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 today is the day I finally turn against the DRS once and for all. I can understand the need for it but here is the problem:
The driver behind loses time throughout the lap due to following another car.
The FIA makes up for it in the space of 1 or two straights, leading to a far too great advantage.
The net result is too often a free pass even for cars that are sometimes worse.

It *could* work but with modification - make the system fer less effective but measure it for every entry to a set of corners, and have an activation zone after. The with the system less effective the following car should regain some ground but not just sail past. If the car is fast enough it will be aided to pass but if not it should not pass. Of course not fucking up the proposed 2013 regs would also help and then they needn't keep the system which would be a benefit to commentators and forum tranquillity alike.

Also (while I'm at it) why the hell have wet tyres if they switch straight to inters when the safety car comes in? One positive at least is that there seems to be some overlap in working range for the wets inters and slicks which will mean strategy isn't an easy yes/no decision.
 
What makes it worse is the Pirelli full wets can cope with more extreme weather than the Bridgestones, and the Pirelli inters are closer to slicks than the Bridgestones were.

Bloody ridiculous race direction today.

I have heard that the tread on the Pireli full wets is lesser than the Bridgestone ones, that's why they slide around and aquaplane more
 
I think with regard to stewards punishing a driver, it should be quite simple. If their is an incident and a driver has been affected by another because of him making a debatable or silly move, then it should be investigated, otherwise it should not. This would automatically close the case for the incident between Button and Hamilton as, although Hamilton had a go, he was the one that got hurt, so if they are running an investigation, presumably, it can only be to find out if Button "put him in the wall". It also would cancel out incidents like Di Resta's. OK it was a silly move, but if he only hurt himself and didn't hurt the guy infront whatsoever (e.g. damage his car, or lose him position), then why give him a further penalty.

I think if the rules were made simpler like this, then it would just make racing, about racing because no one likes seeing 10 or 20 investigations going on during a race - it's stupid.
 
From the commentary though it seemed the problem was more visibility than grip, at least when not bringing the sc in. I agree though that it was overly cautious, I'm almost prepared to forgive them because it was the first time using the pirellis (I'm sure that must have been part of the reason to start with the sc - ensure that no-one gambled on the inters)

As long as they dont do the same in Spa...
 
To compound Hamiltons bad luck, his suspension wasn't damaged in the crash and with a new tyre and front wing his car would have been right as rain.

I don't see what McLaren had to lose in at least letting Lewis return to the pits. Once again McLaren cock it up.
 
What's all this 'off the racing line' stuff about? To overtake, by definition you have to go off the racing line (or force the other driver off it). It looked to me that Button had his front wheels forward of Alonso's front wheels, which means that he was ahead. Then Fernando braked a touch later and turned in, and the two touched.
Overall, I tend to agree with johnnoble's view that this was a racing incident, as were many of the others today (and at Monaco for that matter).
 
The button incident with Alonso. OK, Alonso got hurt, but did Button do anything fundamentally wrong? Did he intentionally go into Alonso? No. Did he dive in at the last minute? No. Did he arguably have the correct line into the corner and have the apex? Yes.

To me, the case is quite obviously a racing incident and I think any incident that is no more than 60 - 70% one drivers fault, should be put as a racing incident. A penalty should only be given when it is 70% or more one drivers fault.
 
What makes it worse is the Pirelli full wets can cope with more extreme weather than the Bridgestones, and the Pirelli inters are closer to slicks than the Bridgestones were.

Didn't know that but that does make it even more ridiculous. It seems to me that there's been a change of mindset since the 2009 season, maybe after the Malaysian grand prix that was cut short after the torrential downpour? Since then at the first sign of water the safety car comes out. I'm not sure whether great wet races of recent years, e.g. Silverstone 2008, Brazil 2008, Monza 2008, Fuji 2007, would even be allowed to happen now just a couple of years later...
 
Well that's a copout. Unless you genuinely believe the collision was inevitable.

I think when two drivers go into a corner they can try to leave each other space and still hit each other. This is how would define an incident solely due to racing and we certainly don't want to discourage racing.
 
I think if Button does lose the win, McLaren will appeal and go to court about this. Hopefully make a mockery of the joke FIA and steward system at the moment. You know what, Hamilton was completely right in saying it is a "fricken joke" after Monaco, because quite frankly it is. Everyone says we want to see racing and we want to see overtaking, yet the FIA seem to be doing everything possible with ridiculously cautious safety cars and inconsistent and unfair stewarding.
 
I don't see what McLaren had to lose in at least letting Lewis return to the pits. Once again McLaren cock it up.

Agreed. I think they had nothing to lose and the car looked like it had enough drive to return to the pits. I believe he was asked to retire at Monaco too after his rear wing was damaged. I thihnk Hamilton was Alonso were very unfortunate today, more so Alonso as his car didn't look like it was damaged in the incident with Jenson. The high curb effectively retired him.
 
The button incident with Alonso. OK, Alonso got hurt, but did Button do anything fundamentally wrong? Did he intentionally go into Alonso? No. Did he dive in at the last minute? No. Did he arguably have the correct line into the corner and have the apex? Yes.

To me, the case is quite obviously a racing incident and I think any incident that is no more than 60 - 70% one drivers fault, should be put as a racing incident. A penalty should only be given when it is 70% or more one drivers fault.

Fernando was always ahead from the views I saw

I don't see what McLaren had to lose in at least letting Lewis return to the pits. Once again McLaren cock it up.

They would have got penalised for making him continue as his car was quite a bit damaged, just like Vettel did in Australia. Well that's my take on it anyway.
 
What's all this 'off the racing line' stuff about? To overtake, by definition you have to go off the racing line (or force the other driver off it). It looked to me that Button had his front wheels forward of Alonso's front wheels, which means that he was ahead. Then Fernando braked a touch later and turned in, and the two touched.
Overall, I tend to agree with johnnoble's view that this was a racing incident, as were many of the others today (and at Monaco for that matter).

Trying to do someone into a one at a time zone is not really a race incident when you consider the Mercedes and Ferrari's speed relative to Button turning in....why they had the proper racing line in a high speed chicane...button was infinately slower just to make it into the the inside apex...but for hitting the rear of Alonso he was visiting the grass on the other side. This is nothing like Malaysia doing someone in braking around a hairpin, this was purely a move that was inevitably going to cause a prang.
 
Didn't know that but that does make it even more ridiculous. It seems to me that there's been a change of mindset from the 2009 season, maybe after the Malaysian grand prix that was cut short after the torrential downpour? Since then at the first sign of water the safety car comes out. I'm not sure whether great wet races of recent years, e.g. Silverstone 2008, Brazil 2008, Monza 2008, Fuji 2007, would even be allowed to happen now just a couple of years later...

Completely agree, the race directors (I'm looking at you Charlie Whiting) were incredibly conservative. Frankly the fact that they all jumped in the pits for intermeditates shows their stupidity. Don't even get me started on the race starting behind the SC...
 
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