2016 F1: Lewis Hamilton wins Canadian GP

Lewis Hamilton's win at the 2016 Canadian Grand Prix helps him cut down Nico Rosberg's lead in the championship standings

Back-to-back victories in the 2016 Formula 1 world championship, first at Monaco, and now at Canada, have helped Lewis Hamilton in his pursuit of the drivers' championship title. While team-mate Nico Rosberg still retains the lead in the championship, with 116 points, Hamilton now has 107 points, just nine less than his Mercedes team-mate.

The Canadian GP started with Hamilton on pole, his fifth at Canada, just one shy of Michael Schumacher's record. However it was Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, who rocketed straight into the race lead, moving up from third on the grid, as the two Mercedes AMG F1s didn't manage as good a start. In fact Hamilton would later describe his start at Montreal as "horrible".

But when a Virtual Safety Car situation cropped up in the early stages of the race, Hamilton managed to move back into the race lead, as Ferrari decided to bring Vettel into the pits for super-soft tyres.

It was a disastrous race for his team-mate however. Rosberg was forced wide on the first corner and ended up down in ninth place. From there, the driver managed to make his way back up the order. However his efforts were washed away first due to a slow puncture, that necessitated an additional pitstop. And then when he tried to overtake Max Verstappen for fourth place, Rosberg spun, recovered and finished a lacklustre fifth.

While Vettel drove well to finish second, despite the strategy error that robbed him of the race lead, it was a strong performance from Valtteri Bottas who finished in third place for Williams. Red Bull's Max Verstappen finished fourth, having avoided Rosberg's assault for track position, while Rosberg had to settle for fifth place, which earned him ten points.

Kimi Raikkonen had to settle for sixth place. While Daniel Ricciardo could do no better than seventh place. Force India's Nico Hulkenberg settled for eighth place, having started the race ninth. While Carlos Sainz Jr, who started from 20th place due to a gearbox change after his crash in qualifying, worked his way up the order to finish ninth. Tenth place went to Force India's Sergio Perez.