Bang, Crash, Wallop what a Grand Prix

They say that the street circuit at Montreal is a slippery circuit. Seeing as it is partly used as normal roads for most of the year and not as a specific race track. However, you never thought that applied to underfoot until this weekend.




Lewis Hamilton was in the wars again, this wasn't his first incident of the day, but it was the one where he collided with his team mate Jenson Button. It was to be the first of 6 times Jenson had to go into the pits one of which was for a drive through penalty.



However, after the longest watching of a Grand Prix that I can remember, including all the wet birds, Rihanna turning up to a wet race without her Umberella, ella, ella.

You may well have waited up to watch the end of the race. It was certainly one of the most spectacular finishes of the year. On the penultimate lap Jenson Button despite all those excursions to the pits was just behind Sebastian Vettel, and was within one second to be able to operate his DRS (Drag Reduction System). Here are the final laps as seen from the German television commentators.

My View on Sports Personality of the Year

Earlier today I promised that I would give my take on the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year shortlist. So here we go.

First off here is the actual shortlist of 10

• Jenson Button
• Mark Cavendish
• Tom Daley
• Jessica Ennis
• Ryan Giggs
• David Haye
• Phillips Idowu
• Andy Murray
• Andrew Strauss
• Beth Tweddle

Let's start of the Football and Cricket, these two sports seem to have a right to have someone on the list. If you look at the full list of nominees from the press you may see why. Cricket had Stuart Broad, Andrew Flintoff and Charlotte Edwards nominated along with Strauss. Football had Kelly Smith, John Terry, Cristiano Ronaldo and Darren Fletcher keeping Giggs company.

Of course Strauss was the highest scorer in the Ashes series with 474 for an average of 52.66. So he was undoubtedly the batsman of the series add on to that captaining the side to regain the Ashes. But that sadly in my eyes is not enough to warrant winning this prize across all sports. As for Ryan Giggs yes he was again an integral part in his eleventh Premier League title with Man United, winning the PFA player of the year title in the process. But none of that in itself is enough to lift the award. If anything Ryan still playing at the top level for the same team should qualify for the Lifetime Achievement Award which is going to Seve Ballesteros tomorrow.

Boxing only have David Haye on the shortlist this year, both Amir Khan and Carl Froch were nominated. But Boxers don't fair well in winning. Ricky Hatton never did and Joe Calzaghe had to wait so long at the top before he won in 2007. Haye though has stepped up from Cruiserweight where he held the WBA, WBC and WBO world titles to take on the Heavyweights. He was originally to fight either of the Klitschko brothers Vitali the WBC Champ on 20 June ,the Vladimir IBF and WBA on the same date, only for Haye to pull out injured. In the end just last month he defeated the giant seven foot Nikolai Valuev. When Lennox Lewis and Joe Calzaghe won this title they were both undisputed World Champions admittedly something Haye almost did at Cruiserweight. A mighty achievement but he may and should be passed over for the Top spot this time.

Andy Murray may have won more tennis events in this year than any previous male tennis player in a season. Indeed his six tour titles not counting the slams was more than anyone else, even Federer and Nadal. But Greg Rusedski won his award for getting to the US open final, Andy did that last year. This prize will be Andy's in the future I'm sure when he breaks the British tennis duck since Fred Perry and lifts one of the Grand Slams. So not this year even though he was at one point number two in the world.

As for Jenson Button he had a blinding start to this season, but then somewhat tailed off to win his championship. He did hang in there to lift the world championship, but the early season form was as much a part of the ingenuity of Ross Brawn as the skills of JB, even though I love F1 I fell that Brawn GP should win the team award but not Jenson the individual. Jenson also has the disadvantage that sometimes our World Champs don't win while the losers do. Lewis Hamilton didn't win as Champion last year and Mansell and Damon Hill both won Sports Personality as losers before winning again as World Champs.

That leaves the other five from where I think the deserving winner. Four individual World Champions and the winningest man in his sport this year.

The world of cycling is limited to just one choice Mark Cavendish. Both Bradley Wiggins and Vitoria Pendleton were also on the nominations, Bradley had . Cav won an amazing six stages on the Tour de France after 3 stages in the Giro d'Italia and 2 in the Tour de Suisse. Some will say that Cav had the help of his lead out train, but not for all of these stage wins. For some he was riding on his opponents wheel which shows just how good a sprinter he was.

Athletics produces two worthy candidates Phillips Idowu following in the hop, step and jumps of Jonathan Edwards won the Triple Jump and Jessica Ennis continues the depth of British success in the multi-event disciplines. Denise Lewis never lifted the top prize for her Heptathlon indeed only Daley Thompson as a multi-event athlete has won SPotY. But she put aside the disappointment of injury in Olympic year and watching Kelly Sotherton fail to capitalise on the retirement of Kluft. However, for someone not of the typical heptathlete physique she towered above the more lengthy limbed opponents to lead with the third best day one score ever and end up only 100 points shy of Denise Lewis's British and Commonwealth record with 6,731 points.

Phillips faced a different disappointment at Beijing, he went as the longest jumper in the world after his trials performance. Jumped further in the final but only took silver. But added the World Outdoor championships with a PB and World Best performance of 17.73 to his World Indoor, Commonwealth and European Indoor titles. He has jumped further than Jonathan Edwards indoors but has yet to get to the distance that the former Olympic champion did outdoors, but a constantly improving effort again this year from a man who is already one of the best in the world at the moment.

Tom Daley is currently Britain's youngest senior world champion. Having jumped in the synchronised event in Beijing, the youngster went solo to his success this year. Whilst he does not yet have the high level of difficulty of some of his opponents he kept consistent good scores and when they had a poor final round of dives soared ahead of the two Chinese to take gold. Quite an achievement for a lower tariff performer. In fact his winning score of 539.85 pts was higher than Matt Mitcham's 537.95 which secured gold at the Olympics last year. His new partnership with Max Brink only finished 9th in the final, but for a first year together the synchronisation needs time to bed in.

That leads to Beth Tweddle, who came third in 2006 when she was Britain's first world Champion on the Uneven Bars. However, this year she fell in her preferred event in qualifying in front of the home crowd in London. A couple of days later having qualified for her other event the floor for which she had never medalled in her previous two World Champ finals she pulled out all the stops and won. Indeed that failure in the uneven bars was the only time that she failed to top the podium in her two events in competition this year.

My personal preference for the top three this year is:

1. Beth Tweddle

2. Mark Cavendish

3. Tom Daley


I suspect I will be wrong as this omits any of the so called "big" sports and is based purely on another sportsman basis of meritocracy.

Glorious Sunday for British Sport

It was quite a magnificent Sunday of British sport yesterday. It all started in Sepang Malaysia where Jenson Button after a poor start from pole battled up through the field from fourth and put in a couple of 'storming' laps after his nearest rivals had pitted for that first change of tires to come out well up the track.



However, when the rain came down Timo Glock made the audacious and in the end correct decision to go out on intermediate tyres while the rest of the field put on full wets and start to gain 6 seconds a lap. By the time they pulled Button in for Intermediates as well Glock was passing him as he sat in the pit lane.



Then just after all the field had changed to the Intermediates and Button had just regained P1 Glock dove back into the pits to start the move unto full wets first again to go to what was to prove to be the right tyre. When Jenson followed suit he had again to overtake the German but the race had become a power boat race by lap 32 and was red flagged. The drivers sitting on the grid in a thunderstorm waiting to see if they would restart. So it was that Jenson Button won his second Grand Prix of the season while sat on the grid under a brolly, he only needed a bowler hat instead of his helmet to make the British image complete.



Later in the day over in Miami rain wasn't going to be Andy Murray's worry. Storming to a 4-0 lead in the first set of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami against the man whose position in the rankings he is chasing down, Novak Djokovic, he eased to a 6-2 first set. And then at 1-0, a break up, in the first set he watched his opponent call for the trainer, it seemed to unsettle the Scot as he lost the next 5 games on the trot. But then found the flow of the first set to take six in succession to take the title dubbed the 'fifth grand slam' 6-2, 7-5. In doing so he equalled Tim Henman's career titles at an age when Henman only dreamed of being that good. He also now with three wins this season is the most successful champion on the mans tour as we head into the clay season.



The day was rounded up by Paul Casey over in Houston, where he didn't have a problem despite dropping his one shot led on the eighteenth and bogeying the play-off hole. It was still enough to secure him the Houston Open, his first win on the US Tour where he now plies his trade. An ideal built up to the US Masters later this month at Augusta.