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/
 
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.
Gutted for them. They had a strong result!
 
FIA has done very well over the past year or so (especially after the removal of Mosley and instalment of former drivers on the stewarding panel) by moving towards more prescriptive rules and removing ambiguity. It's a tough task especially in a highly advanced sport like F1 and I think generally the system is fair and improving all the time. Yes we all want to see racing and overtaking but it has to be done within the confines of the rules. Apart from tennis (with the benefit of hawk eye) you'd be hard pressed in finding a better live application of the rules in other forms of sport. Despite everything that's gone on, I think generally the stewards are doing a good job. I'm also confident common sense will prevail and Jenson will keep his win.

RickiD obviously does not have an opinion.
 
Gutted for them. They had a strong result!

Got in the way of the other drivers way too much along with the Virgins, it's becoming comical and will cause more accidents in the future, Massa may have been caught out by being in the wet part of the track with dry tyres, but the HRT infront had a moment then stopped on the dry line for a while rather than getting out of the way.

The rule should be 105% rather than 107%....
 
Jenson said he didn't see Lewis and I believe him. He apologised for not seeing him.

Yes, he caused Lewis' crash, but he did so completely unwittingly by following the racing line. You can't penalise for that, surely?

I think the footage showed that he looked in his left mirror to make sure Lewis wasn't there before making the move that way. Lewis was right behind him, in a wall of spray and Lewis wasn't left until JB had looked back ahead.
 
So much has been said, I'd better be quick.

Button was totally at fault, which side of Hamilton's car was damaged? Which side was the wall on? Uhu. The only question is whether it was on purpose or not. I don't see why Button taking the racing line has any relevence when another driver is occupying that space.

Alonso/Button was the very definition of a racing incident. I saw nothing today that deserved penalty and have said many times the stewards should be forced to back off.

Nobody has yet mentioned just how well Nick Heidfeld was running. I know I always commend him but he was in a fantastic points position and there was nothing he could to avoid that. My heart sank when the onboard view suddenly pitched and he was launched out of control. After spending so much driving (and waiting) like a man. A man with a beard.

The race should've started as normal. I was saying before anybody on TV was that nothing can clear the track quite like 20+ f1 cars all on the racing line. The fact that they were ready for inters by the time the safety car came in shows beyond doubt that it was out too long. I'd be rather angry if I'd paid to be in attendance. All in all I turned on the TV at 5PM and over 5 hours later was thouroughly thrilled!

and life goes on...
 
I think that's my comments on this race wrapped up! If only for the weather and the race direction, it would have gone down as an all time classic. Coming through the field from 21st to win - the stuff of Legends:1st:
(even if he had a few scrapes along the way):oops:
 
What they need to do is make the circuits a little bit wider, to allow more room for the cars to pass each other without making contact. Then put some parallel grooves in the track surface, and a titanium peg on the underside of each car which fits into the grooves. That should keep the cars from banging into each other.
 
Are there many instances where penalties are applied to incidents during the middle part of the race i.e. when there is plenty of time to investigation during the race?

Can't recall the circumstances of the Malaysia Hamilton weaving incident.

It generally does seem to be the 'racing incident' style ones get investigated post-race, from my slightly shoddy memory, but please correct if I'm wrong.
 
I am now going to completely contradict myself, feel free to throw rotten tomatoes at me

Hamilton initially believed the car was undamaged, but it turned out the driveshaft had been damaged and the team had been correct to tell him to stop.

From the BBC report
 
There was no time to react to the way the Sauber seemed to stop. I'm not saying he was break testing, it was just unfortunate.

It was unfortunate he was running well, he was a man that fell victim of the DRS too.

Also, the man with a beard did something that no F1 driver could do, that was a handbrake turn into the run off area.
 
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