The talk pre-race had revolved around the quality of the Montreal track, which had broken up so alarmingly during the qualifying session on Saturday. In the end, although the problem manifested itself again during the race, causing slippery conditions for plenty of drivers, the whole issue became largely forgotten in a race filled with controversy and action.
Not that you'd have guessed what was to transpire from the start, as the front three got comfortably away at the start, with pole man Lewis Hamilton quickly establishing a lead over Kubica's BMW and Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari. Nico Rosberg fought past Fernando Alonso through the first corner complex on the opening lap to jump up to 4th, with Felipe Massa and Heikki Kovalainen holding station in the second Ferrari and McLaren behind. Rubens Barrichello leapt from 9th to 7th, and for the early stages, he backed the rest of the field up in a role which F1 has been missing since Jarno Trulli stopped doing it.
The early stages saw plenty of scrapping, with Nick Heidfeld managing to break the Barrichello train at the hairpin on lap 5, while Nelson Piquet Jr made an effort to rekindle his faltered career with decent passes on the two Toyotas.
On lap 14, the race suffered it's first retirement as Adrian Sutil pulled off the track with a mechanical problem in his Force India. It was this that eventually sparked the race-changing chaos, despite the incident initially only covered with yellow flags, the safety car was eventually called for after the brake discs of the car caught fire.
As the pits finally opened (not without Jenson Button falling victim to the "closed pits" rules), most of the field poured in for their first stops. Of the leaders, Robert Kubica managed to get the jump on both Raikkonen and Hamilton, but with the safety car train coming past the pits, the red light was on at the end of the lane, forcing Kubica and Raikkonen to queue up. Unfortunately, Hamilton didn't notice or didn't care that the red light was showing, and he drove straight into the back of the Ferrari. Whatever myopic affliction Hamilton suffered seemed to be contagious, as Nico Rosberg then ran into the back of Hamilton as well.
The ridiculous pileup at the end of the pit lane eliminated Hamilton and Raikkonen, with the Finn showing impressive self-control not to wallop the feckless Hamilton as the pair of them walked away. Rosberg was more lucky, and resumed in the race after a nose cone change, but his chance of a decent points haul was gone, a second successive excellent qualifying performance destroyed by a terrible race performance.
As the dust settled around the pits and the safety car pulled in, Heidfeld now led away, from Barrichello, Nakajima's Williams and the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and David Coulthard, with Kubica leading the remaining cars that had pitted under the safety car back in 10th place, with Alonso just behind. Heidfeld spent the next few laps extending a decent lead, with Barrichello continuing to frustrate the rest of the runners behind him, and made a strategic and lengthy single stop on lap 29, still emerging ahead of Kubica.
Then, a rather choreographed-looking move released Kubica from his heavy team mate and the race was on, Kubica working his way to clear track at the front as the remainder of the one stoppers pitted, and then firing in a series of quick laps to allow him to emerge from his final pit stop clear of Ickle. And so the order remained to the flag, not only the first win for BMW Sauber, but a maximum points haul to boot, elevating the team to a mere three points behind Ferrari in the constructors standings.
Behind the Beemers, David Coulthard found himself enjoying a bit of good fortune for once, making up places after his stop and benefiting from Alonso spinning into retirement to claim his first podium since the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix. His team mate Mark Webber probably should have been well into the points as well, recovering from his spin in qualifying, but he, along with Kovalainen, Massa and Button, had to make second pit stops later on in the race, which dropped the Aussie well out of contention.
Massa recovered from his second stop with great aplomb, passing Kovalainen and Barrichello in a single move at the hairpin, before hunting down the Toyota of Jarno Trulli and passing him as well. He couldn't find a way past Timo Glock in the other Toyota, who kept his nose clean to take 4th at the flag, from Massa and Trulli, and his first ever F1 points to boot.
Barrichello's incident-packed race, where he played a rather slow and often heavy Honda fending off a gaggle of cars, hung on to 7th in the end, just ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Heikki Kovalainen, who finished outside of the points, meaning McLaren failed to score any points at all. Nico Rosberg rounded out the top ten finishers, with only Button, Webber and Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais finishing as well.
As BMW and Kubica celebrated on the podium, the recriminations from Hamilton's mistake went on elsewhere. Raikkonen was understandably unhappy to have been eliminated just as his pace had improved after a slowish start, to say nothing of the fact that he'd leapt ahead of Hamilton in the pits, while a sour-faced Hamilton offered apologies. Some felt that it was simply a matter of sporting karma, given the similar incident in Monaco where Raikkonen had ruined Adrian Sutil's wonder run, but the circumstances were somewhat different, and the stewards often take a dim view of pit lane infractions.
As it turned out, both Hamilton and Rosberg will receive 10 place grid penalties in the next race at Magny-Cours for their sins, meaning that the moment of madness looks to have cost Hamilton an awful lot more than the points he should have earned here.
As it stands then, we have a new leader of the championship after seven events. Who would have predicted that Robert Kubica would be leading the standings at this point in the season? And indeed, who would be brave enough to consider that the lanky Pole may be able to go all the way this year and actually snatch the title?
Stranger things have happened. Take this race, for example...
| Race Result after 70 Laps | ||||
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time/Reason | Pts |
| 1 | Robert Kubica | BMW Sauber | 1:36:24.447 | 10 |
| 2 | Nick Heidfeld | BMW Sauber | +16.495 | 8 |
| 3 | David Coulthard | Red Bull - Renault | +23.352 | 6 |
| 4 | Timo Glock | Toyota | +42.627 | 5 |
| 5 | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | +43.934 | 4 |
| 6 | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | +47.775 | 3 |
| 7 | Rubens Barrichello | Honda | +53.537 | 2 |
| 8 | Sebastian Vettel | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | +54.120 | 1 |
| 9 | Heikki Kovalainen | McLaren - Mercedes | +54.433 | |
| 10 | Nico Rosberg | Williams - Toyota | +57.749 | |
| 11 | Jenson Button | Honda | +1:07.540 | |
| 12 | Mark Webber | Red Bull - Renault | +1:11.229 | |
| 13 | Sebastien Bourdais | Toro Rosso - Ferrari | +1 Lap | |
| R | Giancarlo Fisichella | Force India - Ferrari | Spinny | |
| R | Kazuki Nakajima | Williams - Toyota | Crashy | |
| R | Fernando Alonso | Renault | Crashy | |
| R | Nelson Piquet Jr | Renault | Brakey Breaky | |
| R | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren - Mercedes | Funny | |
| R | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | Funny | |
| R | Adrian Sutil | Force India - Ferrari | Mechanichy |
Drivers Championship Standings -
1 Kubica 42pts, 2 Hamilton, Massa 38pts, 4 Raikkonen 35pts, 5 Heidfeld 28pts, 6 Kovalainen, Webber 15pts, 8 Trulli 12pts, 9 Alonso 9pts, 10 Rosberg 8pts, 11 Nakajima 7pts, 12 Coulthard 6pts, 13 Glock, Vettel, Barrichello 5pts, 16 Button 3pts, 17 Bourdais 2pts.
Constructors Championship Standings -
1 Ferrari 73pts, 2 BMW 70pts, 3 McLaren 53pts, 4 Red Bull 21pts, 5 Toyota 17pts, 6 Williams 15pts, 7 Renault 9pts, 8 Honda 8pts, 9 Toro Rosso 7pts.
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