DHL FASTEST PIT STOP AWARD

Ferrari’s usual top-class performance brings them the DHL Fastest Pit Stop but Lewis Hamilton is out of luck

Ferrari execute the DHL Fastest Pit Stop for the eighth time in ten races. Their mechanics may be the best, but the team find themselves struggling out on track, and just not just with the car as they suffer more bad luck. And so, once again in Canada, speedy tire changes are not enough to help Lewis Hamilton.

But on the other hand, Hamilton had been having a great weekend prior to the race. Practice had gone smoothly at long last and the minor mishaps and problems which had often served to slow him down on previous weekends were no more. As a result, he was able to secure fifth place on the grid in qualifying.

In the race, he stayed right behind the McLaren of Oscar Piastri for some twelve laps and looked well placed to take advantage of his pit crew’s amazingly quick pit stops and the undercut. But before he could even begin to head for the pit lane, he hit a groundhog running across the track just before the hairpin, sustaining damage to the car’s underbody.

The car was then far too slow following that very unlucky event. A 2.37-second pit stop on lap 15 and then a 2.08 on lap 45 made no difference. Hamilton had to finish the race well out of contention in P6. He told us what he thought post race: “I think if everything was perfect, if we had done everything right, maybe it would have been fourth. Unfortunately, it was only the pit stops.”

A very unhappy Hamilton continued to give vent to his feelings: “I heard I hit a groundhog, so that’s devastating. That’s never happened to me here before. But the floor, basically the right side, has a hole in it and all the vanes are all gone. Then, we had a brake issue halfway through as well. I’m grateful that I could just finish, particularly with the brake issue. I had to bag those points.”