Grand Prix 2012 Canadian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

Going into the 7th race of the season we are now hitting new territory as far as different race winners are concerned as for the first time in history 6 different drivers have won the first 6 races with 5 different constructors as Red Bull are the only team to have had more than one driver win a race with victories in Bahrain and Monaco, the way things are going there could easily be 10 winners from 10 races with people like Hamilton, Raikkonen, Grosjean and Schumacher yet to win this season, and with Canada pretty much being Hamilton's best track, it could easily be 7 winners from 7 even though McLaren have been floundering in recent weeks.

Despite this downturn in form, Lewis Hamilton lies just 13 points off Fernando Alonso who no-one would have predicted to have been leading the championship after 6 races going into the opening race where Ferrari had a car which struggled to even get near the top 10 let alone fight for wins and podiums, but improvements with the car allied with supreme driving and consistency from Alonso has seen him top the table from Vettel who's clever strategy in Monaco nearly get him onto the podium despite starting from 10th on the grid.

While Ferrari have made the biggest improvements (even Massa has been better, even though one race a season does not make) it seems McLaren have surprisingly made the biggest backwards step. In Melbourne they had the quickest car and they romped to a comfortable 1-2 and many wondered if they were going to have a Red Bull type domination season, but Button hasn't won since that race and Hamilton hasn't won at all even though he has 3 pole positions so far (2 if you discount the one in Spain) but while Hamilton has made the best of a bad job on the Sunday it has gone even worse for Button who is struggling to even make the points and his performances are a shadow of his 2011 form. Hamilton has improved considerably but surely the pit stop problems and other issues will be getting to him if it costs him a shot at the title, it'll be 5 years since he won the title if the 2012 title slips away and with contracts soon to be under negotiation it could play a part in what he decides to do.

If the 2012 Canadian Grand Prix is even half as good as the 2011 race we are in for a treat, I dont think there will be a race like the 2011 Canadian Grand Prix ever again and ranks up there as one of the best I have ever watched and the 4 hour marathon was certainly worth the 2 hour rain delay in the middle. But even in the dry Canada serves up great racing with recent years being a testament to that and with the unpredictable nature of 2012 so far this seasons race will not be an exception and while overtakes in Monaco were only just in the teens, there could be nearly 10 times that in Montreal. Some say that this seasons unpredictability can be a bad thing, but really, it's so much better than the Schumacher years of the early 2000s and even better than 2011 as while there was very exciting racing in 2011, for a lot of races so far this year that action has been extended to the very front as well which is where the casual viewer could determine the entertainment value of a certain race.

For Galahad 's superb circuit write up - http://cliptheapex.com/pages/circuit-gilles-villeneuve/
 
Kewee Indeed your opinions on Alonso have so far been spot on.
I wonder just how much more Ferrari can squeeze out of their car.So far they have worked wonders on the car that appeared in Melbourne.But is there anything left in the package to extract performance wise.No doubt there are still small areas that can be tuned but have they reached their limits on this chassis.
It will become much harder now but the same applies to all the top teams so it will get very tight no doubt. Sadly they've just dropped the ball in this one. They should have pitted the lap after Hamilton, hindsight is a wonderful thing. I guess they were trying to cover Vettel but didn't make a very good job of it this time. You can be sure they won't make the same mistake again.
 
To be fair to Ferrari and Red Bull, they didn't have much data to base their wear predictions on. Lotus and Sauber did the same and made it work. But it was the wrong decision and it may prove costly later in the season.
 
Well done Lewis Hamilton - not a foot wrong today and just got on with the job in hand. Brilliant drive.

Big thumbs up to my man Grosjean though he proves that as long as he stays out of first lap incidents that he is a contender and Perez up's his stock once again.

Felt a bit bad for Fernando because he did what we all wanted to see him do and took a gamble for the win rather than play it safe for a podium which is what we all want to see in F1 but unfourtunatly lost out because of it. Thats the way the cookie crumbles though I suppose.
 
Jeez, had Hamilton and Mclaren also gambled on staying out Grosjean would have won! But excellent decision in the end, the way Alonso and Vettel had to push to keep up ultimately took it out their tyres and cost them both podiums.

What a drive from Perez too. But what the hell happened to Button? 16th?!! Schumi screwing up my FF1 again, would've been on for some nice points too :(

And that's 3 Canada wins in a row for Mclaren - 4 out of the last 5 and 5 out of 7.

Do we appreciate Canada all the more because its sandwiched between Snoozefest 1 (Monaco) and Snoozefest 2 (Valencia)? :)
 
That was always Hamilton's race, even after the pit stop, looked in control throughout. Without top-class drivers RBR and Ferrari could be looking at an even worse result, which could add up come the end of the season. Grosjean and Perez are looking very good for the future, especially as Massa goes and spins off what looked very promising.
 
As i said earlier we all want to see Teams take gamble for the win rather than settle for podiums and thats what Ferrari did and it didn't work out this time - lets not give them too hard a time eh?
 
FB ROFL but on a more sombre note as far as my FF1 team goes in the words of Lord Sugar Jenson your fired..
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Interesting race if only for the different tactics employed by the teams. Nice to see Hammy win again and it certainly makes the championship interesting with the wins being shared around. Brave attempt by Ferrari, brave call by Red Bull to call Vettel in so late. Simply the best tactics were from Mclaren.
 
It was a gamble worth taking for Ferrari as there was no other way to beat Lewis, he was just too fast. Despite a delay in the pit he was untouchable as the race matured

Much better to see competitive strategies rather than caution, guess thats why the strategists are paid the big bucks
 
It will be a lesson learned for Ferrari. Trying to cover Vettel made sense when you look at the points in the championship. I still believe Alonso will be the driver to beat in the second half of the season. We still haven't reached the half way point and there are still five drivers within a win of the championship lead. To follow up on your comment on the Ferrari chassis sportsman, it was said a couple of days ago by one of the commentators that at last they have a stable platform to develop. Maybe there is significantly more to come. One things a certainty, this is turning into a fabulous season. Canada was disappointing for Ferrari fans for sure, but they've done well to get this far into the year before having a bad day. We can all be sure all the top teams will also stumble before the season ends. Still smiling. :)
 
As a question for people more technically minded... If Vettel kept the lead after the stops (or Alonso had it) would they have been more likely to be easier on the tyres, controlling the pace of the race (as quite ofter the leader does). Could the 1 stopper have worked for them?
As it worked out Hamilton got the lead after the 1st stop and by pushing the pace a bit more than the others would have, Vettel and Alonso also had to push, meaning the 1 stopper didn't work for them. In essence, did Hamilton set a pace after the 1st stop that meant the other 2 had to push their tyres too much?
 
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