Grid Crasher mulls over Montreal

Five winners:

1. Robert Kubica His maiden F1 win had been coming all season, although we doubt he’d have beaten either Raikkonen or Hamilton in a straight fight. But the handful of “on-it” laps when he increased his lead over team-mate Nick Heidfeld to more than 20 seconds - a gap that enabled the Pole to make his second pit-stop without losing the lead - were blistering. He now leads the championship, and if all around him continue to lose their heads, he could even win it.

2. Nick Heidfeld As Martin Brundle pointed out during ITV’s coverage, Heidfeld appeared to be pissed off with second place, because BMW had been threatening to win for ages; when they did, it was Kubica who reaped the reward, not him. Still, second place was a welcome return to form for the under-pressure German.

3. Timo Glock Has been dire all season, but finally showed why Toyota have stuck by him. A fine performance to finish fourth.

4. David Coulthard Managed to keep his car on the tarmac, for once. Like Glock, the Scot may have salvaged his F1 career with this drive.

5. Jarno Trulli His worst qualifying performance of the season, but drove an excellent race to finish sixth. Should have secured fifth, until a late error by team-mate Glock allowed Felipe Massa to sneak ahead of him.

And five losers:

1. Lewis Hamilton After the highs of Monaco, Canada was an embarrassing, chastening comedown. He should have been more aware in the pit lane, although McLaren fans will rightly point out that Raikkonen should have lined up behind Kubica, not alongside him - a move that gave Hamilton nowhere to go. And Hamilton’s ten-place grid penalty for France is very harsh, especially considering that Kimi drove into the back of Adrian Sutil in Monaco and was not penalised. On the plus side, at least Hamilton took out his biggest rival.

2. Kimi Raikkonen The world champ took out Heikki Kovalainen in Turkey and Sutil in Monaco, so Kimi’s bad luck yesterday was fairly karmic. As we mentioned above, in one way Raikkonen could blame himself, for racing Kubica in the pit lane. We had to admire his restraint after the accident; more hot-blooded drivers might have taken a swing at Hamilton.

3. Sebastien Bourdais Knows the Montreal circuit well from his Champ Car days, but you wouldn’t know it from his lame performance over the weekend. Outperformed by his team-mate, Sebastian Vettel, again. “This was the worst race ever for me, the worst weekend of my entire career,” said Bourdais after the race.

4. Nelsinho Piquet Still without a point to his name. Living on borrowed time.

5. The Montreal circuit Patched up by “pikeys”. It mustn’t happen again. Wee Bernie Ecclestone must be fuming. The drivers weren’t too happy either.