Lewis Hamilton takes a cheeky jab at Fernando Alonso as he delves back into the 2007 Formula 1 season by pointing out the Canadian GP was the first time they had equal fuel that year, as he out-qualified the then-defending two-time champion by nearly half-a-second.
The Ferrari driver, then with McLaren, was stunning audiences as a rookie by recorded five podiums through his first five races, something unprecedented and unmatched since for a debutant, including a bold move to overtake his teammate in Australia in the opener.
Of those five podiums, four of them were second-places but his maiden win in the sport tantalisingly evaded him and remained elusive, until they arrived at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
A monstrous qualifying lap saw him drop 0.456 tenths on Alonso’s head, the man who had beaten Michael Schumacher just months prior, in what was a statement to McLaren and the world that he was in the Formula 1 title fight – and a personal highlight as Hamilton takes a jab at Alonso over that race in 2007.
“Obviously, my Grand Prix win here was pretty epic,” Hamilton told media, including Total-Motorsport.com. “I was just talking to my engineers – we just watched the qualifying from 2007, or my lap, for example.
“That was the race where… back then with refuelling, the two cars were often separated by a couple of laps of fuel. One car would get the lighter fuel and I’m sure in some teams it alternated.
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“And because Fernando was the world champion, he’d always get the lighter fuel. I was often carrying at least a tenth of fuel every time we went into qualifying – until this race. I remember arguing after Monaco that I wanted equal opportunity and equal chance, and they gave us equal fuel.
“Then I out-qualified him and won the race. It was one of those moments where you really have to listen to your intuition and fight for what you feel is right – and that was one of those high moments for me.”
It was particularly important because of refuelling, which required cars to complete qualifying with the fuel load they desired to start the race with. This typically saw drivers run different fuel levels, which carries a cost in terms of weight and thus overall lap time.
If teams wanted to avoid their drivers fighting and/or had a clear lead driver, the latter would start with the optimum fuel load to give him an advantage to secure track position – something Hamilton had already fallen to at the Monaco GP earlier in 2007.
Ultimately, it was the moment the 23-year-old proved to Ron Dennis that he was as fast as his teammate and deserved equal treatment to contend for the title, something remarkable considering the reputation of the champion from Austrias.
Ironically, rumours are that when Dennis had told the ex-Renault driver he was signing the rookie to partner him, Alonso questioned if he wanted to win the constructors’ championship, appearing to write off the man who eventually beat him in the standings.
How did Hamilton beat Alonso at the 2007 Canadian GP for his first Formula 1 victory?
After that excellent lap on Saturday, the glorious moment of Hamilton’s first victory followed the day later when he proved to be very aggressive on the run down to Turn 1 by holding his line and forcing Alonso to cut the corner.
The Brit then checked out, opening up a 5.5-second lead to Nick Heidfeld behind by Lap 8 and extending his advantage to around 19 seconds, before the BMW pitted on Lap 21 for extra fuel and the McLaren responded the next lap.
However, disaster almost struck on Lap 22 when the safety car was deployed after Adrian Sutil crashed his Spyker, allowing his rivals get the chance to claw some time back as the Mercedes bunched the field back up.
That included Alonso, but the defending champion had pitted too early and was eventually handed a 10-second stop-and-go penalty as his Sunday went from bad to worse, dropping him from net third down to second-last in the order by Lap 37.
Action resumed on Lap 26 and Hamilton wasted no time checking out, quickly dropping Heidfeld and his McLaren colleague. But the safety car was then quickly back out as Robert Kubica had his famously massive crash that wrecked his BMW, taking him out of the race.
Green flag conditions then returned on Lap 33 and Hamilton, once again, disappeared from view as the race resumed – leading by just shy of two seconds as the cars crossed the line on the safety car’s in-lap, showing the excellent jump he got.
Alonso, meanwhile, was working his way back up the order to try and salvage some points and had got to eighth by the time the safety car came out once again on Lap 51, for the third time in that race.
Racing resumed once again on Lap 54 and Hamilton, once again, nailed his restart to preserve his lead from any kind of threat behind. Alonso made another, third, mistake of the race in Turn 1 and then the safety car was back out at the end of that lap.
This time the Mercedes led the field around for six laps, as the rookie must have been frustrated with the stop-start nature of the race, but he kept his calm and executed the restart well once again.
This time, that’s how the order would stand until the chequered flag with no more interruptions as Hamilton realised a life-long dream by becoming a Grand Prix winner with the victory, the first of his career. 104 more have followed.
In the process, he grabbed the lead of the championship from the other side of the McLaren garage and proved he is the real deal with the excellent composure demonstrated to make no errors and survive four safety car restarts.
Alonso, now with Aston Martin, was eventually overtaken by Takuma Sato’s Super Aguri to finish seventh and 22 seconds behind his teammate, as the two-time champion left Canada scratching his head as to what went wrong.
