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

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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/
 
Red Bull should have enough time to fix Seb V's car before FP2.

He's got to be annoyed with himself going out so soon in FP1 though.
 
Red Bull should have enough time to fix Seb V's car before FP2.

He's got to be annoyed with himself going out so soon in FP1 though.

Did he damage his chasis? I thought that I heard someone in Vettel's pit area mention the word chasis.
 
Coming home from work and seeing the headline "Vettel crashes in Canada practice" made my day.* 2 crashes in 3 races. Just got to hope he cracks a little here. Looks like being the most competitive race of the season.

*Obviously i don't wish any harm on the guy, but bar Monaco in the last race, crashing hasn't proven to be particularly dangerous in F1 in the last decade.
 
I've just seen this tweet from the Red Bull guys:

redbullf1spy Red Bull F1 Spy
So, the garage (some of Mark's boys included) worked on Seb's broken front suspension and wing. Seb's hoping to take part in FP3.

Is this a mistweet or is Seb's car too badly damaged to compete in FP2?

EDIT:
Never mind it's a tweet error.

redbullf1spy Red Bull F1 Spy
Apologies, it's FP2 we hope Seb to be ready for. Blame the heat.
 
I expect this is Sauber hedging their bets, just in case Perez isn't able to race for any reason.
Any replacement driver has to have participated in one of the practice sessions.

Although it's a bit odd as de la Rosa is the McLaren test driver...

Edit: Just noticed it's for the rest of the weekend! So de la Rosa will be driving in the Canadian GP for Sauber?! That's a very strange development.
 
it happened in the good old days i suppose, do sauber even have a test/reserve driver?? Perhaps Ron is feeling a little charitable, Perhaps Sauber has something on there car Mclaren want to look at LOL
 
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/92134 Pedro de la Rosa will race for the Sauber team in this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix after Sergio Perez was forced to withdraw from the event.
Perez had massive a crash during qualifying in Monaco and was unable to compete in the race.
The Sauber driver, who suffered concussion, was given the green light to race in Canada on Thursday.
However, the Mexican rookie felt sick following the first practice session in Montreal, and Sauber has decided to draft in McLaren's reserve Pedro de la Rosa.
The Spanish driver raced for Sauber last year before he was dumped with five races to go and replaced by Nick Heidfeld, now at Renault.
"We want to thank Pedro de la Rosa and McLaren for helping us out in this situation."
 
Concussion can have so many different knock on effects even for these super fit and well protected drivers. Let's hope he gets better soon.
 
sportsman:

So, Ron Dennis is a rather charitable chap after all! ;) Perhaps Dennis has asked Pedro to get some intel on how those Saubers were able to successfully 1-Stop Australia and Monaco. Pedro will likely be texting Woking like crazy. I mean he had tons of practice emailing/texting about four and a quarter years ago. March/April 2007, I believe.:snigger: I'm sure Dennis is fed up of watching McLaren throw away races because of poor pitstops (for Lewis) and bad tyre management (by Jenson at Monaco) so i'm quite certain the Ronster is desperate to limit the number of stints his cars do. No?:yes:
 
People are crashing left right and centre in practice and people seem to be obsessed with sauber's reserve driver, goodness whats going on in this forum?
 
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