As it happened: Canada 2014 extended weekend coverage

• 18:58

  The European leg of the F1 season had only just got underway but the paddock have crossed the waters once more, heading to Canada for this weekend's racing action.

• 18:59

  Where we have been so focused on the inter-team battles going on (one in particular), the build up to the Canadian Grand Prix has got us thinking about the weather again.

• 18:59

  It's rain, rain, rain at the moment, with more scheduled for the weekend. Will we see the wet tyres make an appearance yet again?

• 20:10

  So far, the season has been all about Mercedes, and we're still waiting to see if anyone can catch them up. Red Bull are tempering their expectations with Christian Horner saying: "You go from one extreme to the other: Monaco is all about handling characteristics, the next event is straightline performance, so it is going to be very interesting to see how we fare against the Mercedes- powered teams in Montreal."

• 20:11

  And Fernando Alonso is feeling particularly downbeat about the way the season is panning out, although doing his best to show the optimistic face we've grown used to: "We bring new parts basically to every race so far this year. Some of them worked fine, some of them didn't work, so we'll just try to make the most of the new parts in Canada, try to have a good Friday and move a little bit closer to the podium."

• 20:12

  

  It's hard to make out, but that's Max Chilton trying his hand at a spot of indoor skydiving for a Marussia/Sky Sports piece. The Canada PR machine is on maximum this week!

• 20:33

  First thing on our agenda is the handy Race Information thread - check out the Canada edition for info on tyres, weather (rain!), stewards, track data and more.

• 21:22

  Marcus Ericsson has been soaking up some of the Montreal culture, with a tour of an ice hockey rink. By an awesome (or unlucky) coincidence, Pamela and friends were just there a little earlier. It's a small world when you're following F1 around!

• 19:46

  During the press conference today, Kamui Kobayashi revealed how hard it was for Caterham to miss out on that first backmarker point: "For us the Monaco result was a bit of a pain but at least we know Marussia made a great step from their updates so we have to say it’s a well done job. I think what happened in Monaco was a little bit… strange but at least we checked with the FIA and that’s through, so we have nothing to say. But at least we have some upgrades for that first point."

• 19:47

  Lewis is fired up for the weekend, with a preview to the race on his own website: "Montreal is one of my favourite weekends of the year. It's where I won my first Grand Prix back in 2007 and I've had another two victories there since, so it holds some special memories for me."

• 19:49

  Tweet from @MercedesAMGF1: Fantastic to get the whole race team together here in Montreal! And yes @LewisHamilton & @nico_rosberg were both on board ;)

• 19:51

  

  It's not a surprise to see the first driver withdrawing from the real world to the virtual is Kimi, is it?

  He's actually immersing himself in a Shell V-Power experience, in which you can live the life of a drop of fuel inside a road car engine. If you like.

• 22:47

  A news vacuum in the lead up to this weekend's race meeting has promoted certain websites to get a little creative with stories in order to boost page views. Joe Saward points out the major flaws in one such report involving Red Bull and a rolling road test.

• 00:16

  This isn't related to the Canadian GP, but it is hands down my favourite F1 story in ages (assuming it's all completely true).

  @NicolaBild: Funniest story of the day comes from Austria. @redbullracing boss Dietrich Mateschitz has bought a hotel in Austria. Unfortunately @mercedesamgf1 had booked rooms there for the GP. Merc canceled all the bookings and moved to another hotel!

• 00:19

  Nicola from Bild also writes that Hamilton is still receiving eye drops from the doctor some two weeks after he suffered vision problems in Monaco. Maybe it wasn't the salty tears of regret affecting his driving during the race after all.

• 00:29

  A whole bunch of practice laps were run today (okay, technically yesterday) at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Alonso was fast, Hamilton was fast and that's all there is to say about that.

  Little of note, or of any importance happened during the 180 minutes of circuit circulation, but for the sake of completeness you can view the full results from practice 1 and practice 2 on Sidepodcast.

• 00:33

  Talking of pointless practice, Andrew Benson of the BBC ran a story earlier that claims plans are being formed to abandon Thursday media sessions and reduce Friday practice to just one session from 2015.

  Personally, I'd reduce the entire race weekend to, you know, a weekend. Hold one practice session plus qualifying on Saturday, followed by another practice session and a race on Sunday. Designate Friday as the media day, along with track walks, pit walks and miscellaneous fan autograph sessions. Easy.

• 00:46

  An international Sidepodcontingent consisting of Pamela, Jordan, Kai, Steven, Matt, Bassano and Lou have all embarked on a trip to Canada to watch this weekend's race up close and personal.

  We'll no-doubt be checking in on these fabulous people throughout the weekend, but for now here's a brilliant Red Bull Racing pic Matt snapped for us.

  

• 01:06

  Kimi Räikkönen has visibly struggled since his return to Ferrari this year. The Italian team have thus made some personnel changes ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix in order to help their World Champ move forward.

  The unfortunate David Lloyd has been called up to handle radio communications with the Finn, a job one assumes that nobody was queuing up for. Poaching Kimi's long serving radio man Mark Slade from Lotus would surely have been a smarter idea, but perhaps he got the message that Räikkönen knew what he was doing.

• 01:16

  Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a track that primarily requires two things, lots of power and lots of brakes. Cars must go fast and then stop fast to nail a lap time.

  Two engine manufacturers have been playing catch up since the start of the season and both have targeted this race to find improvements. Ferrari believe they have the confidence to run more aggressive settings now they are comfortable with their reliability, while Renault say they will be running at 100% performance for the first time this season.

  Rémi Taffin, head of track operations is confident of improvement, "We have several new parts to debut here, primarily designed to give us greater reliability. As in previous races we have more upgrades to software to further enhance driveability and energy management."

• 01:41

  

  Told ya they were fabulous. Here's Lou and Matt hanging out at Joe's Meet up in Montreal right now.

  So.Jealous!

• 14:06

  If you listened to our most recent F1 Debrief show you'll recall it featuring a voicemail from an irate Jordan upset by rumours that Ferrari might ditch Kimi Räikkönen at the end of the year. We hadn't actually heard anything similar but today AMuS reporter Tobias Grüner suggested there could be something in it.

  @tgruener Rumours in Montreal paddock Ferrari might sack Raikkonen after this season. According to my info he's got a contract till end of 2015.

• 14:12

  Formula One is a competitive business and that even extends to who arrives at the track first on any given day. Daniel Ricciardo is the first driver to roll up qualifying morning, with this unreasonably early start to proceedings.

• 15:05

  The final free practice session is underway and we have a live commenting thread for any lazy Saturday discussion.

• 16:32

  With a number of drivers pushing their luck during the final practice session, FP3 offered a little for everyone. One red flag, two drivers sitting on the sidelines and both Mercedes drivers completing their fastest laps on the prime tyres. Here are the fastest times from practice 3.

• 16:41

  For the duration of this weekend, Lou is smurf sitting this adorable blue thing in memory of John Button who passed away earlier this year.

  

  Papa Smurf is attending all the races this season and you can follow his adventures on Twitter. No doubt we'll be catching up with him again before he heads home on Sunday too.

• 16:44

  Tweet from @OfficialSF1Team Bad news: the team has to change the chassis. @EstebanGtz will not be able to take part in qualifying.

• 17:19

  Be a part of the conversation during qualifying via the awesome Sidepodcast live comments.

• 19:41

  Nico Rosberg stole pole position in style today. If you missed any of the running, enjoy a rather fun hour-and-a-bit of action with our lap-by-lap highlights of qualifying in Canada.

• 20:24

  With Gutiérrez unable to compete this afternoon, here are the qualifying positions for the remaining 21 drivers.

• 20:31

  Organisers of the Canadian Grand Prix confirmed today that the event will be hosted in Montreal for the next 10 years. Bert listed all the key deals from the press conference in the comments earlier, but the key point is the GP isn't going anywhere and the area will receive vital investment for the long term.

  The venue is of course a brilliant place to host a race, so this is nothing but good news for F1 fans.

• 14:26

  Race day dawns and unusually for the Canadian GP, the weather looks just about perfect. 2011's four hour rain-delayed event seems but a distant memory.

  If you've ever wondered what teams get up to before the lights go out, Caterham have published their Sunday itinerary.

  - 09:00 car covers off

  - 11:30 race briefing

  - 12:30 driver parade

  - 14:00 race

  - 16:30 race debrief

• 14:33

  Another important race is happening this afternoon and Mercedes are likely to dominate that one too. The Brackley Soapbox Derby is held down the main High Street today and a team of seven apprentices from Mercedes AMG Petronas have entered a 'car'.

  Soapbox racers apparently suffer just the same problems as their grown up F1 counterparts. The lightest team member has been selected for driving duties - no doubt having starved themselves silly for weeks in anticipation.

• 15:03

  The calm before the storm down at Lotus.

  

• 15:21

  It's a bad news kind of day for Kamui Kobayashi who gets a five place grid drop as the team changed his gearbox before 6 consecutive events had expired.

  Additionally, Esteban Gutiérrez has been given permission to start the race. Suaber have been allowed to replace his damaged survival cell and gearbox. He will start from the pitlane.

• 15:45

  With those changes, here's how the grid will line up this afternoon.

• 15:54

  Red Bull Racing have confirmed Adrian Newey has extended his deal with the team.

  "As part of this new agreement, Adrian will work on new Red Bull Technology projects, as well as advising and mentoring Infiniti Red Bull Racing as it develops its Formula One cars over the next few seasons. The details of the new projects will be announced in due course."

  There was talk in recent weeks that Ferrari were looking to poach the Brit, but it seems like Newey is looking to take a less active role in Formula 1 competition.

• 16:03

  Cake has been a bit thin on the ground this weekend but Sauber have a solution in the shape of this tasty treat for Esteban's race engineer Craig. Happy Birthday!

  

• 18:06

  Live comments for the Canadian GP are go!

• 22:41

  Daniel Ricciardo wins the Canadian GP!

  

  Enjoy our lap-by-lap live text of all the action (and there was a lot of it) from Montreal.

• 22:43

  Ricciardo led Rosberg and Vettel over the line this afternoon as a safety car call brought the day to an abrupt end. Here are the GP results in full.

• 23:22

  The championship standings charts make for interesting reading. Be sure to check out both the driver's table and the team's table following round seven.

• 01:06

  Stewards looked into the incident in the final stages of Sunday's race and concluded that Sergio Pérez collided with Felipe Massa and has therefore been awarded a drop of five places at the driver's next event.

  For his part Pérez is mainly concerned with the lost podium opportunity, "On the final lap I was defending my position going into turn one when I suddenly got hit from behind. It was a big impact, but I am okay."

  In the Williams corner, Massa not only rues a missed podium, but also a lost victory. "I’m so disappointed for what happened with Pérez, and also for the pitstop because I think maybe we could even have fought for victory today."

  Felipe led the race for a period as various strategies played out.

• 01:09

  FIA stewards also opted to penalise Max Chilton for his part in the opening lap accident that ended Marussia's GP. Chilton receives a drop of three grid positions at his next event.

• 01:11

  Luckiest man on track in Canada was surely McLaren's Jenson Button who finished fourth after an uneventful race. To his credit JB was keen to praise the race winner.

  "Big congratulations to Daniel – I’m a big fan of his, he’s a great guy, and he’s obviously got the skills. Your first grand prix victory is always very special, so very well done to him."

• 01:17
• 01:21

  The folks from the Sidepodcast community picked a blinder of race to attend.

  Matt sums things up nicely, "What an awesome day! A great Grand Prix at a great venue, an Aussie race winner & a walk around the circuit with awesome people"

• 02:39

  Canada '14, how was it for you? Let us know by rating the race and choosing your driver of the day. Drop us a comment and explain your reasoning, or tweet your selection to your friends.

• 18:00

  Pérez has taken a look at video footage of his incident and come out fighting. Adam Cooper has the full story, but the key quote is,"I watched several replays of the incident and I can’t help but notice how Felipe turns right just before he hits me. I can only think he must have changed his mind and wanted to rejoin the racing line, his misjudgement cost us a big amount of points."

  Sergio also refutes accusations from Rob Smedley of Williams that the Force India car should have been retired due to the severity of their brake issues, describing his chassis as "perfectly driveable".

• 18:07

  Looking at available onboard footage, Pérez does appear to hold his line, while Massa flicks the wheel to his right. The pair are however rounding a right-hand bend, so by simply holding his line the Mexican is edging his car to the left into the path of the chasing Williams.

  The published reasoning from the stewards states - Car 11 (Sergio Pérez) changed his racing line which caused the impact with car 19 (Felipe Massa) in Turn 1.

• 18:12

  Drivers managed to avoid serious contact with the Wall of Champions this weekend, but the intrepid Papa Smurf paid it a visit nevertheless!

  

• 18:16

  Tweet from @RGrosjean: Back home and so happy to see my little man. Always makes you smile especially after a difficult weekend. But 100% sure we will bounce back

• 18:17

  With many in the paddock back home, it's probably time to wrap up another weekend logbook. Thank you for following updates and see you again in two weeks time!