Hamilton claims maiden Formula 1 triumph

LEWIS Hamilton claimed his first Formula 1 victory at just the sixth attempt in an incident-packed Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal yesterday.

With five podium positions in his first five races, Hamilton made the next step in his sensational rookie season by claiming the first pole position of his short career on Saturday at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve.

Yesterday, the Briton led from green light to chequered flag to regain the lead in the World Drivers Championship from McLaren team-mate and reigning world champion Fernando Alonso.

Alonso finished seventh, as McLaren's dominance shown at Monaco in the previous race and in practice and qualifying was broken. Germany's Nick Heidfeld claimed second place for BMW Sauber, with Alexander Wurz of Williams in third.

Yet as Hamilton drove to success there was drama in his rear-view mirrors throughout the 70 laps. Poland's Robert Kubica was involved in an horrific crash in his BMW Sauber, Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella were both thrown out of the race, while the safety car was as busy as the F1 machines.

Hamilton, accused earlier in the week of over-aggression off the grid by former world champion Jacques Villeneuve, got the perfect start from his first pole position.

The 22-year-old held his lead as Heidfeld stole a march on Alonso and tried to run down the inside of the young Briton heading into turn one.

Alonso added the drama this time, running wide at the first turn and cutting across Hamilton to return to the track before rejoining the race in third behind Heidfeld.

Jenson Button saw his problems with the Honda this season reach disastrous levels when he was left on the grid, pushed to the pit lane by marshals before finally giving up hope of getting into the race when his mechanics failed to start his car as his rivals started lap two. Honda later cited transmission failure as the cause of Button's demise.

All the time, Hamilton was building his lead at the front, up to 10.3 seconds on Heidfeld by lap 14 with Alonso losing ground as he once again went off the track at turn one - and again on lap 19.

Hamilton went into the pits on lap 22, ceding the lead briefly to Massa, but then the safety car came onto the track as Spyker's Adrian Sutil made heavy contact with a wall and came to a stop on the kerb unable to reach a run-off area.

When the pit lane re-opened with the yellow flag still out, Massa led the charge into the pits, leaving Hamilton back in front with Heidfeld second and Alonso third.

The safety car was barely back in the pit lane however, when it was redeployed after an horrific crash for Kubica as he headed towards the L'Epingle hairpin on lap 28.

The Polish driver appeared to clip the Toyota of Jarno Trulli which sent his own car airborne and ploughing nose first into a wall before barrel-rolling across the track and sliding on the car's side along the opposite wall.

There were very nervous moments as Kubica was attended to in his car, after a crash which sent vast amounts of debris from the BMW Sauber flying across the track.

As the Pole was being extracted from his car and taken to the track medical centre, stewards were handing out 10-second stop/go penalties to both Alonso and Rosberg for entering the pit lane as the safety car was on the track.

When the race finally got under way again on lap 33, Hamilton was left with the task of rebuilding his lead over Heidfeld.

Incidents continued aplenty as Rosberg and Trulli spun out, before Scotland's David Coulthard suffered his fourth retirement of the season on lap 38.

Anthony Davidson was the last driver into the pits for the first time but he caught his team napping as he came to a halt outside his garage with no mechanics in sight.

The Super Aguri crew eventually scrambled to attend to their lonely driver, who emerged at the rear of the 17 remaining cars.

Kubica, meanwhile, was being airlifted by helicopter to Montreal's Sacre Coeur hospital for further investigations, with a BMW Sauber spokesman claiming the driver was "okay and talking to doctors".

Tonio Luizzi brushed a wall to end his race and, with the safety car back out, Trulli crashed his Toyota into a safety barrier, just as he was re-entering the race from a pit stop.

That left just 12 cars left in the race with 10 laps remaining.

Thankfully for Hamilton, they were relatively uneventful and the British rookie took his first chequered flag to thunderous applause from the sell-out crowd and the delight of his McLaren crew.