Hamilton Knocks Himself Out of Canadian GP
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Jun 08, 2008
McLaren
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton won’t win this year’s Canadian Grand Prix. He rear-ended Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen on the exit of pit road, forcing him to retire from this race.
Hamilton, the defending race winner, started on the pole for the second straight year at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and led until the safety car came out and the leaders pitted on lap 19 of the 70-lap race. That followed Adrian Sutil parking his Force India entry on the grass alongside the track.
But having opened up a sizeable gap of around six seconds, the safety car was brought out to allow marshals to remove the Force India car of Adrian Sutil which had caught fire after being retired at the side of the track.
The field then bunched up behind the safety car, with most of the front-runners seizing on the opportunity under yellow flags to dive into the pits for new tyres and Hamilton appeared to panic when he saw his race lead vanishing as Robert Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen both made their exit from their respective garages ahead of him. The Ferrari and BMW Sauber drivers both then stopped at a red light, awaiting the all-clear to rejoin the track from pitlane, a signal that a flustered Hamilton clearly did not see as he ploughed into the back of Raikkonen’s car, removing both drivers from the race.
