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 don't think they have different compounds of wet do they? Just intermediates and full wets.
 
Going back to the Vettel pole time, maybe he just had a very low downforce set-up, whereas the other drivers went more conservative in their setup, higher downforce, predicting rain.
Or it could just be that Vettel is damn fast.
 
Going back to the Vettel pole time, maybe he just had a very low downforce set-up, whereas the other drivers went more conservative in their setup, higher downforce, predicting rain.
Or it could just be that Vettel is damn fast.

RBR is just damn fast.......like clockwork.
 
How disappointed are you lot going to be if there's 2 hours behind the safety car and the grid positions are called for the race result LOL
 
Going back to the Vettel pole time, maybe he just had a very low downforce set-up, whereas the other drivers went more conservative in their setup, higher downforce, predicting rain.
Or it could just be that Vettel is damn fast.

Well in that case Webber has a similar set up because he was only 0.415 off and he didn't have KERS (or ERS as I believe it is now called).
 
Don't FB, just don't. Canada doesn't tend to be like that though. It will surely never rain enough for us to have a Korea on our hands. That'll just be embarrassing for F1 again.
 
Vettels engine will go POOF8-)

Any form of DNF for Vettel would be the most exciting thing to happen so far this season. I think it is ludicrous that people are writing off the title after 7 race and 58 points.
 
Can I just take something up on the BBC F1 coverage from yesterday?

The Terrible Twosome were spending the coverage saying Sauber's lack of a reserve [Gutierrez] was "insane". I disagree. I believe it was quite canny. They discussed the difficulty of PdlR settling in at Sauber, but it would surely be more difficult for a rookie Mexican to step in cold and race for Sauber in F1. PdlR, however, raced for Sauber for the first half of 2010 so would be far more acquainted with the systems of the team.

Who knows, but I fear that Gutierrez may have been prey to Lotus and Toro Rosso in Q1.
 
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