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

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 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.

If he deserves a penalty he deserves a penalty it isn't a "joke"

The only thing that is a joke is the fact that the stewards do this thing of "investgated after the race", but then Moto GP are asking for this system to be in place...so who is right and who is wrong?

What system should they have in place? The drivers want something different at the start of this season they said they wanted the stewards to be stricter, the fans say racing....what are the FIA meant to do?

If a driver deserves a penalty he should get it....
 
The ruling body needs to decide if it wants racing in F1 or not. if it wants racing then it has to accept that stuff happens and stop nannying around. Humans at every level make mistakes. If there is somethnig that appears to be an intention to cause harm or to cheat, then fair enough investigate and if necessary penalise; but to penalise all and sundry for trying to give us what we have been beying for, for the best part of a decade is counterproductive and just perpetates an unhealthy "blame culture". If it carries on like this the only people to benefit will be the lawyers advertising their services to sue the balls off of anyone who sneezes in the "wrong direction".
 
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.

Vettel recieved the penalty in Oz because he was at fault in the collision with Kubica and therefore recieved a grid drop for Malaysia, however RBR recieved a $50,000 fine for allowing Vettel to continue in a damaged car for over a lap. Hamilton would have pitted in that lap so wouldn't have recieved a penalty and McLaren wouldn't have recieved a fine.
 
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.

When I first saw it, I thought it was Button's fault, as Alonso looked ahead at turn in.
Some of the camera angles show JB level with, or even in front of FA, but he seems to break slightly earlier. Not sure if this is him trying to back out of the move half-heartedly, or that Alonso just braked a little later hoping to either get round the outside.

It would seem unfair if you've made the move correctly, got level, got the apex, then the guy on the outside brakes a bit later but still expects the turn in.
Not sure about that move to be honest.
 
Vettel recieved the penalty in Oz because he was at fault in the collision with Kubica and therefore recieved a grid drop for Malaysia, however RBR recieved a $50,000 fine for allowing Vettel to continue in a damaged car for over a lap. Hamilton would have pitted in that lap so wouldn't have recieved a penalty and McLaren wouldn't have recieved a fine.

Yes and my point is Hamilton's car was damaged, being his rear wheel was lose etc, plus hindsight is a wonderful as I am sure most teams would have told their driver to park from seeing those views on the car.

And as someone else here pointed out, the car after being investigated by the McLaren team did have further damage.
 
The ruling body needs to decide if it wants racing in F1 or not. if it wants racing then it has to accept that stuff happens and stop nannying around. Humans at every level make mistakes. If there is somethnig that appears to be an intention to cause harm or to cheat, then fair enough investigate and if necessary penalise; but to penalise all and sundry for trying to give us what we have been beying for, for the best part of a decade is counterproductive and just perpetates an unhealthy "blame culture". If it carries on like this the only people to benefit will be the lawyers advertising their services to sue the balls off of anyone who sneezes in the "wrong direction".

agree completely
 
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.

Well that is your opinion but the incident happened on a straight where contact was avoidable by all means. The main bone of contention happens to be whether driver A saw driver B. There's also a compelling argument to apportion blame especially when said drivers are team mates, throw in the tacit agreement to give each room and you get the picture.
 
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.
OK, so perhaps we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one, as I thought it was a legitimate overtaking attempt by Button.
What I do hate though, along with Slyboogy21, is this modern tendency to announce that incidents will be investigated after the race, when there is plenty of time to sort it out during the race.
 
I doubt McLaren are going to turn around and say, "um, yes... Lewis was right and the car was fine. We just told him to stop by mistake, it really was just a puncture and he could have made it back to the pits (like Jenson did later in the race). Sorry."

The truth will never be known...
 
Well that is your opinion but the incident happened on a straight where contact was avoidable by all means. The main bone of contention happens to be whether driver A saw driver B. There's also a compelling argument to apportion blame especially when said drivers are team mates, throw in the tacit agreement to give each room and you get the picture.

Are you still banging on that drum?!? Please give it a rest, you have continually repeated yourself and I think we get your opinion on the matter..
 
Better to be safe than sorry...knowing McLaren lately their decisions haven't been paying off, it happens they aren't helping themselves though.
Their main problem it seems to me is that they're almost pathologically frightened of being hauled to the Stewards ... oh, they do get hauled though don't they though. Doh!:crazy:
 
I doubt McLaren are going to turn around and say, "um, yes... Lewis was right and the car was fine. We just told him to stop by mistake, it really was just a puncture and he could have made it back to the pits (like Jenson did later in the race). Sorry."

The truth will never be known...

What, so now McLaren are lying about the damage to the car..:rolleyes:
 
Their main problem it seems to me is that they're almost pathologically frightened of being hauled to the Stewards ... oh, they do get hauled though don't they though. Doh!:crazy:

Why be extra cautious when you try to avoid your fear but it strikes you in the face? :thinking:
 
Narain Karthikeyan demoted to 17th from 14th due to gaining an advantage by cutting a corner.
It was a drive through penalty awarded after the race, so 20 seconds added to his race time.
 
On the Alonso vs Button sub-thread ;)

Unlike some corners, this one is one at a time.

Would Fernando have let Jenson have the corner to avoid a collision if the roles were reversed? I don't think he would have, would he? JB was ahead coming into the braking area.

Would Jenson have let Fernando down the inside if he were defending? Probably yes, we have criticised Button at length for this.
 
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