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/
 
Jerome D'Ambrosio has been allowed to race.

Makes the 107% rule a bit pointless then, doesn't it?

Can't understand that at all.
It wasn't like he missed part of the session/ broke down - he did 13 laps in Q1.

And his FP3 times were not within the 107% either.
He was within 107% in FP1 with a 1:19, but the leaders were only using Medium/Soft compounds and doing 1:15.
Also, was it stated that sessions from FP3 were official?
 
Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he was ‘very happy’ with his final Q3 effort at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve this afternoon, despite having to settle for fifth place on tomorrow’s grid. The McLaren driver was left without an answer to the pace of his Red Bull and Ferrari rival in qualifying, but he believes a long seventh gear could pay dividends in the race.

"Personally, I was very happy with my lap: I don’t think I’ve ever driven a car as hard in my life as I did this afternoon," Hamilton explained. "I was right on the ragged edge and I think I even touched the wall at one stage.

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/261964/hamilton-i-ve-never-driven-harder-in-my-life/
 
The reasons given on Virgin's twitter were that he has been allowed to race as it was a new chassis and didn't have time to set it up correctly.

MarussiaVirgin MarussiaVirginRacing
The FIA have allowed Jerome to race tomorrow, having considered the fact that he had to start with a new chassis this morning.
 
Poor quali showing by McLaren, wet setup or not, and Jenson was fortunate not to have been outqualified by Schumacher. I think Hamilton kicked up some dust in his second run and ended up ruining Button's lap. As far as the race goes, I think Alonso will pass Vettel at the start, and with a troublesome kers system Webber could be vulnerable. Last year was a bit of an anomaly and I expect a few SC interventions tomorrow.
 
Personally, I expect it to rain, and there will be complete carnage, 3-4 SC's and Massa to win and beat Alonso
 
I think the real story from qually was the pace of the Ferraris. They have clearly managed to fix the major problem they had on harder tyres (they did well on experimental mediums too in FP1), and they have found raw pace. An Alonso win tomorrow must be on the cards if they can repeat the race pace we have seen this year.
 

The BBC have put up the video to this interview here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/13740225.stm

At the end Lewis reveals that the McLaren guys have discovered a problem with his car. Understandably he doesn't reveal anything about what it is but I guess KERS would be top of the list of likely issues?

Also, it sounds like the long 7th gear was much more of a factor in McLaren's lack of pace in qualifying than a wet setup.
 
Guys what the hell is wrong with you, why are you all so polite, why can't you call a spade a spade and say it Mclaren messed up big time as usual, under Whitmarsh this team is going backwards only strategy gambles and Hamilton's brilliance have allowed them to save face!
 
Mr Noble please! you are coming accross as a bit vain, how many times have we said 'Mclaren have made a mistake' just this season alone! Don't you get tired of saying the same thing over and over again, if you do not desist from this unhealthy practice, you might suffer from Repetitive Thought Injury, I promise you, you are going to be singing this song all season long, so long as Whitmarsh is team principal.

...and there i was thinking i was sitting on the fence. :D
 
Guys what the hell is wrong with you, why are you all so polite

:dunno: blame my parents?

Honestly though, I don't agree with the conclusion, but those who do feel that McLaren are a bunch of numpties are not going to change their mind because I write something interesting. As I say above, the real story is Ferrari - without them splitting the RBs, we would be looking at McLaren 3 & 5 on the grid with a bit of back slapping for having set things up for the race.
 
Mclaren could also say that the times they have don't something different there gambles just haven't paid off and any time the others seems to do something a bit different they do. Had a late run in Monaco led to pole we'd be calling them geniuses and we will do the same tomorrow if they run away with it because it is wet, which is what i have my fingers crossed for.

I don't think we are necessarily being polite, we just can't judge whether the decision today will pay off or not because a) it hasn't happened yet and b) we haven't seen the information which Mclaren based this on. They might have decided they were too slow to compete for pole and decided if they wanted to win they would have to do something a little different.

The other thing is, if a top team like Mclaren have stuck there necks out and said it is probably going to rain tomorrow then it is probably going to rain. They may seem to do silly things at times, but they will have calculated the possibility of rain as best they can and based their strategy on that. Personally i don't see how the probability of rain could be so high. I'd say that only about a third of the time when someone says it is going to rain in 5 minutes does it actually rain in 5 minutes so i can 'tsee how weather forecasts of rain can be made with any probability higher than 33% at any point, especially not a day before and with rain being a rarity.
 
Just to add to that, i think in Malaysia there was suggested to be a 90% probability of rain and there was none. It doesn't make any sense these calculations.
 
Mclaren are the cleverest and slickest team in F1 history, competing with Ferrari without the special advantage the FIA have endowed on the Italian team

They should be innovating and leading not playing catch up and gambling on all or nothing plays like an underfunded small garage operation, they are now a manufacturer with road cars to sell

This I think is what happens when the team boss is not a rainmaker or a visionary who can build a team from nothing. When the team boss is a competent middle manager with a business degree from an average polytechnic we say goodbye to the type of drive that built Ferrari, Mclaren and even F1 itself
I don't think Bernie has a degree in business otherwise F1 would be a small franchise right now
 
Tweet from Jake 2 hours ago...

Apparently from Silverstone onwards, a new FIA directive will require big changes to teams exhausts. No doubt more on #bbcf1 site soon...

Bad news for the Renault powered teams?
 
That is worrying. Red Bull are suppose to be disadvantaged on straights aren't they. :S
 
Got to say, having watched these folk for a couple of days now, the Red Bull cars look awesome. So much more fluid and planted through the corners. Both of them just look plain fast. Even if it rains I can't see anyone getting close to Seb.

The Renault cars are something else to listen to though, more like a Bren gun than a racing automobile!

Pyrope - pink and happy and off to find beer
 
I feel sorry for all those looking at Mclaren through their rose tinted glasses, for 18 months of Whitmarsh's tenure there has been dissapointment after dissapointment, they make one step forward and then three steps backwards, Hamilton's pitstops are consistently slow, speaking of which (numbers don't lie), no one has offered a logical explanation as to why this is the case all we get are people dismissing this strange phenomenon as mere conspiracy theory, although we can see with our own eyes that Hamilton's stops have been dismall at best!
 
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