Racing | Formula 1 | 2011 Canadian Grand Prix — Button Wins After Falling to Last at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve

Rainwater sheeted across Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve on 12 June 2011. Formula 1 started the Canadian Grand Prix behind the safety car, and worsening conditions later stopped the race for more than two hours.

Jenson Button had qualified seventh for McLaren Mercedes. Early in the race he made contact with teammate Lewis Hamilton, then served a drive-through penalty for speeding behind the safety car. After the restart, contact with Fernando Alonso left Button with a puncture and dropped him to 21st and last.

From there, Button moved forward as the surface dried. He made six pit stops in total, including the drive-through, chose slick tyres on lap 51, and passed Mark Webber and Michael Schumacher before closing on Sebastian Vettel. Button also set the race’s fastest lap, 1:16.956 on lap 69.

Vettel began the final lap 0.9 seconds ahead. Under pressure, he slid off the drying line at Turn 6, and Button passed to lead the only lap he needed. After 70 laps, Button won in 4:04:39.537, 2.709 seconds ahead of Vettel; Webber completed the podium, with Schumacher fourth and Vitaly Petrov fifth.

The elapsed time made this the longest race in Formula 1 history. The stewards took no further action over Button’s collisions with Hamilton and Alonso, judging that neither incident warranted a penalty. Narain Karthikeyan received a post-race 20-second penalty for cutting a chicane and gaining an advantage, dropping from 14th to 17th; the podium remained unchanged.

The pin marks the pit and start-finish straight where Button completed the victory. The race used the 4.361 km, 14-turn, clockwise Grand Prix configuration introduced in 2002 on Île Notre-Dame in Montréal.

Sources: Formula 1 official race result, starting grid, pit-stop summary and fastest laps; Formula 1’s Canada 2011 retrospective; Nigel Roebuck’s contemporary Motor Sport race report and Motor Sport’s event record; contemporary stewarding reports. Image: Will Pittenger and cBuckley, “Circuit Gilles Villeneuve,” Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; the 2010 route diagram has been flattened onto a white background for legibility without altering the track geometry.