Grand Prix 2011 Canadian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Thought this might be useful if you wanted to sing along to the Canadian National Anthem before the start of the race.

Anyway, on to the Grand Prix, after all that’s what we’re here for. Last year Bridgestone provided tyres, which didn’t like the surface at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve too much, and the powers that be in F1 thought “ah, ha here’s an idea to spice up the racing. Why don’t we ask those blokes at Pirelli if they can make sets of boots for F1 cars that fall apart on the warm up lap”, and they did.

In 2010 Hamilton put his car on pole (you may recall him pushing his car back to the pits, so light was it on fuel) and then went on to win an exciting race with teammate Jenson Button standing on the 2nd step.

So what for Canada 2011? Red Bull, at least car No.1, has been a tad difficult to beat but McLaren and Ferrari are getting closer during the race. With 5 wins out of 6 races Vettel has a healthy lead in the Championship and some bookmakers are already paying out on the title being his. Vettel was 3rd on the grid last year, behind teammate Webber, and finished 4th with unspecified gearbox problems, still ahead of Webber who had led for many laps but got caught out by the high tyre wear rate.

Fernando Alonso was 3rd last time out in Canada after getting mugged by a hard charging Jenson Button. Mercedes had a mixed race, Rosberg was “best of the rest” behind the McLaren’s, Alonso’s Ferrari and the Red Bull’s whilst Michael Schumacher treated the race like a destruction derby, straight lining chicanes and bouncing off other cars with gay abandon. What of Felipe Massa I hear you ask; well, he was one of Schumacher’s victims and lost time pitting for a new nose cone.

This is very nearly the last Hurrah for the exhaust blown diffuser and we have two, yes 2, DRS zones. So expect cars breezing past another before and after the pits, when they’re not in their getting new tyres of course.

Will it be another Red Bull walk over or can the McLaren’s and Ferrari’s tame the charging Bull? How will the Pirelli tyres hold up dusty and bumpy Ille Notre-Dame Circuit? Will it rain? Who will win? Can one of the minor teams struggle up into the points? I don’t know but I get the feeling there will be lots of speculation.

And we have our own track side reporter this year - take a bow Ray in Toronto and make sure you post some good photos

For Galahad’s excellent circuit write up, track history and all the stats a boy or girl could want click here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/circuit-gilles-villeneuve/

 

[F1Yorkshire]

100% buttons fault, as Alonso had the line and by virtue of the race line the volocity it allows into the chicane.

Is it possible that you are viewing the incident through rose tinted spectacles? I wouldn't be happy if my favourite driver was punted out of the race even if the contact was judged to be a racing incident.

I'm not happy about Hamilton's DNF but I'd rather see drivers attack and attempt to overtake rather than just spending the whole race line astern not attempting to make an passing move or even worse waiting for the team to tell their team mates to get out of the way.

 

[RickD]

Oh why am I not surprised, No punishment for either of Buttons incidents.....

And now for the Lewis fans I am extremely sympathetic for, and really the FIA is earmarking who they like and don't like....I distictly remember Lewis getting a post race reprimand for his Pastor Maldonado plough in Monaco when he did not have the race line.....double standards is what I say.

1] Alonso has to make the turn, he is on the racing line and well at liberty to do that (or where else must he go) he can take the turn with much higher speed so really no blame at all (as was the Maldonado incident at Monaco), those that say yield clearly don't realise that it is racing.

2] Shades of Kubica/Shumacher in 2010 at Montreal, you can't expect to make the chicane on the inside line, the only thing stoping button grassing it is Alonso's car......

3] The only saving grace was the weather otherwise it was undisputedly causing an incident. All this does is condones passing in no passing zones......

What is a "no passing zone"? I am confused by this statement. This is near enough the same place Jenson got past Fernando last year, is it not? And considering Jenson was in front coming into the braking zone, Alonso should have given him room.

If Alonso is so good, then surely he shouldn't be causing an accident at this point of the circuit as a dab on the brakes would have meant there was no coming together and would have meant that the Ferrari may have finished the GP, so in some ways, Alonso cut off his own nose to spite his face.

 

[Sarinaide]

Sarinaide, not sure if you spotted it, but rosberg was not alongside another driver when he turned in.

It is contrary to the point, just stating like Rosberg it was the best line/race line into the chicane.

Sarinaide can you point me to the rule that states the driver on the racing line has the right of way please?

It is not a rule but needless to say when you are on the racing line you are not obligated to take evasive action because someone else is pulling an aggressive move.

I also don't see what tyres have to do with it...yeah sure Button was ahead for a while, then he wasn't and he is totally out of control of the situation once he tries to hit the curb on the inside apex.....by this point Alonso is already through, all he has done is driven the shortest route through two very differant lines of approach, at some point contact always looked imminant.

we may agree to disagree particularly on the apportionment of blame....but I don't think it unjust to try lay claim to a Ferrari case, or we just have a lot of opinions from McLaren fans, which I think it has remained pretty civil.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

That's not right; I'm sure I heard Ted Kravitz say that on further inspection there actually was significant damage

I think it's pretty telling that from Lewis's point of view the car was not damaged and potentially could've been driven back to the pits and repaired quickly, but the team are saying no, it was significant damage (which to be honest it looked like to me). It strikes me this shows a division between Lewis & the team and he was not happy with the decision to stop on track. I suspect he may have got a penalty if he hadn't stopped. It's also telling that he stopped in a place which caused a safety car when he could've gone off-track - why?

 

[RickD]

I think it's pretty telling that from Lewis's point of view the car was not damaged and potentially could've been driven back to the pits and repaired quickly, but the team are saying no, it was significant damage (which to be honest it looked like to me). It strikes me this shows a division between Lewis & the team and he was not happy with the decision to stop on track. I suspect he may have got a penalty if he hadn't stopped. It's also telling that he stopped in a place which caused a safety car when he could've gone off-track - why?

The only reason this caused a safety car is because the FIA were being overly cautious, he stopped just in front of a break in the barriers and the marshals could have removed the car under waved yellows easily.

 

[Hamberg]

I don't think you can apportion blame serenade, that's my view. The same way you'll see when it comes to the Button/Hamilton incident that I have also concluded that there should be no penalty so this isn't a my driver vs your driver argument. I'm hoping it's a common sense approach that fortunately the stewards took.

The racing line as you said is the quickest line, but it's not a right of way and I'd be interested to hear how you propose a driver is supposed to overtake without going off the racing line? Drivers are permitted to overtake anywhere between the white lines. There was no kerb jumping, he braked earlier as it was a tighter line, Alonso chose to stay on his line and they collided. No barging, no illegal moves, just a collision, a racing incident.

 

[Brogan]

It's interesting that Button was on the radio angrily asking the team what Hamilton was doing after he pushed him into the wall.

Also there are conflicting statements with regards to the damage to Hamilton's car.

However the 26-year-old suggested McLaren were mistaken in believing he could not continue.
"It was only the tyre that was busted so I put the diff-lock [a mechanism that increases traction] on and I was going to drive it back to the garage and the team told me to retire.
"I thought that the suspension had gone, because that was what they told me, but it turns out it was not."

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

There were lots of indications of unhappiness in the McLaren camp yesterday. Another interesting moment was when Whitmarsh was being interview by Jake & Eddie (when the race was red flagged?), and at the suggestion that Lewis could leave for another team, I thought Martin definitely seemed to have been riled. It could just be my fevered imagination but I do sense there are some divisions in the team.

 

[Hamberg]

It's interesting that Button was on the radio angrily asking the team what Hamilton was doing after he pushed him into the wall.

Button is always first to blame someone else (which is why Brundles comments about Hamilton were so amusing). I was calling Button all sorts of un-lady like profanities for that comment over the radio and later had to explain to my non F1 loving other half (who was mightily confused by my joy at Button's win) that I don't like his 'does no wrong' arrogance (Massa in Oz, yellow flags in Japan '09).

However he said in the press conference that he apologised to Lewis so knew on reflection it wasn't Lewis' fault.

 

[Hamberg]

There were lots of indications of unhappiness in the McLaren camp yesterday. Another interesting moment was when Whitmarsh was being interview by Jake & Eddie (when the race was red flagged?), and at the suggestion that Lewis could leave for another team, I thought Martin definitely seemed to have been riled. It could just be my fevered imagination but I do sense there are some divisions in the team.

I wonder why... http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/92327

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Regarding the damage to Hamiltons car, from this angle it looks like suspension damage and the team has to go on what they can see. I'm pretty sure any sensors that monitor the suspension would have been triggered by the impact.

 

[Sarinaide]

Kubica and Schumacher 2010 exactly the same and both took penalties, though it was latter said that Schumacher did nothing wrong sticking to the racing line. Kubica rode him off the track, the instances are vastly similar.

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Different case Sarinaide. Both drivers pushed each other off the track, to be honest neither should have received penalties but the stewards were right in the fact that neither driver was more to blame than the other.

 

[sportsman]

It's interesting that Button was on the radio angrily asking the team what Hamilton was doing after he pushed him into the wall.

Also there are conflicting statements with regards to the damage to Hamilton's car.

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2011/6/12177.html Lewis had a frustratingly short race, which ended when he and Jenson made contact at the beginning of the start-finish straight. We took the decision to ask him to stop his car on the track, and our post-race inspection revealed that that was the correct choice: his suspension was damaged to such an extent that it would have been impossible to continue.

 

[Brogan]

As I said, conflicting statements.

 

[Sarinaide]

Different case Sarinaide. Both drivers pushed each other off the track, to be honest neither should have received penalties but the stewards were right in the fact that neither driver was more to blame than the other.

1] Michael for the push to the wall
2] Kubica was never going to make that chicane and drove schumacher of the track, there was a point where Kubica should have yielded knowing that Schumi had the better drive through but opted for a aggressive move.

In the Alonso/Button incident, I have absolutely no quelms about calculated passes, I do however distinguish calculated from gambles/wagers, Button had such a poor entry drive judging by the excessive braking force to slow it down, at some point he was always going to be a passenger into Alonso's rear, the only thing Alonso could have done to avoid a collision (which he was not obligated to as he passed Button) was to like Schumi take the grass root, then in all likelihood take a penalty for taking a place by cutting the chicane....as for Button he was going to like Kubica take a very rough detour best case scenario.

I deemed this unecessary and a gamble as the McLaren would have driven past him at a better point aka after the hairpin.

 

[Jru]

I thought Schumacher was fairly widely criticised? Either way at least Schumacher didn't just turn on Kubica. And Kubica never got alongside as Button did.

I can see where you are coming from Sarinaide I just don't think Alonso was entirely blameless (and nor was Button!) If Alonso had cut the chicane he wouldn't have been punished though as he wouldn't gain a place, just not lose one.

I can also see what you mean about Button's angle, he should have been turned further but then Alonso turned quickly to the right too. Either by itself may have just squeezed one driver, both together made the accident.

 

[riskitall]

Is it possible that you are viewing the incident through rose tinted spectacles? I wouldn't be happy if my favourite driver was punted out of the race even if the contact was judged to be a racing incident.

I'm not happy about Hamilton's DNF but I'd rather see drivers attack and attempt to overtake rather than just spending the whole race line astern not attempting to make an passing move or even worse waiting for the team to tell their team mates to get out of the way.

exactly,they were all racing incidents.however its only lewis who is being called mad by lauda.ppl really do overeact when lewis is involved.
it was a great race because of the incidents and jensons brilliant performance.noone was hurt,so we should appreciate great races like yesterday.the only negative about yesterdays race was the long arse break,and the SC start.
but it does now seem like drivers are being discouraged from trying risky overatakes,which is wrong.

im a lewis fan so im gutted he didnt get any points.but he is now 16 points behind jenson so he will have to come back strong.also the season isnt over untill we see what happens after the the new blown diffuser usage rule begins at silverstone.
if redbull no longer dominate in quali then the season isnt over.

 

[Sarinaide]

im a lewis fan so im gutted he didnt get any points.but he is now 16 points behind jenson so he will have to come back strong.also the season isnt over untill we see what happens after the the new blown diffuser usage rule begins at silverstone.
if redbull no longer dominate in quali then the season isnt over.

It remains to be seen but really don't be disappointed if nothing changes. RBR are the superior package and all props to the MK boys, great everything.

 

[Hamberg]

I think we are all getting a bit carried away with precedence here and are also forgetting the conditions of the race. If we went by all previous decisions then they may as well not bother anymore.

Shit happens, they are racing drivers and sometimes there will be a collision. Why on earth anybody would want the race altered off track is beyond me, driver fan or not. What good would punishing Button do for Alonso? I've said before having a right to do something is different to doing the right thing.

There was no intent in either drivers case between Button and Alonso, I wouldn't even call it careless, just an unfortunate ending. Alonso and Dominicalli called it a collision, they didn't apportion blame. The stewards didn't apportion blame.

It was a racing incident.