Coulthard's take:
, David Coulthard wrote:">
Lewis Hamilton is faster than Nico Rosberg ...Mercedes have had strong reliability so far this season, but Montreal has always been marginal on brakes, and if you have two cars racing hard all the time, then that puts more pressure on them.
This year, the rear brakes are smaller than in the past because a lot of the braking load is taken by the energy recovery system on the rear axle. But if the hybrid system stops working - as it did on both Mercedes in Montreal as a result of overheating - then that puts a lot more strain on the brakes.
In many ways, you would think it was inevitable at that point that they would have brake failure.
Yet when that happened, around lap 35, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton continued to race flat out, with reduced power from their engine as a result of the hybrid failure.
Ten laps later, after his brakes had heated up in a pit stop, Hamilton's did fail and Mercedes said it was purely luck that the same thing did not happen to Rosberg as well.
That's perfectly feasible. I know from my own experience that things like that can happen. Sometimes it is just the luck of the racing gods.
As it was, Rosberg had to drive for the rest of the race not only with 160bhp less from his engine, but looking after his brakes as well, by braking earlier and with less pressure.
That gave us a great race for the last 25 laps - and a new winner in Daniel Ricciardo - but it meant Mercedes failed to win a grand prix for the first time this year...