McLaren racked up their second consecutive 1-2 finish as Lewis Hamilton led home team-mate Jenson Button in Montreal this afternoon in a mouth-watering 70 laps of racing at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. As expected, tyre performance played a huge role in the outcome, with Red Bull’s differing strategy ultimately failing to bring the results as Fernando Alonso took the final podium place for Ferrari in third.

After leading away from pole, severe tyre degradation on the super-soft tyre forced many of the front-runners to pit early on laps 5, 6 and 7. Hamilton pitted on lap 7 but lost a place to Alonso in a battle in the pitlane, before regaining it eight laps later with an overtaking manoeuvre into the final chicane. That handed the lead back to Hamilton once both Red Bulls had pitted from the lead, but poor tyre wear forced another pitstop for both Hamilton and Alonso soon after.

Hamilton pitted for a set of medium compound tyres on lap 26, but Alonso stayed out for another two laps and should have taken the lead had he not lost time lapping a Lotus on his in-lap. He had set the fastest lap of the race at the time just after Hamilton had pitted but instead re-emerged behind Hamilton in third, with Webber leading having pitted just once. Unfortunately for Alonso, traffic would cost him another place before the end of the race. He came up to lap Karun Chandhok on lap 56 and lost sufficient time to let Button past, giving McLaren their 1-2 finish.

Red Bull’s strategy to start on the medium compound tyre ultimately didn’t pay for the Milton Keynes team, after failing to take advantage in their first stint of the race. Even though Webber and Vettel stayed out until laps 13 and 14 respectively, they were unable to open a gap large enough to keep the lead and ultimately had to drop behind the leading trio, with Vettel ultimately leading Webber home in fourth.

Behind the top five, Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg scored eight points in sixth, just ahead of Renault’s Robert Kubica who had to pit from sixth late in the race for a new set of tyres. Toro Rosso’s Sébastien Buemi took eighth, ahead of Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil who both got by Michael Schumacher on the final lap as the Mercedes driver struggled with tyre wear, dropping him to 11th and outside the points.

Here are the full results;