Formula 1's Craziest Moments At The Canadian Grand Prix

This weekend, the Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec is finally happening. After a brief hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Canada has opened its borders to the F1 circus, and we're celebrating with some of the greatest moments from Canada's Grand Prix history.

As a note, we're counting all Canadian GPs here, not just the ones that have taken place at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. Canada has produced some damn good racing over the years — it would be a shame not to relive some of those most glorious moments.

When the checkered flag flew at the 1973 Canadian Grand Prix, no one was quite sure who had actually... won. See, around the halfway point of the race, Tyrrell's François Cevert and McLaren's Jody Scheckter crashed and brought out the very first (though unofficial) safety car in F1 history.

The big problem was that no one was exactly sure who was supposed to be leading at the restart thanks to a lengthy clean-up period. Emerson Fittipaldi wasn't identified as the leader at the time of the crash, and it ultimately ended up handing victory to Peter Revson.

When Formula 1 debuted at Mosport, it did so during Canada's centennial celebrations — and to a whole lot of motorsport fanfare. More than the small town of Bowmanville, Ontario could handle.

As a result, legend has it that Jack Brabham found himself stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on race day. If he didn't come up with something, he would have missed the start of the race — so Brabham found an ambulance and told the driver to throw on the sirens and clear a path. The driver supposedly made it to the grid just before the start and went on to win the race.

2014 was Mercedes' first truly dominant year, and at the Canadian Grand Prix, the team looked set to take its seventh victory in a row. Then both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg suffered MGU-K failures. Hamilton had to retire, but Rosberg maintained the lead of the race with a significantly underpowered car.

Enter: Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian driver made a strong pass against Sergio Perez for second place and used the momentum to push himself to Rosberg's rear end. On the penultimate lap, Ricciardo made the pass for the lead and secured his first-ever F1 win.

In the past, the Canadian Grand Prix was often part of the tail end of F1's season during a North American sweep that also included Watkins Glen and/or Mexico City. Despite that, though, the Championship has only been decided in Canada once, in 1980, when Alan Jones took victory at the season's penultimate race.

It wasn't without controversy, though. On the start, title contenders Jones and Nelson Piquet were battling hard into the first corner when the two touched. Piquet was knocked into the wall, and the wreck saw a domino effect throughout the field. Piquet was forced to restart in his backup car that he used for qualifying, which wasn't designed to last a whole race; he ultimately retired, handing the Championship to Jones.

The Brazilian driver didn't hold the wreck against Jones, calling it a racing incident. Jones became the second Australian to win an F1 Championship.

On lap 26 of the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, Robert Kubica crashed into the rear end of Jarno Trulli's vehicle. Kubica's BMW Sauber was a rocket at that point, smashing into the wall, cutting up grass, and scattering debris across the track. The Polish driver's collision with the wall happened at roughly 75 G.

Thankfully, Kubica was able to leave the crash with very little damage. He sprained an ankle and suffered a concussion, but after a one-race break, he was back in business. On his return, Kubica scored fourth-place finishes at both the French and British Grands Prix. The only time he scored outside of the top 10 for the rest of the season was thanks to a retirement in China.

This race also went down in history as being Lewis Hamilton's first F1 win.

Now, if I'd suffered a nasty crash at a specific race track, I would probably never want to race at the track again — but that's why I'm not a race car driver, and that's why Robert Kubica is. See, in 2008, just one year after his awful crash, the Polish driver returned to Montreal to take his first — and only — F1 win.

Kubica was able to take advantage of a pit-exit crash between Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen; after that incident, he inherited the lead of the race and held it to the very finish for a truly storybook ending to the event.

There are some stories that you just can't make up, and Gilles Villeneuve's win at the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix is one of them. The Quebecois driver inherited the lead of the race with 20 laps to go and held it to the bitter end, a special feat for his hometown crowd.

See, Villeneuve had competed in a Canadian Grand Prix before, but in 1978, the race moved from Mosport in Ontario to Circuit Île Notre-Dame in Montreal, Villeneuve's home province. That track would go on to rename itself in honor of Villeneuve.

At the 1999 Canadian Grand Prix, three World Champions proved to be no match for one single wall. That wall at Turn 13 saw four separate crashes during the race and earned the nickname "Wall of Champions."

The first driver to hit that wall was also the only non-Champion to do so. Ricardo Zonta spun into the wall on the third lap of the race, bringing out the event's second safety car.

After a few laps of restarted racing, Damon Hill became the first Champion to hit the turn 13 wall. This time, on lap 15, there was no safety car because Hill was able to pull the car off the track under its own power.

Polesitter Michael Schumacher was next. On lap 30, the race leader hit the wall and gave the lead to second-place driver Mika Hakkinen. Five laps later, Jacques Villeneuve hit the wall and brought out a safety car.

With four different safety car periods, the 1999 Canadian Grand Prix became the race with, at the time, the most safety cars. It was also the first race to end under a safety car when Heinz-Harald Frentzen crashed with just four laps remaining in the event.

While fans didn't know it at the time, the 1981 Canadian Grand Prix would be Villeneuve's last in Montreal — and he gave the crowd one hell of a show.

The race started in a torrential downpour, which not only limited visibility but also led to a series of collisions during the first laps of the race. Villeneuve was one of the impacted drivers; his front wing flew into the air and then got stuck just in front of Villeneuve, blocking his line of sight. The Quebecois driver allegedly used his peripheral vision to navigate until he decided to drive over the ribbed curbing to ultimately shake the wing loose.

Despite the rain and the lack of a front wing, Villeneuve muscled through to finish the race in third place, cementing him as a legend of both endurance and car control. He was one of 12 drivers that finished the race; 12 others had retired.

One of the most dramatic races in F1 history, the 1991 Canadian Grand Prix saw a strong Nigel Mansell lead every single lap of the race, right up to the final one, when his car failed him just a few turns away from the finish line. Second-place Nelson Piquet inherited the lead and crossed the finish line a victor in his Benetton-Ford.

That race would ultimately be Piquet's 23rd and final victory in F1.

The list of racing drivers to win an event on their birthday is a small list indeed, but Jean Alesi undoubtedly tops it.

The 1995 F1 season was a story of Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill, and both drivers were a favorite for the win heading into the weekend. Hill, though, spun into the gravel trap during the pre-race warmup and ultimately retiring from the race with gearbox issues.

Schumacher, on the other hand, had qualified on pole and dominated the race until electrical problems forced him into the pits, after which he rejoined the track in seventh place. That left Jean Alesi to inherit the lead and take the checkered flag — which he did on the date of his 31st birthday.

To make things even sweeter, Alesi was driving the No. 27 Ferrari, a number that had previously belonged to Gilles Villenueve.

While the 1994 Canadian Grand Prix wasn't Michael Schumacher's first win, it was easily the race where his legend began to be established. In a dominant drive, Schumacher cruised from pole position to the win with a 33-second lead over second-place driver Damon Hill.

It was an important one for Schumacher. F1 had lost both Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna just six weeks earlier, leaving the sport in a slump that was somewhat eased by the introduction of a new star. It was also set to be Schumacher's first of a record-setting seven wins at the Canadian Grand Prix.

The 2011 Canadian Grand Prix is one of the sport's cultural touchstones that fans of all eras understand. Rain saw the race initially start on time but behind a safety car, but increasingly torrential downpours saw a two-hour red flag on lap 26.

After the restart, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso collided; the former dropped to last place on the grid while the latter retired. Then came Button's push from 21st on the grid to second, where he followed behind Sebastian Vettel on the GP's final lap. When Vettel ran wide, Button was able to slip through and take a hard-fought victory in what remains one of the most stunning F1 races of all time.