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/
 
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), .

Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't Pirelli brought soft and super soft to canada? Ferrari's problem was with the durable harder compound which is not available this weekend. They were always ok on the softs and subsequently super softs.
 
Yep softs and super softs. It is yet to be seen whether any progress has been made with Ferrari's hard tyre problems.
 
so ive just watched hamiltons post race interview and it doesnt sound good.
basically he said they found something wrong with his car,and he just hopes he can finish the race and get some points.
that sounds to me like he thinks his car may not last the race.he also said the cars about 13kmh slower on the straights.
 
Everyone has there favourites and dislikes, I think that is a God given entitlement....we also have teams we like and dislike....but I will catagorically state that RBR and Seb Vettel are a machine right now...everything works like clock work and they just go out with ruthless efficiency.

I think Vettel is maturing into a mighty fine race car driver in the same way the RBR are maturing into a solid team. Kudo's to the boys at MK.

From a Ferrari perspective...It was refreshing to see Massa with a little flame under his rear and Qualie was a Ferrari team effort which I have waited 7 odd races to see.....c'mon boys.

MO for Ferrari today is simple.....get off the line well and consolidate, on this track the distinction is not that far between the top sides so I fully expect that everyone at Marinello will see this as potentially a door to better things.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't Pirelli brought soft and super soft to canada? Ferrari's problem was with the durable harder compound which is not available this weekend. They were always ok on the softs and subsequently super softs.
I was watching free practice 1 when all the cars tried out the new medium tyres which I think Ferrari had their biggest problems on. No idea about fuel loads but the red cars were topping the timeheets when everyone was on these too. It all points to them having solved that problem.
 
I am far from the most "techie" person so hopefully someone can explain something for me. Why would having a long 7th gear help Mclaren in the race but hinder them in qualifying? Thanks in advance :)
 
so ive just watched hamiltons post race interview and it doesnt sound good.
basically he said they found something wrong with his car,and he just hopes he can finish the race and get some points.
that sounds to me like he thinks his car may not last the race.he also said the cars about 13kmh slower on the straights.
Think they have gone for a rain or weird weather set up and it's just not worked out. They have in one of the qualifying sessions had Hamilton's McLaren in bits. Think this is a nailed on win for Vettel the rest picking up the scraps.

Oh hum, it's like 2004 all over again, if he takes the flag in Canada that would be 9 wins in the last 11.
 
I was watching free practice 1 when all the cars tried out the new medium tyres which I think Ferrari had their biggest problems on. No idea about fuel loads but the red cars were topping the timeheets when everyone was on these too. It all points to them having solved that problem.

Was it not their poor pace on the harder compound that contributed to them being lapped by the front runners at Barcelona? Pirelli haven't distributed these tyre since so it is yet to be seen whether they've resolved the issues. As I said earlier, their pace on the soft and super softs has been good so I didn't expect them to fair any worse on this new medium tyre which is still faster than the most durable tyre. I guess we'll find whether they've overcome the issues when the hard compound is reintroduced at Silverstone.

hard---medium*----soft----super soft
 
I am far from the most "techie" person so hopefully someone can explain something for me. Why would having a long 7th gear help Mclaren in the race but hinder them in qualifying? Thanks in advance :)

In the race it will mean that Hamilton can slip stream someone and use the DRS to overtake without hitting the limiter. In Barcelona, Hamilton has said they had a 7th gear that was too short, which meant he kept on hitting the limiter half way down the straight and wasn't able to overtake Vettel. For Canada, they've made a prediction based on the conditions, DRS, etc. Supposedly, quite a wind picked up during qualifying and this effected their 7th gear choice.

For qualifying, having a 7th gear that is too long, would effect traction/acceleration, as he would go into 7th gear earlier than he ideally wants. If you drive, then imagine going into 4th or 5th gear when you're only doing 30mph, as an exaggerated, but comparable example. In the race however, as I said before, although it may still hurt his speed a little, he will at least be able to overtake better because of it and seeming as he isn't on pole, that isn't such a bad thing.
 
so ive just watched hamiltons post race interview and it doesnt sound good.
basically he said they found something wrong with his car,and he just hopes he can finish the race and get some points.
that sounds to me like he thinks his car may not last the race.he also said the cars about 13kmh slower on the straights.

I think a few people have misunderstood what Hamilton said about that problem. This is what he said:-

Hamilton gave an enigmatic response when asked if he was hoping for better race form.

“I really, really hope so. We had a little bit of a bad news earlier on about something on the car. That will undoubtedly hamper our race pace.”

Lewis said he had no preference for a wet or dry race: “I don’t mind. I’d love a dry race, I think it would be great for all the fans. However it would be cool if it started dry and it rained half way through or something like that, and spiced it up a bit.

“I just want to finish tomorrow. Vettel’s gone, he’s on his way. It’s going to be very, very hard for us to catch him at this race. But I’m still hopeful. I don’t know when we’ve got anything coming, but I really, really hope that sometime soon we’ll have some positive steps on the car.”

---

If you read that through, he says the issue they found will effect his race pace. Only later on does he say, he just wants to finish tomorrow. I think in saying that, he is not suggesting they have an issue that will stop him from finishing, but that he is just in damage limitation mode and wants to finish and get as many points as possible. This is at least my interpretation of the dialogue.
 
I am far from the most "techie" person so hopefully someone can explain something for me. Why would having a long 7th gear help Mclaren in the race but hinder them in qualifying? Thanks in advance :)

The obvious answer is where the power is delivered, if you assume full bore gear changes such as in quali where the driver changes at the peak point in each gear then in the race where overtaking is a necessity then different points might be more useful

I'm not a techie either more a driver, I am probably only scratching the surface though
 
So far this season I thought they were running a shorter than optimum 7th gear in qualifying though as we've been seeing cars bouncing off the rev limiter. This has been because in the race the use of DRS is restricted thus top speeds are lower in the race than in qualifying, so the teams have had to compromise between the best gear ratios for the race and the best for qualifying.

All of that makes me think that actually this long 7th gear could be an even bigger issue in the race today, but I don't really know what I'm talking about so I've probably got it wrong.
 
So far this season I thought they were running a shorter than optimum 7th gear in qualifying though as we've been seeing cars bouncing off the rev limiter. This has been because in the race the use of DRS is restricted thus top speeds are lower in the race than in qualifying, so the teams have had to compromise between the best gear ratios for the race and the best for qualifying.

All of that makes me think that actually this long 7th gear could be an even bigger issue in the race today, but I don't really know what I'm talking about so I've probably got it wrong.

That does actually make sense. You could be right.
 
Was it not their poor pace on the harder compound that contributed to them being lapped by the front runners at Barcelona? Pirelli haven't distributed these tyre since so it is yet to be seen whether they've resolved the issues. As I said earlier, their pace on the soft and super softs has been good so I didn't expect them to fair any worse on this new medium tyre which is still faster than the most durable tyre. I guess we'll find whether they've overcome the issues when the hard compound is reintroduced at Silverstone.

hard---medium*----soft----super soft
By heavens, I think you are right and I was getting silver and white mixed up... :embarrassed:
 
With Ferrari as close as ever in Quali, and with their better race performance, it looks good for them. Looking forward to another good start from alonso :popcorn:
 
It's raining hard in Montreal right now, accompanied by very strong wind.

Woop. That is exactly what i wanted to hear this morning. I was looking was a "superlike" button but couldn't find one.
 
The rain is going to impact the race in more ways than one, as all of the rubber laid down over the weekend will now be washed away and the track will be green again.
I suspect that will mean at least 1 more stop than if it had been a dry race.
 
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