Vettel takes 50th victory and lead

Vettel takes 50th victory and lead

MONTREAL : Sebastian Vettel capped an emotional weekend for Ferrari with a clinical pole-to-flag win at the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday to retake the lead in the Formula One world championship from Mercedes’s Lewis Hamilton by a single point. The victory was the 50th of the German’s career and left him on 121 points to Hamilton’s 120 after seven races, with the Briton coming home fifth. In a bizarre ending to the race, and to Vettel’s consternation, the chequered flag was waved a lap early by model Winnie Harlow. “Tell them not to wave the flag when it’s not done,” the Ferrari driver said over the radio. The victory put Ferrari back on top in Canada for the first time since seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher claimed the last of his record seven wins on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 2004. Putting Ferrari on pole in Montreal for the first time since 2001 with a track record time, Vettel was never challenged as he charged home seven seconds clear of Mercedes’s Valtteri Bottas. It was the German’s third win of the season and second in Canada, the first coming in 2013 with Red Bull.

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