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Formula 1
VARSHA: Oh! Canada
Montreal offers only a couple of slow corners, followed by long blasts at high speed...
Jenson Button (Center) 1st position, Sebastian Vettel (Left) 2nd position, and Mark Webber, (Right) 3rd position, on the podium. after the Canadian Grand Prix, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Canada June 2011. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
It’s that time of year again. A time when our SPEED Formula One team gets to sleep until a civilized hour before we head for work, because F1 is racing on Eastern time at the Canadian Grand Prix in the wonderful city of Montreal. The facilities at the semi-permanent Circuit Gilles Villeneuve are a bit cramped, but after the pressure of Monaco two weeks ago, the pace of a racing weekend across the St. Laurence River from Vieux-Montreal, the wonderful Old Town center, is a much more relaxed affair.
It’s also an entirely different proposition as a race track. Unlike the twisty confines of Monaco, Montreal offers only a couple of slow corners, followed by long blasts at high speed, and curbs that must be used heavily to get a good lap. This is especially true at “Champions Corner,” the final left-hander onto the start-finish straight that features a concrete wall just beyond the curb that has claimed so many top drivers over the years. Despite all this, Pirelli is bringing back the same tire pairing used in the Principality: the soft and super-soft compounds, due to the fact that the Canadian circuit gets little use, and will therefore be dusty on Friday, getting faster as the weekend unfolds. It is also one of the bumpiest laps in F1, and by far the hardest on brakes. Forget about the one-stop tire strategies we saw all the front-runners use in Monaco. Last year’s winner, Jenson Button, made SIX stops in Montreal, including a drive-through penalty. The DRS wing-opening zones have been reduced from last year’s two to just one, on the long Casino Straight, and that zone has been shortened to make passing more difficult again. Consider also that the Canadian weather is notoriously changeable, and you can see why Montreal is one of the most likely races to feature one (or more) safety car releases.
The story coming to North America is unquestionably whether or not we’ll see a record-extending seventh different winner to start the 2012 season. Mark Webber’s win from pole in Monaco back ended the similar string of consecutive different winning constructors at five, and Red Bull is, for now, the only team with more than a single victory. Who are the likely candidates to add their names to those of Webber, teammate Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button of McLaren, Fernando Alonso for Ferrari, Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes, and Pastor Maldonado of Williams?
Start with Michael Schumacher. In Monaco the Mercedes team leader produced his first pole since his return from retirement more than two years ago, as he promised he would. He might have kept his promise to win the race as well but for fuel pressure problems. If numerology is your game, “Schumie” is your boy: a 7-time world champion, 7-time Montreal winner, racing car number 7 in the 7th round of the championship. Another good name to put a Loonie on is Lewis Hamilton, who despite not winning yet this season is the only driver who has scored points in every race. Hamilton has a special affinity for Canada, the site of his maiden F1 victory, and he is overdue.
Then there are the Lotus teammates, Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean. Why they haven’t taken the top step of the podium yet this year is a mystery given their pace in testing and qualifying. Raikkonen’s steering issue in Monaco and hot-and-cold performances in the late stages of the races suggests that he hasn’t quite figured out the car yet, while “RoGro” has crashed out of three of the first six races, and yet scored points in the other three. If they can hit the bullseye on setup and strategy either could be the lucky seventh winner. Sauber hasn’t impressed much since Sergio Perez’s runner-up finish to Alonso in Malaysia, and Bruno Senna hasn’t looked anywhere close to repeating teammate Maldonado’s shocking win in Barcelona in the Williams.
Putting aside the little teams, that leaves the curious case of Felipe Massa, who produced his best finish of a thoroughly miserable season thus far in the other Ferrari at Monaco, sixth place. His teammate Alonso thinks the 31-year old Brazilian is on a long-awaited upswing following his near-death experience in Hungary back in 2009. If Massa could win, as he insists he can, it would be one of the all-time feel-good stories of this or any season.
One final note: Canada marks our first of four straight GPs on FOX, and this one is live. But the big change this season is that we will offer pre and post-race coverage on SPEED, which means all the F1 coverage you expect. See you bright and early, but happily not THAT bright and early, this weekend.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
It’s also an entirely different proposition as a race track. Unlike the twisty confines of Monaco, Montreal offers only a couple of slow corners, followed by long blasts at high speed, and curbs that must be used heavily to get a good lap. This is especially true at “Champions Corner,” the final left-hander onto the start-finish straight that features a concrete wall just beyond the curb that has claimed so many top drivers over the years. Despite all this, Pirelli is bringing back the same tire pairing used in the Principality: the soft and super-soft compounds, due to the fact that the Canadian circuit gets little use, and will therefore be dusty on Friday, getting faster as the weekend unfolds. It is also one of the bumpiest laps in F1, and by far the hardest on brakes. Forget about the one-stop tire strategies we saw all the front-runners use in Monaco. Last year’s winner, Jenson Button, made SIX stops in Montreal, including a drive-through penalty. The DRS wing-opening zones have been reduced from last year’s two to just one, on the long Casino Straight, and that zone has been shortened to make passing more difficult again. Consider also that the Canadian weather is notoriously changeable, and you can see why Montreal is one of the most likely races to feature one (or more) safety car releases.
The story coming to North America is unquestionably whether or not we’ll see a record-extending seventh different winner to start the 2012 season. Mark Webber’s win from pole in Monaco back ended the similar string of consecutive different winning constructors at five, and Red Bull is, for now, the only team with more than a single victory. Who are the likely candidates to add their names to those of Webber, teammate Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button of McLaren, Fernando Alonso for Ferrari, Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes, and Pastor Maldonado of Williams?
Start with Michael Schumacher. In Monaco the Mercedes team leader produced his first pole since his return from retirement more than two years ago, as he promised he would. He might have kept his promise to win the race as well but for fuel pressure problems. If numerology is your game, “Schumie” is your boy: a 7-time world champion, 7-time Montreal winner, racing car number 7 in the 7th round of the championship. Another good name to put a Loonie on is Lewis Hamilton, who despite not winning yet this season is the only driver who has scored points in every race. Hamilton has a special affinity for Canada, the site of his maiden F1 victory, and he is overdue.
Then there are the Lotus teammates, Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean. Why they haven’t taken the top step of the podium yet this year is a mystery given their pace in testing and qualifying. Raikkonen’s steering issue in Monaco and hot-and-cold performances in the late stages of the races suggests that he hasn’t quite figured out the car yet, while “RoGro” has crashed out of three of the first six races, and yet scored points in the other three. If they can hit the bullseye on setup and strategy either could be the lucky seventh winner. Sauber hasn’t impressed much since Sergio Perez’s runner-up finish to Alonso in Malaysia, and Bruno Senna hasn’t looked anywhere close to repeating teammate Maldonado’s shocking win in Barcelona in the Williams.
Putting aside the little teams, that leaves the curious case of Felipe Massa, who produced his best finish of a thoroughly miserable season thus far in the other Ferrari at Monaco, sixth place. His teammate Alonso thinks the 31-year old Brazilian is on a long-awaited upswing following his near-death experience in Hungary back in 2009. If Massa could win, as he insists he can, it would be one of the all-time feel-good stories of this or any season.
One final note: Canada marks our first of four straight GPs on FOX, and this one is live. But the big change this season is that we will offer pre and post-race coverage on SPEED, which means all the F1 coverage you expect. See you bright and early, but happily not THAT bright and early, this weekend.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
Spanish Grand Prix
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