McLaren roll a double

Lewis Hamilton led the second McLaren one-two on the trot at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after an inspired tyre strategy. The Englishman's 13th career victory came at the track where he recorded his first, in 2007. "I can dial my car right in here," he said, "I love this place."

It's fitting that a circuit named after Quebec's favourite son, Villeneuve, should have a reputation for thrilling, crazy races and Sunday delivered, though the safety car never made an appearance.

Lewis started in pole position, but the lead changed five times thanks to different tyre strategies. "It was a tremendous weekend. One of the toughest races so far this year."

Canada's tarmac was a killer for tyres, the soft compound graining after just five laps. Teams must use at least one set of softs and one set of hards during the race. "It wasn't a race about being flat out every lap, we had to really think about it," said smooth-driving Jenson Button. Both McLarens chose to start on the soft option, which meant Button was in the pits on lap five and Hamilton the lap after. Then they had to fight back.



Fernando Alonso had the same strategy. He and Hamilton pitted and exited side-by-side, Alonso taking position as the pair came onto the track. "It was lap seven and there was still a long way to go," said Alonso who relished this wheel-to-wheel fight, but was ultimately bitter that heavy traffic would cost him victory. Both McLarens squeezed past his Ferrari when he was wrong-footed by backmarkers, dropping him to third. "Everybody saw we had the pace to win. Traffic can help you, and it can hurt you," he said stoically. "The backmarkers cost us ten points today."

Sebastian Vettel, whose tyre choice was hard-soft-hard was plagued with gearbox problems during the race but still managed fourth. In the closing laps he radioed his engineer to ask what the fastest lap was. "Don't even ask," came the reply.

Webber charged hard on his prime compound tyres, but his strategy was outfoxed by the opposition. Taking a late third stop for soft tyres slid him down to fifth.

The Australian has been toppled from the top of the leaderboard for now, with McLaren posting their third one-two of the season. Hamilton now leads on 109 points, ahead of Button on 106 and Webber on 103. And with Alonso and Vettel just a whisker away, the championship is wide open.

Michael Schumacher finished 11th after a dramatic race which saw him cut across the grass and trade paint with other cars on several occasions, including last lap contact with Tonio Liuzzi and a move which dislodged Felipe Massa's front wing, which led to an investigation by FIA stewards. We just received notice that no action has been taken. "The back end of Michael's car is like the back end of a donkey," joked one commentator.