamilton had more than 11 seconds on Heidfeld by the 15th lap - the lap on which Alonso again got onto the turn-one grass, pushing hard to stay on terms with the BMW.

His rear tyres were graining - but then so were everyone's. Alonso got straight back in the groove, with what was by then a narrow advantage over Felipe Massa's Ferrari.

Then four laps later, he did it again. This time Massa passed him. Massa had got off the start well from the clean side - better than team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, one place ahead on the grid but therefore on the dirty side.

Side-by-side ran the Ferraris through the first turn, with Raikkonen having to take a little grass. Kimi had to wait until he was fully back on the track before braking - unfortunately just as Massa was braking to avoid the rejoining Alonso in front of him.

Raikkonen hit his team-mate lightly up the back, the check on his momentum making him easy meat for Nico Rosberg's Williams as they exited the corner.

From fourth down to sixth in a few hundred yards, Raikkonen's afternoon was off to a difficult beginning. Furthermore, the contact had taken a chunk out of one of Kimi's endplates, compromising his performance for the rest of the stint.

In the lightest-fuelled car, Heidfeld was in at the end of lap 20, having put in a blistering sequence of laps that clawed back a little time to Hamilton who, despite being fuelled for another four laps, was immediately called in.

This was simply to cover the BMW, ensuring they didn't get caught out by a safety car now that such an occurrence costs you time as the pit lane doesn't open until everyone is in line. He was fuelled to run significantly longer than Heidfeld to the second stops and exited second only to the yet-to-stop Massa, with Heidfeld back in fifth.

At just this moment Adrian Sutil crashed his Spyker into the notorious turn-four wall. With no convenient parking bay nearby, the safety car everyone has been worrying about all year (because of the new regulations) was triggered.

This was lap 23 - an agonising number for Alonso and Rosberg. For this was the lap on which they were supposed to be making their first fuel stops. But under the new regs they weren't allowed to, because the pit lane was now declared closed until everyone was lined up in the correct order.

Both the McLaren and the Williams were forced to come in regardless and run the risk of a penalty - as the alternative was to run out of fuel. In due course came the news that they each had to serve a 10sec stop/go. As the pitlane was declared open there was a rush to get in there - with Massa heading the charge.

Raikkonen pitted at this time too, thereby ensuring he had to be stacked, sitting stationary while Massa was attended to, meaning he was jumped by fellow pitters Giancarlo Fisichella - whose Renault had spent the first stint just adrift of the Rosberg/Raikkonen struggle - and Robert Kubica's BMW, which had been running just behind Fisi once he'd avoided the spinning Red Bull of Mark Webber who'd tried to pass around the outside of turn one on the fourth lap.

Now came the matter of the pitted cars leaving the pits. The procedure here is a little convoluted, but is as follows. Once the safety car has passed a 'safety car line' - a timing beam which in this case is a few metres before the final chicane - the traffic lights at the pitlane exit go red, preventing anyone from simply driving through the pitlane to pass the safety car.

They then stay red until the safety car passes another beam further into the lap. Massa clearly hadn't grasped this in the heat of the moment and even though the train had gone through the first two corners and was headed up to the first chicane, the lights were still red as he left the pits.

Kubica, having jumped Fisichella in the drag race from the garage, then stopped at the lights. Fisichella, concentrating on his race with Kubica, assumed the BMW had a problem and jinked past to rejoin. So Massa and Fisi had both joined illegally. We awaited their penalty.

Kubica rejoined as the lights went green, along with Raikkonen. Upon the resumption of racing on lap 26, Hamilton gained himself a massive advantage over Heidfeld, who seemed uninterested in trying to race the leader and more focused on keeping Alonso behind him.

Rosberg was next, with the heavily fuelled and yet-to-stop Honda of Rubens Barrichello in fifth. Kubica had rejoined 14th, but had been passed by Jarno Trulli's Toyota on the out-lap. Determined to make amends, Kubica was launching a bid to repass into the hairpin.

Into the preceding left-hand kink - taken flat-chat in seventh gear - Trulli could see the BMW gaining fast. He recalled: "I saw him much quicker and I gave him the left-hand side. I expected him to come past me there. The last I saw of him he was in my left mirror. Then I felt a touch on my right rear."

Kubica had no recollection of the ensuing humungous accident, but all the indications are that he second-guessed that Trulli was going to take the left line and so moved to the right - only to find that was the way Trulli was moving.

Once onto the marbles at that speed, he was on a disaster course. The car launched itself over the kerb, the air got beneath it and it was only beginning its descent when it hit the metal barrier three-quarter-on at an estimated 170mph.

Its right wheels were plucked off and sent bouncing across the track directly into the path of the cars behind, and as the car bounced onto the grass its front axle dug in, rolling the car over one and a half times before hitting the barrier on the opposite side.

Kubica was apparently unconscious from the initial impact and so as the car rolled, his untensed neck allowed his head to flop alarmingly. At this moment, most feared the worst. Then, unbelievably, even before the marshals had reached him, we saw him moving his fingers.

Even more unbelievably we later got word from the hospital that he was essentially unharmed. This was easily the biggest non-injury accident in the sport's history and a fantastic testament to the FIA's crash test regulations and the HANS device.

Naturally the accident triggered a second safety car - with David Coulthard's later-to-retire Red Bull and Heikki Kovalainen's Renault pitting for their first stops just before the pit lane was closed.

The stop/go penalties of Alonso and Rosberg had been announced by this time, but such penalties are not allowed to be taken under the safety car. They had to wait until after racing had resumed at the end of lap 33.

Hamilton again pulled out a huge advantage over Heidfeld and set about building up his lead all over again. Alonso gave chase for a lap before coming in to serve his penalty along with Rosberg. They rejoined 13th and 16th respectively.

All this brought the yet-to-stop cars of Anthony Davidson and Ralf Schumacher up to a distant third and fourth places. No sooner had Anthony got used to the idea of running there than he felt his Super Aguri behaving very strangely.

"The front wheels began locking badly. It happened at the hairpin, then at the chicane I could barely get the thing stopped. So at the last moment I decided to pit. I called over the radio I was coming in but as we're the first garage I was virtually there already!"

The crew weren't ready but quickly emerged from the garage. What they found were the remains of a groundhog - a regular Montreal hazard - lodged in the front wing. He later had to pit again to have the wing replaced entirely, dropping him from contention.

Ralf kept going until lap 40 on his one-stop strategy, this bringing Webber up to third. Alonso was charging along trying to make amends for his stop/go, going through the midfield pack. After passing Kovalainen for eighth he quickly closed on Raikkonen's earlier-delayed Ferrari.

Fernando was the fastest man on the track at this point, setting a new fastest lap on the 45th lap, and breaking it the very next time. Up front Hamilton was lapping only a couple of tenths slower and had his lead over Heidfeld out to almost 7sec as Nick made his second stop.

Again, McLaren covered the BMW by bringing Hamilton in immediately afterwards even though he still had around six laps worth of fuel. He rejoined still leading, with the out-of-synch Webber between him and Heidfeld, and Massa in fourth from Takuma Sato's out-of-synch Super Aguri, which had passed Raikkonen as Kimi went straight on at the hairpin.

Alonso was still chasing the Ferrari, but on the 50th lap he hit the first-chicane kerb very hard indeed, sending the McLaren bouncing across the track and damaging its floor in the process. It was never a fast car thereafter and Alonso's attack was over. From now on he'd be defending. He made five times as many mistakes on Sunday as he has in the previous two years!

At the same time a third safety car period was triggered - this time to clear up the remains of the Spyker front wing of Christijan Albers who had crunched it against the turn-eight wall. The silver Merc circulated for four laps, during which time Massa and Fisichella were black-flagged for their earlier pitlane red-light infractions.

As Sato approached the final chicane he noticed the pit entry lane was still open, even though the safety car had been deployed. In a quick-thinking instant he brought it in unannounced, the plan being to use the safety car period to get the much slower supersoft tyres you're obliged to run onto the car, then pit again when the pitlane was declared open to go back to the faster softs. This he did, losing only a few places.

It also ensured he was on the fast tyres for the remaining distance when most others were on the slower ones. When the pitlane was declared open, Raikkonen, Alonso, Schumacher and Sato all made their stops.

Curiously neither Webber nor Barrichello - running in out-of-synch second and fourth places respectively - did. Alonso managed to outdrag Raikkonen out of the pitlane and when racing resumed on lap 54, only then did Webber pit, leaving the order as Hamilton, Heidfeld, Barrichello, Alex Wurz's Williams, Tonio Liuzzi's Toro Rosso, Kovalainen, Alonso and Raikkonen.

Alonso then made yet another turn-one over-commitment and half-spun, allowing Raikkonen - and briefly Schumacher - to repass.

Wurz was on a one-stopper. Under normal circumstances having to run a very long second stint on the very delicate supersofts - which grained terribly - would have been a disaster. But the way the safety car cards fell worked in his favour, and he did a steady job on a day when many made errors.

This was even more noteworthy given that a chunk of his rear wing endplate was missing after being assaulted by Scott Speed early in the race. He moved up to third when Barrichello made his final stop and with the graining period now over, the Williams was looking strong in the late stages.

Similarly, Kovalainen had recovered well from the back thanks to good strategy and an error-free drive. No sooner had the race restarted when Liuzzi hit 'champions' wall' exiting the final chicane, this triggering a fourth safety car.

On the restart Hamilton again pulled effortlessly away from Heidfeld. At the same time Alonso repassed Ralf. Sato - on his fast, hard tyres because of his earlier inspired unscheduled pitstop - was on a charge and soon bearing down fast on Ralf's seventh place. He took it from him with a committed move around the outside into the final chicane.

Next in his sights: Alonso's McLaren! The supersofts were graining hugely and Sato simply had way more grip - and wasn't shy of using it. Just two laps after going by Schumacher, he did much the same to Alonso in the same place for sixth. It brought the crowd to its feet cheering.

Similarly, Wurz was flying in the late stages, gaining hand over fist on Heidfeld. Although Alex was on the supersofts, he'd been on them for 30 laps and their graining period was over. In the end, he ran out of laps and crossed the line just 1sec behind the well-driven BMW.

Hamilton by this time was already on his slow-down lap, punching the air with delight, a boyhood dream that just keeps getting better and better.

What next? Surely, there's only one thing left to achieve...