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/
 
Mercedes double DRS should help them here
Maybe to get them on pole but the system is useless when leading
Vettel still grabbed pole last year despite the Red Bull traditionally recording some of the lowest top-speeds.
With a little help from McLaren who chose a higher downforce spec for the rain forecast tomorrow, that worked out well
 
Now, this Montreal circuit has a characteristic which is not wished upon any circuit - it is the circuit where most drivers have been disqualified for exiting the pitlane when shut....

Mansell/Nannini in 1989 (The officials wrongly allowed them to join the track after a pitstop at the end of the parade lap, but before the race had started!)
Montoya in 2005
Massa/Fisichella in 2007
Hamilton/Rosberg in 2008

- 7 drivers, all disqualified at the same circuit for the same offence.... (OK, Hamilton and Rosberg weren't dsqd, but they ended their races, and faced further censure)
Edit: Rosberg finished the race in 2008, but was given a penalty afterwards for the next race... I suppose he did *EVENTUALLY* stop, even if he did use Hamilton as a brake!
 
Right well the Mercedes has the most powerful engine, the McLaren KERS (I think), and I think they are still the only ones with a DRS-duct. And they have good traction out of corners.
So on paper its the best car for Motreal, and Nico Rosberg has scored the most points in the last 4 races of anybody and he had the pace to win in Monte-Carlo so he looks like the strongest candidate to bcome the first repeat winner of 2012 on Sunday.
 
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100127 Canadian Grand Prix organisers have cancelled the open doors day at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit due to disruption threats.
The event, during which fans could walk down the F1 pitlane, was originally scheduled for Thursday.
There had been suggestions prior to the grand prix weekend that student groups planned to use the event to protest over tuition fees.
"Following a serious examination of the situation, made necessary by public disruption threats and the difficulty to measure their precise validity, the organisers came to the conclusion that it is necessary to restrain the access to Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve and precisely the F1 pitlane, on the day preceding the first sessions on track," organisers said in a statement.
 
There will be only one DRS Zone with the detection point at the exit of T10 and activation point 60 metres before T12.

The activation point is 108 metres further along than in 2011.
 
I think the much-publicised mistakes committed by the team at McLaren this season have somewhat masked something which in my opinion has been of bigger concern: apart from the opening race this season and Hamilton's
qualifying excellence, I can't say I have found any indication of particularly impressive race pace from a McLaren this season...

I think McLaren still have the car to beat in terms of outright pace. The Pirellis are obviously making races unpredictable and it's more about who finds the optimum setup rather than who has raw speed. Canada, if i'm right, is a high downforce circuit and tyres are probably going to be critical again so it could be a few more races yet before an accurate judgement can be passed on who really has the quickest car.
 
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