Canadian GP Preview. The good news is that it looks like a dry weekend ahead in Montreal. So no need to try and guess the weather as well as the winners. The first thing to do when considering the Montreal race is to largely disregard what went on in Monaco. The two tracks are at opposite ends of the F1 spectrum. Monaco all high downforce and slow corners, Montreal is a low downforce mixture of high-speed straights broken by low-speed chicanes and hairpins, with the only real corners being in the sequence after turn two. This is not to say that the battle for victory will not be between McLaren and Ferrari, just that the relative performances of the two teams will be different. Monaco has always been a good track for McLaren and poor for Ferrari, in Montreal the reverse is true. Over the last 5 races here, Ferrari have averaged over 7.5 more points scored than the next best performers, McLaren and Williams. That is a huge gap. Monaco was never going to suit the long wheelbase of the Ferrari, but what was a disadvantage there will be a strength here. The Ferrari is very good through chicanes and has excellent straight line speed. At the recent test at Paul Ricard, when the track was set up for Montreal spec testing, it was the Ferrari which was the fastest car on both days. The team is very confident of bouncing back from a disappointing result in Monaco and I have to agree. McLaren have struggled at Montreal in recent years despite Raikkonen winning in 2005. Reliability has been their biggest problem and with that weakness removed this season, they will be able to put pressure on Ferrari, but a Red car victory has to be the favourite. Between Massa and Raikkonen, it is the Brazilian who is leading Ferraris Championship challenge, with Raikkonen now under pressure to win a few races to restore his fading title hopes. In qualifying, Massa has been really very impressive, completely dominating his highly rated team mate 4-1 so far. That one ‘loss’ came via a mechanical failure in the opening race in Melbourne, but since then he has shown Raikkonen how it’s done. Not many people would have expected that result before the start of the season. Massa’s recent qualifying performances have been remarkable. In the last 7 Grand Prix, he has been on pole position 5 times. The two he missed were at Melbourne (car broke) and Monaco were the car was unsuited to the track. Even at Monaco he was impressive, getting to within 0.24 of pole position (and with similar fuel loads). On a track that will favour Ferrari, he really should be favourite, and at 5/2 he looks good value to continue his great run. 4 points Massa to be fastest qualifier @ 5/2 with Boylesports lost 4 points If Monaco is a very poor form guide to Montreal, the same cannot be said for the Barcelona form. Barcelona is a good guide for most tracks and cars/drivers that stood out were Red Bull/Coulthard, BMW/Kubica, Renault/Kovalainen and Super Aguri/Sato. Red Bull seemed to have found a few steps forward in Spain, but the TV coverage picked up that Coulthard’s rear wing was visibly flexing at high speed. As a result the FIA have beefed up the Newton load used to measure flex in wings and this will have forced Red Bull in particular to change the design. This will hurt on a track like Montreal, so it is possible that Red Bulls progress will be halted for a while. In addition, they have the worst reliability on the grid. BMW have had a good car from the start of the season but it was only in Spain that Kubica started to show the kind of form that marked him out as a great talent last year. The change to Bridgestones did not suit his aggressive turn in style of driving and he has had to modify his driving style. He was quick all weekend in Spain and it seems he has now perfected his new style and is back up to full speed. He was very impressive as the ‘Friday tester’ for BMW Sauber in Montreal last season and if he can repeat that level of performance in qualifying and the race on Sunday, he could well be ‘best of the rest’ after the Ferraris and McLarens. 2 points Kubica w/o the big four @ 3/1 with SkyBet. lost 2 points Nick Heidfeld was dominating Kubica for the first 3 races but the tide may have turned with Kubica beating the German in Spain and Monaco. Heidfeld still has the edge in qualifying, but the Pole is getting closer and now seems faster in races. Montreal has not been a happy hunting ground for Heidfeld, just one top 8 finish from 7 starts and 4 retirements. 3 points Kubica to beat Heidfeld @ 2.30 with Bet24.com lost 3 points Renault is definitely making progress and while the RS27 is not yet ready to fight for podiums they are closing down on BMW as ‘best of the rest’. Both cars in the top 10 in Spanish qualifying and but for fuel rig problems both would have been comfortably in the points. At the ‘Montreal simulation’ test at Paul Richard, the Renault was 3rd quickest on the first day and 2nd to Raikkonen on the final day, by just tiny margin. Fisichella loves Montreal and has always performed well here, on the Podium for 4 years on the trot in ’97 to 2000 and unlucky not to have added to that in 2005 and 2006. I am not the biggest fan of Fisichella but he is always worth backing at Montreal. The early odds of 10/11 for him to finish in the points has long gone but he does look a good e/w bet in that same ‘without the big 4’ market as Kubica. 2 points e/w Fisichella w/o the big four @ 5/1 with Skybet. lost 4 points Jarno Trulli was looking in good form in Spain, 6th on the grid and set to make it three straight points finishes on the trot. Sadly for him the car broke and then his weekend at Monaco was ruined by a string of unfortunate incidents in qualifying left him starting from an impossible 14th place. Forget that and consider that he was on the 3rd row in Spain and finished 6th here for Toyota last season. He might struggle to finish 6th, with the BMW Saubers and resurgent Renaults looking to be strong, but a top 8 does look feasible to me. 2 points Trulli to finish in the points @ 2/1 with Stan James, ExtraBet. lost 2 points One of the features of the Montreal circuit is that it involves a lot of very hard braking, the hardest track on the calendar for brakes. Another track that requires a lot of heavy braking is Bahrain and it was very clear that Alonso was struggling badly with his braking there. It transpired that McLaren use a completely different brake supplier to Renault and Alonso was not comfortable at all. It was no surprise to see that that was his worst race of the season and that unless they have found a solution, he may well struggle here as well. He certainly does not look like the favourite to me. That should leave the consistent Hamilton to lead the McLaren attack this weekend. It was interesting that Bahrain was the only track this season on which Hamilton was allowed to qualify with less fuel than Alonso, probably because the team realized Alonso was never going to be able to fight with the Ferrari’s with this braking problem. Perhaps a little dabble on Ladbrokes new straight tricast market might be interesting. 1 point Massa-Hamilton-Raikkonen @ 28/1 with Ladbrokes 0.5 point Massa-Raikkonen-Hamilton @ 20/1 with Ladbrokes lost 1.5 points |
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