A lap of Montreal with Fernando Alonso

After the Monaco Grand Prix, the Formula One circus moves to North-America for the back-to-back races at Montreal and Indianapolis. Championship leader, Fernando Alonso, takes us out for a lap on the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit in Canada.

Fernando Alonso “This is a great race track. It is a semi permanent circuit which means that basically during the race weekend the track gets quicker and quicker as more rubber is laid down. Also there are many overtaking opportunities, especially into the hairpin at Turn 10, and the final chicane before the start / finish straight, where you can slipstream and get the advantage if your car is good, you have extra end of straight speed and you can brake later than the guy in front of you.

It is a low to medium downforce track and it is really hard on brakes. The key to be quick around this long circuit is to have good braking stability, to make your car really soft over the kerbs and to have very good traction so that you can come out of the chicanes with a lot of speed. It is also very important to run a minimum amount of downforce so that you can to get maximum end of straight speed. It is very important to finish the race because even on the last lap there are many people that run into problems with the brakes and there are many surprises on the last 10 laps as brake discs run out. The pit lane is fairly long and as a result you aim to do few pit stops, basically if you can get away with two that is better than three.

The weather in Montreal is always unpredictable and there tends to always be the odd shower during the race weekend. Normally the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team has had good races here and I have good memories of winning the race last year.”