2012 Canadian GP - Gilles Villeneuve

[nacho]

Red Bull geared for pole and escape from lap 1. Vettel hits the limiter really early.

short gearing means he is geared for the race and not for qualifying.

It means he's geared optimally for running at his own pace, both over a single lap and in the race. The downside is that he's not geared to overtake, which could hold him up in the race if he gets stuck behind another car or in traffic around the pit stops.

Exactly what I meant.

[Morteza]

Red Bull geared for pole and escape from lap 1. Vettel hits the limiter really early.

short gearing means he is geared for the race and not for qualifying.

It means he's geared optimally for running at his own pace, both over a single lap and in the race. The downside is that he's not geared to overtake, which could hold him up in the race if he gets stuck behind another car or in traffic around the pit stops.

Didn't Red Bull geared him the same for Monza last year?

[kenny5]

Red Bull geared for pole and escape from lap 1. Vettel hits the limiter really early.

dont think so.... "geared for pole" would suggest a higher gear to take advantage of DRS.
a lower gearing will be more suited to the race than qualifying -- eg monza last year
(where RB had the slowest car, but were on pole and won the race!!)

[PlatinumZealot]

Jesus Christ.. RedBull is fast in Cananada of all places... AGAIN.. If it stays like this the season will not look too pretty... but here's hoping that we are only seeing the Pirelli factor.

[myurr]

Red Bull geared for pole and escape from lap 1. Vettel hits the limiter really early.

dont think so.... "geared for pole" would suggest a higher gear to take advantage of DRS.
a lower gearing will be more suited to the race than qualifying -- eg monza last year
(where RB had the slowest car, but were on pole and won the race!!)

Shorter gearing also means faster acceleration up to that top speed. It's a balance, but something that Red Bull has done many times over the last year and a half. For them they don't seem to be able to shed the drag, so the faster acceleration gives a bigger advantage than being a few kmph faster.

[beelsebob]

Red Bull geared for pole and escape from lap 1. Vettel hits the limiter really early.

dont think so.... "geared for pole" would suggest a higher gear to take advantage of DRS.
a lower gearing will be more suited to the race than qualifying -- eg monza last year
(where RB had the slowest car, but were on pole and won the race!!)

Except that's not how red bull gear for pole.... Instead, they gear for maximum acceleration out of the corner, and hitting the rev limiter, which turns out to usually be faster than slower acceleration to a higher top speed.

[Hail22]

Hopefully we are not seeing the page turning to a dominated season...no thank you won't take a bar of that again.

Also anyone notice Alonso' time in his first lap? 1:13:892

Looks to me we may have a Championship similar to 2010?

[Miguel]

There'll be a Lotus on Pole

Fancy a wager?

I'll own up. Still haven't watched the BBC highlights, but googling for the highlights schedule I found the result. I thereby acknowledge that my prediction of having a Lotus on pole was not particularly accurate. Hell, they weren't even close! Even if everyone else gets a 5-place penatly, Vettel would start in front.

Before adding a Niels Bohr quote to my sig, let me add that I hope the Mayan 2012 prediction is as accurate as mine.

[scarlet]

I'm starting to wonder if one factor in the McLaren's great speed in quali compared to the race is a vastly superior DRS than all other cars. Button hinted at something along those lines pre season... At Canada both drivers are around the top 10 in the speed trap, 5-6kph faster than the Mercs (with their dDRS) and the Red Bulls, whilst running visibly higher wing angles than almost all other cars. Of course it could be that the McLaren is geared longer for qualifying but that would make no sense - if you are running more downforce you need to gear the car towards accelleration rather than top speed to retain laptime (see Vettel Monza 2011).

[zyphro]

Grosjean to ruin Schumachers race going into lap one again?

[Crucial_Xtreme]

Ted's Canadian GP Notebook

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byNSwgjMG7I[/youtube]

[Chuckjr]

Gotta say I much more enjoy the racing this year over last. I still don't understand why everyone is so anti tires. This is ten times more exciting than the procession line behind RB last year. I could give a frogs fat ass about the inconsistency in the tires. Get over it. The cream rises to the top as we are seeing regardless...the drivers/teams need to just get on with it.

[Red Schneider]

Yes, as long as the cream rises to the top it's at least not bad.

[Robbobnob]

Its not really a surprise tbh, they have demonstrated great performance in low speed corner traction at Monaco and Bahrain, their wins last year at Monza and Spa have proved that the Renault is capable to deliver the performance when its required.

Also my opinion this weekend is the teams have a very good read on the tires / the characteristics of the circuit move the performance gains towards the car rather than the tires.

[fiohaa]

Gotta say I much more enjoy the racing this year over last. I still don't understand why everyone is so anti tires. This is ten times more exciting than the procession line behind RB last year. I could give a frogs fat ass about the inconsistency in the tires. Get over it. The cream rises to the top as we are seeing regardless...the drivers/teams need to just get on with it.

you're right the cream does rise to the top, as maldonado proved again today, as he did in monaco, after his glorious win in spain.

villeneuve said it best - the purist won't enjoy it - the casual viewers at home probably will.
but hey, tomorrow should be real exciting because we get to eagerly watch that track temperature figure determine who wins, whilst watching everyone crawling around well below their own pace, to ensure they don't have to pit.
a pace determined by the engineer on his computer.

great racing.