GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: J.Clark on May 30, 2014, 10:43:42 PM
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We are just a week away from Friday Free Practice at the circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
I have always liked this circuit and the races it has produced. Normally, the races are exciting. Some times for the on outright racing, sometimes for the accidents.
The circuit is basically a street circuit in a park, without the buildings lining the course. The track is always green and as I recall and rather tough on tires. It takes a while to get rubbered-in, but it is also very fast.
The run to turn 10 is flat out and near top speed is reached before one of the tightest hairpins of all circuits - likely too, the hardest braking point on the calendar. If gotten right, a pass by an opponent is nearly impossible - get it just a hair wrong and you can lose a lot, as in the case of Massa on Barrichello and another (can't recall who) a couple of years back - double pass due to Rubens getting it wrong, in spite of him passing the other car, Massa got them both.
Then there is the "wall of fame" where nearly every WDC to date has probably hit with the rear of their car, many with the whole car. It has often been a horrible crash, but usually during practices.
Generally speaking, the race has typically provided a fair amount of over-taking at various points around the circuit. For that reason, I am looking forward to this event with great anticipation.
I have been there several times, including the year Kubica crashed just before the braking area for turn 10. It happened right in front of where we were sitting. That is always a favorite grandstand for us - either side of that turn.
Previous race winners on the grid this season: Hamilton (3), Alonso (2), Kimi, Vettel, AND Button. From '97 - 2004, Michael won all but two of the Canadian Grands Prix, which went to his brother Ralf and Hackkinen, one each.
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Looking forward to the race! Last year I sat in the grandstand to the right in the picture. Great spots, but if I were to do it again I would sit in the hairpin.
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I'm a Canadian who has never made it to theCanadian GP even though I used to live less than 2hrs away (in fairness, it was out of my budget back then).
Really looking forward to the weekend though. I used to love the (Welcome to) Quebec sign on the Wall of Champions, but I recall it was blank last year.
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Down to four days - can't wait.
The circuit is 4.36 km in length. The lap record of 1:13.622 was set by Barrichello in 2004.
McLaren and Williams are both speculating that they will be better at this venue. Hamilton and Rosberg are "friends" again - right ( :DD) Ferrari are saying they will have a faster car for this race and it goes without saying that they have two WDC title holders, each of whom have won this race before.
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Well, Friday Free Practices are in the book.
Alonso went quickest in FFP-1, much to the surprise of all and to a cheering fan base. Of course, he was off a bit in FFP-2. Kimi looks much better now than earlier and appears ready to challenge Fernando.
Times from FFP-2:
1. Hamilton Mercedes 1m 16.118s
2. Rosberg Mercedes 1m 16.293s
3. Vettel Red Bull 1m 16.573s
4. Raikkonen Ferrari 1m 16.648s
5. Alonso Ferrari 1m 16.701s
6. Massa Williams 1m 16.774s
7. Bottas Williams 1m 16.893s
8. Magnussen McLaren 1m 17.052s
9. Button McLaren 1m 17.059s
10. Vergne Toro Rosso 1m 17.180s
11. Grosjean Lotus 1m 17.626s
12. Ricciardo Red Bull 1m 17.644s
13. Hulkenberg Force India 1m 17.712s
14. Perez Force India 1m 17.819s
15. Maldonado Lotus 1m 17.868s
16. Sutil Sauber 1m 17.964s
17. Gutierrez Sauber 1m 18.340s
18. Chilton Marussia 1m 18.693s
19. Kvyat Toro Rosso 1m 18.732s
20. Kobayashi Caterham 1m 20.244s
21. Ericsson Caterham 1m 22.418s
22. Bianchi Marussia 1m 32.127s
Kimi ended up quicker than Alonso.
Massa back ahead of Bottas
I'm not sure what happened to the Hulk, or for that matter, Force India. They seem to have fallen off the pace dramatically. They are not fighting the McLarens and Williams this time around.
Ricciardo too was surprisingly slow and Vettel at the same time seems to have found part of what was missing from the Red Bull.
Qualifying should be interesting looking at these results from today.
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Ferrari were running different configurations for their two drivers in the two sessions. I'm still expecting Alonso to beat Raikkonen in the race. Ferrari look to have the pace to fight for third this time, as Red Bull are struggling badly for straight line speed. Mercedes should win this by a country mile, and the other Mercedes powered teams look as though they could give Red Bull a run for its money.
There has been quite a lot of incident, with off track moments, and Bianchi hitting the wall in practice one. It hasn't been a great weekend so far for him after his Monaco heroics, with the mechanical problems in second practice too. Ericsson also had his Caterham break down, and Maldonado went off the road (albeit without hitting anything) again.
This is normally one of my favourite races of the year. It's a demanding track that usually produces some surprises, so let's see if there will be any this year.
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Looks like Vettel nabbed Ricciardo's car. :DntKnw:
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I am sitting here watching the news, looking at my watch, with just an hour before Saturday Free Practice, and wishing so that it was televised. :'(
When I scroll through the sports networks, I see all sorts of other motorsports, especially NASCAR, showing off-track crap and interviews with people who are not even active in the sport any longer . . . :( >:(
I guess I'll just have to go to live-timing to follow it. There used to be a link to live coverage for this, but I have lost it.
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Crash.net headline says, "Hamilton lays down marker in FP3"
I think the the real marker may lay with Williams, as Massa splits the to Mercs to take P2 away from Rosberg.
1. Hamilton Mercedes 1m 15.610s
2. Massa Williams 1m 16.086s
3. Rosberg Mercedes 1m 16.120s
4. Alonso Ferrari 1m 16.488s
5. Ricciardo Red Bull 1m 16.504s
6. Raikkonen Ferrari 1m 16.528s
7. Bottas Williams 1m 16.684s
8. Kvyat Toro Rosso 1m 16.820s
9. Vergne Toro Rosso 1m 16.824s
10. Vettel Red Bull 1m 16.884s
11. Hulkenberg Force India 1m 16.944s
12. Magnussen McLaren 1m 16.993s
13. Grosjean Lotus 1m 17.121s
14. Perez Force India 1m 17.188s
15. Maldonado Lotus 1m 17.224s
16. Button McLaren 1m 17.360s
17. Sutil Sauber 1m 17.900s
18. Bianchi Marussia 1m 18.518s
19. Chilton Marussia 1m 18.525s
20. Ericsson Caterham 1m 19.865s
21. Kobayashi Caterham 1m 20.227s
22. Gutierrez Sauber 1m 22.388s
Now, if qualifying just was to go like this . . .
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And Nico steps on that marker and takes POLE! (not that I picked him, but anyway fun to see).
And Bottas pipped Massa to 4th behind Vettel and Massa is followed by Ricciardo.
Wish I could say I would be on chat tomorrow for the race, but I'll certainly pop in and out.
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That was exciting!
Williams look very good for the race. Their pace is good. After Q2, I was even hopeful of a Williams making the front row.
Good to Nico ahead of Lewis again. |-(
The grid, as it stands, and I think there are no penalties to change it this time:
1. Rosberg Mercedes 1m 14.874s
2. Hamilton Mercedes 1m 14.953s
3. Vettel Red Bull 1m 15.548s
4. Bottas Williams 1m 15.550s
5. Massa Williams 1m 15.578s
6. Ricciardo Red Bull 1m 15.589s
7. Alonso Ferrari 1m 15.814s
8. Vergne Toro Rosso 1m 16.162s
9. Button McLaren 1m 16.182s
10. Raikkonen Ferrari 1m 16.214s
11. Hulkenberg Force India 1m 16.300s
12. Magnussen McLaren 1m 16.310s
13. Perez Force India 1m 16.472s
14. Grosjean Lotus 1m 16.687s
15. Kvyat Toro Rosso 1m 16.713s
16. Sutil Sauber 1m 17.314s
17. Maldonado Lotus 1m 18.328s
18. Chilton Marussia 1m 18.348s
19. Bianchi Marussia 1m 18.359s
20. Kobayashi Caterham 1m 19.278s
21. Ericsson Caterham 1m 19.820s
DNP Gutierrez Sauber
While Mercedes has the front row locked out, it is by a smaller margin than in any of the previous races. Furthermore, we have to go all of the way back to P8 to find a car more than a second off of their pace. In fact, P3-7 are extremely tight when it comes to time differences - a difference of a few meters worth braking distance in a corner is about all it comes down to.
Alonso will need a huge start to get up the ladder. If he doesn't gain several positions at the start, he will be hard pressed indeed to get a good result because the Ferrari just doesn't have the top speed of the Mercs, even Williams, which is a very fast car this weekend.
If Massa has one of his typical starts, he could very possibly be in third at the end of lap 1. Bottas too, could be in third. I would not be too surprised to see one or even both Williams ahead of Vettel in short order, leaving him to battle with his teammate.
As much as I would like to see Nico beat Hamilton (along with everyone else save Vettel), I would really like to see the two of them get into a scuffle and injure each others cars to the point that someone else gets to lead the race for a while.
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Maldo gets the season's first reprimand for not being bothered to replace his steering wheel after his car stopped working in Q2
Gutierrez and Koby get 5place grid penalties for gearbox changes, though Gutierrez didn't even take part in Qualifying as a result of his practice crash, so he starts from the pit lane anyhow.
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Not sure how one gets a 5 place grid penalty from being last and second from last. Gutierrez would have to have it imposed at the next race and Kobayashi could take two now and three at Silverstone. :DD
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Not sure how one gets a 5 place grid penalty from being last and second from last. Gutierrez would have to have it imposed at the next race and Kobayashi could take two now and three at Silverstone. :DD
...or they could make Gutierrez start from beside the 5th pit box instead of the pit lane entry. :D
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That is a very interesting idea actually.
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Hands down, the best race of the season. Better than most in the past couple of seasons actually.
I didn't like the final outcome though. I never like it when a leading car brakes down and loses out because of that, even if it is Hamilton. What a result for Red Bull though. Happy for Ricciardo.
Massa just can't seem to get a pit crew! I blame them for his hitting Perez, who likely hit the brakes early since he was having trouble with them. If Massa's crew had not totally botched his first stop, Massa would have been ahead of Perez and both Red Bulls. He may even have run down both Mercedes, and would certainly have passed Nico. Massa drove what is perhaps his best race ever and could (with the luck Mercedes had) have won it. I will say one thing though, he must have had a fantastic feeling when he pass his old teammate Alonso.
Good job too from Perez to have made his strategy work so well. It was fun watching the Force India's running well and being so difficult to pass.
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The best race of the season in terms of on track action and tension. The best race for many a year in terms of being on the edge of my seat wondering who would finish the race. It's amazing what a little bit of unreliability can do to spice things up, it doesn't even have to be terminal either to make the racing interesting.
Rosberg did incredibly well to take second with all the problems he had in my opinion. As ever, Mercedes would have crushed everyone had they not had reliability problems, but this is what Formula 1 is all about (or should be all about). The quickest cars don't always finish the race. This was just the shot in the arm Formula 1 has been crying out for. We probably won't see this level of reliability repeating itself as the season goes on (Canada is always one of the toughest tracks on the cars), but nevertheless, it was encouraging to see the teams having to work hard to finish the race.
A great first win for Ricciardo. A better strategy, and being in the right place at the right time meant he was there to snatch it from Mercedes after pulling off a good move on Perez. Vettel was probably really irritated after losing out to his team mate again, but to give him credit for a change, he didn't let it show.
Perez and Massa were just unlucky. It was a racing incident. I hope that any subsequent investigation by the stewards reaches the same conclusion. It was a pretty hefty impact, and I didn't see it coming, so it was a bit of a shock. I'm glad that they're both in one piece.
Williams just can't seem to quite get it right. They've got the pace, but the cards just don't see to quite fall their way in the races. That left Button to pick up the pieces after slipping past Hulkenberg (another good performance from him), and Alonso, but McLaren and Ferrari are just too slow, and it was another pretty tame performance from Raikkonen. A lazy spin, and lucky to take the last point.
A really bad day for the small teams. I think that Chilton was at fault in the Marussia inter-team collision, although in reality it was just unlucky that Bianchi was there, otherwise Chilton would have just had a tank slapper and got away with it. At least Marussia are moving forward in terms of speed though. Caterham were very slow and unreliable all weekend. If Tony Fernandez wants to sell the team, the performance needs to improve to make it a more attractive proposition.
Finally, Lotus are still in the doldrums. It seemed as though both cars either tagged the wall or had structural failures of some kind. It wasn't overly great work by the television director during the race, as a number of incidents were missed.
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Stewards obviously agree with Smedly and Massa. Perez found to be at fault and will be penalized in Austria.
The sad, very sad, fact however, is that Massa, who ran a fantastic race and should have scored 10 - 12 points - badly needed points for not only Williams, but Felipe himself.
Still all-in-all, a very exciting race start to finish.
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True enough, and in fact he was probably ready to pounce on Vettel for a few more points as well.
Heckuva finish though - I will be really interested to hear what went wrong with both Merc's on the same lap. It was obviously electrical since the KERS and probably ERS wasn't working for them, but to have the same fault at the same time almost points to a software bug. :DntKnw:
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Perez isn't too fond of Smedley's comments...but I have to agree with the stewards, it did not look like a normal line when you watch Massa's in car camera. Massa was aiming for the gap in a way that would still allow him to complete the corner and then Perez moved over on him. Perez is a sore loser I believe and he didn't want anyone else to pass him to the end, brakes or not.
http://www.crash.net/f1/news/205461/1/perez-hits-back-at-smedley.html
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Mad Props to Rosberg for figuring out a way to survive when Hamilton just put his foot down and ruined the car. Might be a WDC performance. A well deserved win for DR, a very impressive 1/3 season. Irisado, you missed a couple of peevish radio calls from Vettel to his team asking why DR was ahead of him. Credit to V for being a big boy on the podium. Thumbs down to Williams pit crew who botched Massa's stop, might have cost them the win. Williams' engineers have some work to do though as the car clearly does not put the power down off the slow corners. Wheelspin off the hairpin prevented Massa from making the pass at the end of the straight on the Bulls. A great race, funny how often Canada steps up isn't it?
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I am having a bit of trouble and am asking if anyone on here happens to know how long Massa's first pit stop was?
We are looking at an average of around 3 - 4 seconds typically for a car to be stationary. I don't think I ever saw them show that for his first stop.
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I got this from a friend.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/06/09/2014-canadian-grand-prix-tyre-strategies-pit-stops/
It shows that Massa lost an additional 4 seconds in the first stop. Huge mistake from Williams at that point of the race.
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Irisado, you missed a couple of peevish radio calls from Vettel to his team asking why DR was ahead of him.
That's probably because the race was so exciting that I wasn't paying much attention to Vettel's poor strategy :D. Thanks for pointing this out.
Massa has had a couple of other poor pit stops this year as well, and had a big shunt in the first race which wasn't his fault either, so he's not having the rub of the green so far this season.
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figuring out a way to survive when Hamilton just put his foot down and ruined the car
Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I just had to respond to your comment.
Hamilton drove a brilliant race and was giving the neutrals something to watch. He kept the pressure on Rosberg all the way and certainly looked as if he had the pace to beat his team mate. His speed was coming from the way he had the car set-up. He was using less fuel and energy than Rosberg and if the two cars hadn't of developed the fault Hamilton would have breezed past Rosberg who was needing to lift and coast to compensate for excessive fuel use earlier in the race.
However, due to maintaining the continous pressure on Rosberg, Hamilton had been harder on the rear brakes. When the cars lost the recovery braking, Hamilton's brakes cried enough. Nobody has suggested it was his fault or that he could have done anything to save the brakes. So the fact is that Rosberg was luckier than Hamilton.
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In chat I mentioned that Hamilton was simply straight lining every corner after his electrical problem, so you are probably right on the nose with your assessment that his rear brakes had likely completely failed. Otherwise it simply wouldn't have made sense for him to cut every chicane until he retired later that lap. Can't remember where, but in one interview Hamilton suggested as much, that his problem although similar to Rosberg's, was much worse and he simply couldn't continue.
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Mad Props to Rosberg for figuring out a way to survive when Hamilton just put his foot down and ruined the car.
I think Hammy's ERS failed just a bit earlier than Rosberg's, maybe half a lap or even a full lap before, the team has confirmed this, they concluded it was due to heat build up being more severe by having to run so long in the dirty air behind Nico and then the consequent spike in temperature from his final pit stop .
Whilst the team was figuring out what was going on, and calculating new settings for Lewis, Rosberg's ERS showed the same problem, Nico was therefore able to input the new settings almost instantly to compensate for the massive loss of ERS braking effect on the rear, well early enough to stop a complete brake failure anyway - Lewis unfortunately just ran out of time.
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Have to agree with all of you, my first comment was made before Mercedes described the problem. They also said that pitting second probably made Lewis problem worse. The NBC guys guessed that Lewis maxed his rear brake balance to maintain his pace, and cooked his rear brakes. This was not the case. Still, though he was indeed lucky, Nico helped set himself up for good luck by edging Lewis for pole, fairly forcefully taking the lead at the start and pitting first, all on a track that is one of Lewis' best.