Canadian GP McLaren notes

Canadian Grand Prix 16th June 1996 Both Marlboro McLaren Mercedes drivers finished the Canadian Grand Prix in the top six, bringing five points to the team's championship tally. David Coulthard drove steadily to fourth place whilst Mika Hakkinen recovered from a mid-race spin to take the chequered flag in fifth place. The team used a one stop strategy which resulted in David and Mika initially losing ground to the cars which had opted for a two stops race and were therefore carrying less fuel. The strategy eventually paid off with David and Mika being able to overtake them during their stops and to produce competitive performances in the latter part of the race, as their own fuel load decreased.

Mika Hakkinen: "I had a clean start, ending up in fourth place after a very good and enjoyable battle with Gerhard Berger. Unfortunately my speed in the straight was not high enough for me to maintain that position, and I lost out to both Jordans and one of the Benettons. Then I came up to a back marker at the hairpin, locked the rear tyres and lost the back end of the car. I went in for tyres immediately after that and ran competitively to fifth, scoring two points for the team.

David Coulthard: "It was good to get fourth place out of a bad qualifying position. The car ran well, especially as the fuel load came down, which was all credit to the team and in particualr to the mechanics who did a great job changing the engine after the warm-up. We've had a few points finishes now and are showing that the team's reliability is getting better."

Norbert Haug: "Getting five points is a good team effort, thanks to both of our drivers. We are increasing our reliability and, more importantly, we are setting better lap times. Mika and David were approximately one second shy of Jacques Villeneuve's fastest lap. We now have to work even harder to close the gap to the dominating Williams."

Ron Dennis: "We had a reliable race with both cars. The drivers struggled with the initial high fuel load as a result of our one pitstop strategy, but once the cars had become lighter our performance significantly improved, giving us the ability to lap as fast as everybody except the Williams. All the teams have got a lot of work to do to match their performance, but I hope we can achieve it before the end of the year. David did an excellent job. Mika's performance was also good apart from his indiscretion at the hairpin."