2015 Canadian Grand Prix - 5-7 June

[Vasconia]

This was a boring race for Montreal standards

The most impressive action I´ve seen has been Alonso resisting Vettel´s attack for more than one lap, considering even STR was much faster than McHonda I didn´t expect any resistance with Ferrari, but looks like Ferrari drivers feel the necessity to prove something when they´re facing Alonso on track so Vettel tried the overtake too soon (hairpin) so Alonso was able to defend on the straight and last chicane. Nice one Fer

I agree, 4 years of derogative comments from Fernando and Hamilton have been too much for Sebastian so he feels that the wants to humiliate them if he can.

[max_speed]

This was a boring race for Montreal standards

The most impressive action I´ve seen has been Alonso resisting Vettel´s attack for more than one lap, considering even STR was much faster than McHonda I didn´t expect any resistance with Ferrari, but looks like Ferrari drivers feel the necessity to prove something when they´re facing Alonso on track so Vettel tried the overtake too soon (hairpin) so Alonso was able to defend on the straight and last chicane. Nice one Fer

completely agree , i left race half way. in current season main problem is that both Raikonen and rosberg are mediocre ( in short poor) . they are in a position to at least keep championship interesting but at the moment looks fool infront of their teammate. rosberg specially he got more time in practice sessions to setUp car but still slow compare to hamilton in quali,race. throughout the season he will never be in a position to challenge him during race. , i guess drivers like ricciardo, alonso, vettel will challenge hamilton more if in mercedes. This year championship is way more boring than last year when at least rosberg was offering some resistance. i guess once can watch quali and predict wht results gonna be without watching race at all.

[Phil]

I don't think last year was better; what changed the picture was only that Hamilton retired first race (25 point deficit), then there was Monaco, the qualifying issues that made him start from the back, so the entire season was practically a catch up race for the WDC. In the end 11 wins against, what 5, isn't really close. At this point, Hamilton is leading by the same win ratio against his team-mate, but neither had a DNF yet.

That, and the fact that a major lead in the WDC points has some effect on the mental aspect of everything. Hamilton now is leading and mentally very strong, which just makes it more difficult for Rosberg. Canada was close though in race pace. I expect Rosberg to remain strong and a DNF could change things quite quickly.

[Andres125sx]

I expect Rosberg to remain strong and a DNF could change things quite quickly.

If it´s on next race, because one more win for Hamilton will mean he´ll enjoy 24 points advantage supposing Rosberg finish 2nd, so from that point even with a DNF...

This season is anything but exciting. Mercedes is clearly the best, and Hamilton is clearly better than Rosberg. Ferrari is second team easy, and Vettel is much better than Kimi, Williams is third team easy, and Bottas much better than Massa (even when this pairing might be closer)... so first 6 positions of the championship are done. I don´t expect any surprise there, only surprise would be if any RB driver can beat Massa for that 6th position

The rest of the grid (7th to 18th) is pretty close, that´s all the excitement of the championship

[SectorOne]

"Now a new illusion has been created at Ferrari, simply because yet again there´s no real competition in the other side of the garage.

edit: Also people seem to forget Ricciardo has almost 50% more points then Kvyat.
Has beaten him more time´s in Qualifying and is on average 3 tenths quicker in Qualifying usually starting the races 3 grid slots higher then Kvyat.

So if that myth is busted i don´t think there´s even a word for how busted Vettel is.

Sorry, what? Kimi is doing a good season, yes his Saturdays are a little bit weaker, but his perfomance during the races have been very consistent, being very fast. But I would say that Canada has been his weakest race BY FAR.

So, Vettel is doing a fine job, being fast and consistent, every driver can have a bad season, as Vettel had in 2014. But in 2015 he is showing how good he is. Yesterday he had a great perfomance, and though he overacted when he tried to overtake Alonso, his race was great.

And as I have already said, Kvyat has had a lot problems in the first races, but he wasnt that far from Ricciardo. Now he is starting to deliver when he has had two trouble free weekends. I am not saying that he is going to smash Ricciardo but at least we will see a closer battle where the Russian can beat the Australian.

Good season? i would say its been "alright" by top drivers standards.
Theres a reason hes yet again being talked about getting left by Ferrari and its not because hes doing a "good" season.

Kvyat is doing good yes but if certain individuals are going to undermine Ricciardo by calling him a myth then by definition their favorite driver is even more of a myth regardless of what excuses that come up.

[WaikeCU]

I expect Rosberg to remain strong and a DNF could change things quite quickly.

If it´s on next race, because one more win for Hamilton will mean he´ll enjoy 24 points advantage supposing Rosberg finish 2nd, so from that point even with a DNF...

This season is anything but exciting. Mercedes is clearly the best, and Hamilton is clearly better than Rosberg. Ferrari is second team easy, and Vettel is much better than Kimi, Williams is third team easy, and Bottas much better than Massa (even when this pairing might be closer)... so first 6 positions of the championship are done. I don´t expect any surprise there, only surprise would be if any RB driver can beat Massa for that 6th position

The rest of the grid (7th to 18th) is pretty close, that´s all the excitement of the championship

True. Lewis clearly has the upperhand at the moment. If Nico doesn't perform better, then Lewis will just cruise to his 3rd WDC. In terms of reliability, I think Mercedes have upped their game this season and actually are very precautionary throughout the season. So I could see the possibility of Mercedes having no DNF's this season, which would be remarkable. I don't think Lewis is pushing a lot during the race. He's just controlling the race and managing the gap behind him. So he has lots of performance in reserve when needed.

At the moment the only thing that won't let Lewis take his 3rd WDC is either the team making crucial mistakes or Lewis having lots of brainfart moments for the remainder of the season.

[ferkan]

This was a boring race for Montreal standards

The most impressive action I´ve seen has been Alonso resisting Vettel´s attack for more than one lap, considering even STR was much faster than McHonda I didn´t expect any resistance with Ferrari, but looks like Ferrari drivers feel the necessity to prove something when they´re facing Alonso on track so Vettel tried the overtake too soon (hairpin) so Alonso was able to defend on the straight and last chicane. Nice one Fer

Yea it must be that. It is surely not about the fact that Seb was overtaking cars as soon as possible not to lose to much time and damage tires by staying behind them too long.

What is more telling is the way Alonso defended his position, seemed very personal, he wasn't even racing Sebastian. Nothing dirty or anything, but after listening to his TR afterwards he must have been pretty frustrated and pissed by getting smoked on the straights for entire race.

[Jordan44]

I am hoping they do replace Rosberg after next season (that's if he doesn't want to leave himself) and bring in someone else, but I don't see it happening. If they're still dominating, then Rosberg does the job for them. Sits there and claims second place. No point spending for a second top driver unless the field tightens up and they need someone quicker. It would be nice to see Alonso vs Hamilton part two but it wont happen.

[Phil]

I honestly think Rosberg is seriously quick. Last year might be difficult to judge, because there was a lot of mental pressure on Lewis behalf, so perhaps this year is a better way to judge how close or not they are. Rosberg was extremely strong against Schumacher too though. I'm actually not convinced anyone else would fair better against Lewis at the moment. Yeah, Alonso would be nice, but only because Mercedes has a nice gap (which might have been exaggerated a bit in Canada due to Vettel being out of position and Raikoennen struggling/underperforming). The gap between Mercedes and the rest will surely continue to decrease and if you then had a close race between two drivers, you may end up with someone else running away with the title... see 2007.

For however much Rosberg is "underperforming" in some peoples eyes, he still is consistently 2nd only to Lewis. And lets not forget Barcelona which Rosberg won convincingly. Someone's has to win and there will always be someone who loses. And as I said, a DNF could change things quickly. Racing is as much about mental strength and confidence as it is about pure speed. Just look at last year to see how Lewis made uncharacteristic errors in qualifying when under pressure. If he has a DNF and Rosberg wins, they'd be pretty much tied on points again and Rosberg was quite strong mid-season last year. It still is a long season ahead. Even as a Lewis supporter, I'm not taking anything for granted, even if Lewis is currently in the "zone". Rosberg could still bounce back strong if he starts winning races (on pace) and gains confidence and self-belief.

[Andres125sx]

This was a boring race for Montreal standards

The most impressive action I´ve seen has been Alonso resisting Vettel´s attack for more than one lap, considering even STR was much faster than McHonda I didn´t expect any resistance with Ferrari, but looks like Ferrari drivers feel the necessity to prove something when they´re facing Alonso on track so Vettel tried the overtake too soon (hairpin) so Alonso was able to defend on the straight and last chicane. Nice one Fer

Yea it must be that. It is surely not about the fact that Seb was overtaking cars as soon as possible not to lose to much time and damage tires by staying behind them too long.

If he was trying to save his tires he did a poor job failing in that braking and locking tires... And that was just before the straight, where he could have passed Alonso easily if it´s not because of his previous mistake, so no matter how you look at it, it was a mistake passing a much much slower car

What is more telling is the way Alonso defended his position, seemed very personal, he wasn't even racing Sebastian. Nothing dirty or anything, but after listening to his TR afterwards he must have been pretty frustrated and pissed by getting smoked on the straights for entire race.

And that´s the reason he defended his position that way. Ok your car is much faster and you´ll pass me, but not on a braking. What any driver with some self-regard would do, and the only thing he could do in Montreal.

[Jordan44]

I honestly think Rosberg is seriously quick. Last year might be difficult to judge, because there was a lot of mental pressure on Lewis behalf, so perhaps this year is a better way to judge how close or not they are. Rosberg was extremely strong against Schumacher too though. I'm actually not convinced anyone else would fair better against Lewis at the moment. Yeah, Alonso would be nice, but only because Mercedes has a nice gap (which might have been exaggerated a bit in Canada due to Vettel being out of position and Raikoennen struggling/underperforming). The gap between Mercedes and the rest will surely continue to decrease and if you then had a close race between two drivers, you may end up with someone else running away with the title... see 2007.

For however much Rosberg is "underperforming" in some peoples eyes, he still is consistently 2nd only to Lewis. And lets not forget Barcelona which Rosberg won convincingly. Someone's has to win and there will always be someone who loses. And as I said, a DNF could change things quickly. Racing is as much about mental strength and confidence as it is about pure speed. Just look at last year to see how Lewis made uncharacteristic errors in qualifying when under pressure. If he has a DNF and Rosberg wins, they'd be pretty much tied on points again and Rosberg was quite strong mid-season last year. It still is a long season ahead. Even as a Lewis supporter, I'm not taking anything for granted, even if Lewis is currently in the "zone". Rosberg could still bounce back strong if he starts winning races (on pace) and gains confidence and self-belief.

To win races on pace, he needs the other driver to make a mistake. That says it all for me. He's just not good enough.

I'm not sure where he's gonna gain confidence from. Surely by now it's blindly clear to him that Lewis is better.

[Phil]

But he won one of them, and that convincingly too, so it hasn't been a completely one-sided affair. Further more, he has been rather close most of the time in qualifying and clearly, in Canada, there wasn't an awful lot seperating them. I'm also not quite sure how good "good enough" needs to be. For example: Kimi is clearly underperforming relative to Vettel IMO. For a team that is trying to win races and are at best the 2nd best team, that is not good enough. For the leading team (mercedes), you will always have someone who is better than the other. Does Rosberg deserve to be swapped out simply because he is a tenth or so slower? Who is to say anyone else would fair better (assuming hypothetically Hamilton is the defacto "best" in that car currently)?

[notsofast]

Can Mercedes score more points if they replace one of their drivers? Probably not. Can Ferrari score more points if they replace one of their drivers? Probably not. Can Williams score more points if they replace one of their drivers? That's where it gets interesting. But we're talking about spending extra money just to try and get more points, but still only be third in the WCC and fifth in the WDC. Probably not a good investment. The cars are too far apart in performance; driver changes won't help.

[aral]

Ricciardo has lost it and at this rate will not have a drive for 2016.

WDC:

7th DANIEL RICCIARDO 35
8th DANIIL KVYAT 19

irrelevant "stats" ! danni has had more mechanical woes! but when he doesnt have them, he is showing ricciardo how to drive.

[Jordan44]

But he won one of them, and that convincingly too, so it hasn't been a completely one-sided affair. Further more, he has been rather close most of the time in qualifying and clearly, in Canada, there wasn't an awful lot seperating them. I'm also not quite sure how good "good enough" needs to be. For example: Kimi is clearly underperforming relative to Vettel IMO. For a team that is trying to win races and are at best the 2nd best team, that is not good enough. For the leading team (mercedes), you will always have someone who is better than the other. Does Rosberg deserve to be swapped out simply because he is a tenth or so slower? Who is to say anyone else would fair better (assuming hypothetically Hamilton is the defacto "best" in that car currently)?

Good enough would be winning races without his team mate making a mistake. Taking it on merit and actually overtaking his team mate on track which he has never done. Not saying there is a driver on the grid who could beat Lewis, but there will be one who can get closer to Rosberg and put up more of a fight throughout the season.