2012 Canadian GP - Gilles Villeneuve

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

No such need for dramatic change Mr Miguel.
You admire Alonso/Prost for your reasons, both all time top 10 drivers IMO.

You see my view is, the W03 Merc has a high top speed(Lotus do too I may add), but the Merc has traction out of the critical turn 10, which means it could probably reach its top speed quicker than the Lotus.
Add to that the DDRS Mercedes have, and they can afford to run more wing for the insection sectors 1 and 2, giving them a distinct advantage in qualifying.

Lotus will be there or thereabouts, of that I'm sure...but this circuit looks like it was ready made for a W03 pole, be that Britney or the old timer.
My prediction for Qualifying is that The top 6 will be either Lotus GP, McLaren-Mercedes or Mercedes-AMG.
To expand on it I would go for this this.

1. Old Timer
2. Britney
3. Hamilton
4. Grosjean
5. Raikonnen
6. Button( or Alonso/Vettel, Webber) Button apears to be at sea on these Pirellis, not in the same class as Hamilton.

In box me a wager offer and we will see how it stacks up in 12 days time?

[Neno]

No such need for dramatic change Mr Miguel.
You admire Alonso/Prost for your reasons, both all time top 10 drivers IMO.

You see my view is, the W03 Merc has a high top speed(Lotus do too I may add), but the Merc has traction out of the critical turn 10, which means it could probably reach its top speed quicker than the Lotus.
Add to that the DDRS Mercedes have, and they can afford to run more wing for the insection sectors 1 and 2, giving them a distinct advantage in qualifying.

Lotus will be there or thereabouts, of that I'm sure...but this circuit looks like it was ready made for a W03 pole, be that Britney or the old timer.
My prediction for Qualifying is that The top 6 will be either Lotus GP, McLaren-Mercedes or Mercedes-AMG.
To expand on it I would go for this this.

1. Old Timer
2. Britney
3. Hamilton
4. Grosjean
5. Raikonnen
6. Button( or Alonso/Vettel, Webber) Button apears to be at sea on these Pirellis, not in the same class as Hamilton.

In box me a wager offer and we will see how it stacks up in 12 days time?

i can agree with this but hamilton will not finish 3th, his pitlane will screw up again

[Mafia]

I think this track will be dominated bij MSC. Just have a feeling that the W03 will go good around this track. Alot of traction zones combined with topspeed and quick change of direction. Also MSC and Rosberg were mighty quick in Monaco. I was also surprised about how well there tires held up. W03 got alot of updates since the mugello test and in Monaco the all seem to work even with the limited track time the got.


This will be top ten after Quali.
1.MSC
2.ROS
3.Grosjean
4.Button
5.Alonso
6.Hamilton
7.Raikonnen
8.Alonso
9.Maldonado
10.Koba

Never knew we have 2 Alonso racing

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

i can agree with this but hamilton will not finish 3th, his pitlane will screw up again

Not finish the race Neno, I meant qualifying. I think the race will be a lottery.

Hope everyone has bought their tickets.

[kooleracer]

I think this track will be dominated bij MSC. Just have a feeling that the W03 will go good around this track. Alot of traction zones combined with topspeed and quick change of direction. Also MSC and Rosberg were mighty quick in Monaco. I was also surprised about how well there tires held up. W03 got alot of updates since the mugello test and in Monaco the all seem to work even with the limited track time the got.


This will be top ten after Quali.
1.MSC
2.ROS
3.Grosjean
4.Button
5.Alonso
6.Hamilton
7.Raikonnen
8.Alonso
9.Maldonado
10.Koba

Never knew we have 2 Alonso racing

Forgot, that Massa is still racing at Ferrari . Although he did ok yesterday.

[Nando]

i can agree with this but hamilton will not finish 3th, his pitlane will screw up again

This time the pit stops will work out great, only problem will be that they sent him out on full wets on a dry track.

[foxmulder_ms]

I think high track temps works for RedBull and colder ones work for Mclaren so I expect Hamilton to take the pole and Button should be on top 4. I think Mercedes can be the second fastest very close to Lotus. Redbull will be the 4th followed by Ferrari.

For the race I expect the 7th different winner of the season.

[marcush.]

I think everybody has realised now a win of the old fart is immanent and Canada last year was a highlight already .So let´s prepare for a special weekend.

[Mafia]

well, tell you what guys, its a heat wave going around here, so expect a very hot race , that means Lotus will shine (Proof=Bahrain), i strongly believe Force india will be quick too, with Paul or Hulk might stick their FINDIA between 5th to 8th places in the end. Redbull and Mclaren should get serious because Alonso is stealing points in every race, with a driver like he is, even A,B,C's and 1,2,3's will tell ya, that if he sneaks 2,3 points ahead every race from his nearest/variable competitor(s) every weekend, he might win WDC. right now, i can see that happening.

[Miguel]

No such need for dramatic change Mr Miguel.
You admire Alonso/Prost for your reasons, both all time top 10 drivers IMO.

That's why I said nothing serious: all four drivers are just plain brilliant. The nemesis card is played so often by the media, it seems tempting to ridicule it.

You see my view is, the W03 Merc has a high top speed(Lotus do too I may add), but the Merc has traction out of the critical turn 10, which means it could probably reach its top speed quicker than the Lotus.
Add to that the DDRS Mercedes have, and they can afford to run more wing for the insection sectors 1 and 2, giving them a distinct advantage in qualifying.

That's a good point. I do see the W03 fighting for the win regardless. However, the "straight" in Canada is super long, so maybe, just maybe, having a quicker top speed will be better than achieving it 100m earlier. But my armchair simulations run nothing conclusive.

[Speedster]

Hamilton has almost always gone well round here. It's one of his strongest tracks. If he can't win this one, I can't see him winning the title.

Agreed

About the Pirelli scaremongering I don't think it'll come up to much to be honest. The Pirellis seem to degrade - and there's not much of that around Canada. There's very little in the way of high speed corners (I think the flat out turn 5 is about as fast as it gets) and the track surface isn't very abrasive. It's graining that's the issue, because they keep on using the finely packed asphalt which is slippery. Other than Mercedes in Monaco 2011, I don't remember Pirelli having graining issues at all. Last year after Friday in Canada most teams were saying they expected 2-stop strategies based around the option (option-option-prime)

I just hope they fix the blasted DRS this time around so that not everyone gets past before the braking area of the first DRS zone.

With such a stop-start circuit with long straights, ironically, I'd expect Red Bull and Lotus to do well. Lotus not so ironically. Both were cars that were good in Bahrain - with similar stop-startedness, heavy braking into hairpins before heavy traction onto long straights.

I wouldn't be surprised if Red Bull is hampered by their serious lack of top speed again. They will need to start from the front, as I can't see them overtaking roughly similar paced cars easily, even with DRS.

[raymondu999]

I wouldn't bet on it, if last year's drs is used again. And that's a big if. I remember all drs moves meant the overtaker could pass and rejoin the racing line before the braking zone of the first drs. Ironically I only remember one successful defense against DRS - Vettel fended off Button on his DRS on lap 69

[f1316]

I would just add that we're still yet to see Lotus perform up to their capability in qualifying, which might point toward them having some issues with get the tyres in the right window.

I'd personally predict that we might see an Alonson/MSC battle, but perhaps it's wishgul thinking

[Gerhard Berger]

So i noticed the undercut didn't really work in Monaco. Could we have the same in Montreal? I assume it will be S and SS again?

[raymondu999]

Yeap - as I stated in my opening post

What undercut, btw?