Four hours, four minutes, 37 seconds. The Canadian Grand Prix of 2011 is famed for two things: one, being Formula 1’s longest-ever race (a record that will likely never be beaten), and two, Jenson Button’s unlikely victory after falling to the back of the field.
It’s considered as Button’s best race, one where he battled against the elements and a lack of care from his rivals to work his from the front of the field to the back. Critics might suggest that Button carried some of the fault for the incidents with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, and that McLaren had helped his cause immensely with a high-downforce set-up. Either way, he drove the race in front of him — and claimed the ultimate prize over four hours after leaving the grid.
By all accounts, Button had been in the wars in the opening half of the race — after four laps behind the safety car, he needed just three more before his first measure of contact with McLaren team-mate Hamilton. Hamilton had qualified two positions up on Button — starting fifth, versus Button’s seventh — but lost ground when he made contact with Mark Webber at Turn 2 amid the subsequent evasive action.
What followed was a series of passes decided by slips off-course: Button then went wide in Turn 6 to let Michael Schumacher trickle through into fifth, and Hamilton got back past as Button tried to gather up his wayward machinery. On the following tour, lap six, Hamilton then attempted to put a move on Schumacher at the hairpin — but the seven-time champion held the future seven-timer off-line to allow Button passage back into sixth.
At the end of the seventh tour, the McLarens made contact — Hamilton tried to stuff his car down the left-hand side of Button on the start-finish straight, while Button was closing the door. This was reproduced some 14 years later when Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris reenacted a similar incident — again, the driver attempting to make the overtake came much worse off. Button hadn’t seen him coming.
Hamilton suffered damage to his left-rear tyre and had to peel off, prompting the arrival of the safety car. Button used the safety car as a chance to pit, ditching his full-wet tyres for the intermediate compound to emerge in 12th, but was then pinged for speeding under the safety car. This prompted a drive-through penalty as the safety car came in, which Button served immediately to drop down to 15th.
Hamilton tried to pass Button at the end of the seventh lap — but it was in vain
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
On the inters, the Briton made swift progress through the wet-shod midfielders, and was lapping considerably quicker than race-leader Sebastian Vettel. The Force India of Paul di Resta and the two Renaults stymied progress somewhat, as other takers for the inter had promoted Button up to eighth. Yet, as soon as he’d cleared Vitaly Petrov for seventh, the rain had intensified suddenly and eradicated the dry line on-track, the advantage of the intermediates, and all visibility. A wall of pallid spray veiled the back straight, prompting the arrival of the safety car in anticipation of the conditions worsening.
In response, Button switched back to the wets — but the rain had continued to engulf the Ile Notre-Dame. After 24 laps, the race was subsequently red-flagged. It remained on hiatus for another two hours.
When the race had got going, after the lengthy delay and a few laps behind the safety car, Button dispatched Pedro de la Rosa (standing in for an injured Sergio Perez) on the restart, pitted for inters, and then got onto Fernando Alonso’s tail after the Ferrari driver came out worse in the team’s double-stack for inters. It prompted a prang between the two at Turn 3, Alonso was beached on the kerb, and the safety car returned to the circuit after a mere two laps of green-flag running. This was the moment that put Button into 21st — last place — as he made his fifth visit to the pit lane with a puncture — and also collected a new front wing.
«But I loved it,» Button wrote in his autobiography Life to the Limit. «I got my head down and began my charge, driving as smoothly and as fast as I ever have, and beginning to make my way back up the field […] playing my McLaren like it was a kart and I was a kid again.»
And so, the recovery began on the lap 41 restart. The HRT cars offered little resistance on the restart, nor did the Virgins and the sole remaining Lotus of Jarno Trulli. Within 10 laps, Button was back in the top 10, but chose to sacrifice it once more when he took a punt on slick tyres at the end of lap 51. A prominent dry line had formed, and the sector times of those who’d stopped a lap sooner had been tantalising enough to follow. With an undercut in the offing, Button had given up eighth place and traded it for seventh — but it got even better.
First, Felipe Massa aquaplaned while lapping an HRT and knocked off his front wing. Kamui Kobayashi and Petrov pitted a lap too late and were easy pickings for Button, who also put a move on Nick Heidfeld to grab fourth. There was a seven-second void to fill before Button could reach the battle for second between Michael Schumacher and Mark Webber, who in turn were 10 seconds behind long-time leader Sebastian Vettel.
Heidfeld then went into the back of Kobayashi, as the Sauber driver was glacial on the exit of Turn 2 versus the high-traction Renault, and shed front debris all over the circuit. The safety car was pulled into action again, just for four laps this time, to bring the top four into play.
Button made six trips to the pitlane — one for a drive-through after speeding behind the safety car
Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images
Button had a lapped Timo Glock sitting in front of him, in the days before (any/all) lapped runners were waved around by the race director, which hurt his progress marginally as just 10 laps remained.
Once the Virgin car was cleared, he was quickly on the tail of Webber, who was attempting to throw a move down the inside of Schumacher. When Webber cut the chicane at the end of lap 64 and had to check up, Button pounced and made up a further place, and then wrested second from Schumacher with DRS on the next tour. There were just five laps to go, and a 3.1s deficit to Vettel to close down.
Vettel was driving cautiously. He’d been strong in the wet conditions and had broken an early advantage over the Ferraris — then, later, over Kobayashi — to sit with a comfortable buffer. But the safety car had wiped it out — and the still-perilous track surface did not exactly mesh with his smaller rear wing. Thus, Button halved that deficit in one lap, and continued to ladle on the pressure — Vettel had to pick up the pace for the first time that afternoon.
Famously, it all came down to the final lap. Button was within DRS range and closed up — yet it was Vettel who did the work for him. A slide at Turn 6 put the Red Bull off-course, gifting Button the lead and a monumental victory. He’d come from the back to the front in just 30 laps, and forced the reigning champion into a mistake.
Button secured the first of three wins in 2011, helping his charge to second in the championship
Photo by: Sutton Images
How Canada 2011 changed wet races forever
Following the two-hour red flag period, the Montreal race exposed a flaw in the rules: there was no maximum allotted time for a race beyond the two-hour limit for green-flag running. As such, a four-hour limit was installed — which was reduced to three in 2021.
It was also notable that the red flag was called in response to the weather itself, rather than in reaction to an accident. This has been much more accepted of late; although the joke among F1’s fans is that Pirelli would have been better served by not wasting time making a wet tyre, as its appearance is usually preceded by a pause in running, this is a conflation of two things. Visibility, not circuit grip, is the prevailing issue in modern wet races.
F1 and the FIA have attempted to curb this and have tested wheelguards to mitigate spray, which has been worsened by the current aerodynamic packages. It remains to be seen whether 2026’s regulations will naturally handle some of that, particularly as the tyres and bodywork are narrower for next year, but there should be a small improvement nonetheless.
While people tend to decry the caution in wet races today, it’s much more palatable that the race director feels more empowered to pre-empt situations in poor weather, rather than let disaster strike.
Rain delays are much more commonplace today — 2022’s Monaco GP started late as heavy rain was on the horizon
Photo by: Erik Junius
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