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THE ROAD TO
POLE
* Red Bull driver Max Verstappen claimed his second pole position of the
season, using the Cinturato Blue full wet during Q1 and the Cinturato Green
intermediate in Q2 and Q3. All the drivers used just those two compounds on
an inconsistently drying track during qualifying, with only Mercedes driver
George Russell attempting a lap on the P Zero Red soft slick in Q3.
* The FP3 session was also run in wet conditions, with the drivers starting
off on the full wets again before switching to the intermediates. This was
useful to help establish the crossover point between full wets and
intermediates. Alpine’s Fernando Alonso was quickest on the intermediates in
FP3, also claiming second place in qualifying.
* Qualifying got underway in temperatures of just 13 degrees centigrade
ambient and 18 degrees on track, meaning that tyre warm-up was a challenge.
The rain had stopped just before qualifying got underway at 4pm, but the
track remained damp, progressively drying during the hour (although there
was an additional delay due to a red flag in Q2).
* The Pirelli Pole Position Award was presented by Canada’s Jacques
Villeneuve, who won the 1997 F1 world championship for drivers 25 years ago
with Williams, as well as the Indycar title in 1995 .
* The circuit is named after his legendary father Gilles, who won the
Canadian Grand Prix in 1978: the first of his six wins. Jacques Villeneuve
won 11 races as well as the world title throughout his Formula 1 career, but
Canada was never one of them. |
STRATEGY
NOTEBOOK:
Today’s conditions might
make it quite hard to believe, but the 70-lap Canadian Grand Prix tomorrow
is expected to be dry – although the rain today will have affected the usual
pattern of track evolution over a weekend, making the surface more slippery.
A one-stopper is expected to be fastest, with best way being to start on the
P Zero Yellow medium and then move onto the P Zero White hard. There’s
broadly comparable degradation between the soft and the medium, but the
medium offers a wider pit stop window and more driveability than the soft,
so starting on it gives drivers more options.
Soft to hard is also a viable one-stop strategy, but it commits the drivers
to stopping slightly earlier than they would on the mediums. The big unknown
is safety cars, but there is no way to prepare for those other than to
consider as many options as possible.
A two-stopper is slightly slower, but under the right circumstances it could
work: especially as you lose less time in a pit stop here than on any other
circuit on the calendar, also because the drivers effectively cut out the
first and last corners by using the pit lane.
For those starting further down the grid, there might be an argument for
starting on the hard tyre and going long: hoping to make the most of a
safety car, for example, by avoiding a pit stop and then switching to a
faster tyre at the end. This is a circuit where you can overtake, so track
position isn’t quite as paramount as other places.
MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING
“With the risk of rain today identified, the drivers had an extra set of
intermediates allocated for FP3 per the regulations. In qualifying, the
track was ready for intermediates at the end of Q1, although the crossover
point between full wets and intermediates was somewhat higher than we had
anticipated. While the track dried reasonably quickly, it was inconsistent:
with some parts fully wet, some parts damp, and other parts dry – leading to
an exciting qualifying that really tested the skills of the drivers. As we
have just one specification of full wets and intermediates homologated for
the entire year, these tyres obviously have to be extremely adaptable to a
very wide range of circumstances, including the unique conditions we saw
here in Canada today. The wets and intermediates did exactly what was
required here, with only one driver trying the slicks in Q3, but conditions
were still too wet. It should be a very different story tomorrow, so now the
teams have to make the most of the information obtained on Friday.” |
