Formula 1 2013 - Round 7: Canada

Thought I'd forgotten, eh? I have to admit, I've been in an odd state since this grand prix, not quite able to get my head together to write. I think it's just what happens when a certain individual disappears into the distance to win. Anyway, blog writing ahoy!

Every year, I look forwards to a few things. Nintendo games, Christmas and the Canadian Grand Prix. Year in, year out, the Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve gives us an amazingly close race that can’t be predicted.

Its unique nature within the F1 calendar makes it exciting, though the FIA didn’t bother thinking about that when they demanded tyres that degrade quickly after the 2011 race. With tyres continuing to be a talking point, this looks set to be another banker track. Sadly, it was anything but.

Circuit: Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve

2012 Winner: Lewis Hamilton

2012 Pole: Sebastian Vettel

2013 Tyre Compounds: Super Soft and Medium

I’ve found it difficult to write this particular entry in this blog. Maybe it’s because I’ve got a fair bit to do at work. Maybe it’s just getting tired of filling in the HTML table at the bottom every couple weeks, but I think the main reason is that this year’s Canadian Grand Prix was just dull. The constant attempts to ‘improve’ Formula 1 has left it in a position where barely anyone can push, lest their tyres fade away and the DRS is just completely unnecessary most of the time.

On a jollier note, this was Force India’s 100^th grand prix. The weather, sadly, didn’t join in as it rained throughout first practice. Alexander Rossi, who’d turned heads in GP2, made his first appearance in the Caterham F1 car and managed to survive in the mixed conditions. Maldonado spun late on in the session and got beached on one of the high curbs (or Sleeping Mounties as they came to be known) while Webber and Bottas failed to heed the yellow flags, both gaining reprimands.

Second practice was dry with Alonso piping Hamilton to the top of the time sheets, all the while the Red Bulls just lurked as they usually do. The rain returned the next day for third practice, which was delayed while repairs were carried out to a barrier after an accident in a support race, which even resulted in the session being cut down by thirty minutes.

When everyone did get out on track, drying up a good racing line by the end of the session, it was difficult to point to one car as looking best as so many were on roughly the same single lap pace. The Ferraris looked good, the ‘Montreal Master’ Hamilton looked strong while the Force Indias had pace, though Webber was at the top of the time sheets. The Lotus’, however, were struggling to stay in the top ten, Grosjean still carrying a penalty for running into Riccardo in Monaco.

The weather remained as indecisive as most cats and returned once again for first qualifying, drizzling so it became difficult to choice intermediates or wets. Despite that, a few cars went out straight away on the super soft tyres and immediately found it was defiantly too wet so they carefully returned to the pits. Some cars even queued up to change tyres, though the idea seemed to confuse Alonso as he lined up next to Massa as the Brazillian had his tyres changed.

Vettel was the only one to sit out the initial rush onto the track, joining later on as Sutil very nearly ploughed into the back of his countryman Hulkenburg. It wasn’t long before the track started to dry up and a line formed as the Red Bulls and Mercedes exchanged the top of the time sheets like a hot potato, while the Ferraris joined them in the mix and the Williams looked quick.

The times tumbled more as the session ended, but both the Force Indias and Lotus’ were looking leery as they slid about. For a second race in a row, Di Resta was eliminated while Grosjean joined him in the bottom six along with the Caterhams and Marussias. Due to his penalty, Grosjean would start plum last, though Lotus did join he could start in downtown Montreal.

The rain returned once again for qualifying two, though not hard enough for full wets. Drivers still slid around, though it seemed the DRS wasn’t disabled for some reason. There were a few short yellow flags, none of which were shown while the Red Bulls and Mercedes continued to vie for the top of the sheets.

Surprisingly, the Ferraris were starting to drop back a little and Bottas in the Williams was coming on strong. Determined to put Monaco behind him, Massa pushed a little too hard and met the wall at turn three, bringing out the red flag with just under two minutes to go.

Determined to get in one last fast lap, everyone piled up at the end of the pit lane to go out, Raikkonen and Riccardo trying to sneak around the pack to get out first. Webber, Vettel and Button didn’t get around in time to start laps, but there were no real improvements as Hulkenburg, Perez, Maldonado, Button, Gutierrez and Massa were eliminated.

While the rain didn’t return for final qualifying, the track sported a dry line though there were still slippery sections. The Red Bulls and Mercedes were going to be fighting for pole, but the Williams of Bottas was still worth watching in the changeable conditions.

After all the rain, however, none of the drivers in the top ten had new intermediate tyres  for the race, but they were put to good use on the first runs, which put Vettel on pole once again in Canada. The rain got heavier as Hamilton threatened to beat the German, but a mistake at the last corner relegated the Briton to second.

Bottas took an incredible third ahead of Rosberg with Webber, Alonso, Vergne, Sutil, Raikkonen and Riccardo following. The Finn and Aussie on the fifth row were each given a two place penalty for their queue jumping at the restart of qualifying two, but this ultimately meant they were moved back a row due to how the penalty was applied.

Between the Xmen actors and Eddie Jordan taking over from where Martin Brundle finished off and annoying the German TV crews, the talk was about the weather. The track was dry, but with uncertainty in the air, it could potentially be anyone’s game.

Most of the drivers made it off the start cleanly, but Bottas’ great qualifying was soon undone as he slipped back through the order, his Williams not able to keep up in the dry. Vettel bolted with Hamilton dawdling along behind as the others navigated around the Finn, who drove maturely enough to not have an accident with faster cars.

The first serious mistake came from Sutil who, while navigating Bottas, managed to spin of his own volition. Maldonado made things worse as he tapped the back of the German after he recovered, allowing Perez through.

Massa seemed to be on a charge, passing someone every time the camera was on him. Yet somehow, he wasn’t making any real progress. Raikkonen too was struggling a bit, not able to make any impression on Riccardo as the top seven cars got heavily strung out.

Seemingly no one can really push on the tyres with the exception of Vettel, which is surprising. His ‘all or nothing’ push to get away and enjoy another dull drive to the end nearly ended in disaster as he kissed one of the walls out of a chicane while Sutil pitted to check the damage to his car. The incident with Maldonado netted the Venezuelan a drive through.

The Mercedes cars were trotting along nicely, though off Vettel’s pace, making one wonder how his Red Bull can look after the tyres so well, while Webber had to get out of Rosberg’s slipstream as his car was seemingly overheating a bit. Alonso didn’t seem to be impressing much at all, just hanging around as Massa seemed to continue passing people and getting nowhere.

Raikkonen’s race wasn’t going much better as he was told to conserve fuel after continuing to follow Riccardo and getting passed by Vergne. His pitstop wasn’t much better as the jack dropped him before his rear tyres were put on.

Button, Di Resta and Perez were all running with an aim to do a single stop, putting them in contention but ultimately relegating the McLarens to road blocks as they failed to make much of an impression, getting passed easily by cars on newer tyres. Sutil was making a comeback, making more progress than Massa as Alonso seemed to wake up and started to catch Rosberg and Webber.

Once the three were line a stern, Rosberg dived into the pits and instantly Webber was quicker. The Spaniard followed him as Vettel lapped Raikkonen. Hamilton wasn’t able to keep up as he started enduring some issues with his DRS, not to mention how much better the Red Bull was then the Mercedes.

Almost as normal for these races were everything goes absolutely perfectly for Vettel, things didn’t go swimmingly for Webber, though his luck held out long enough to survive Van der Garde turning in on and colliding with the Australian. The Dutchman got a stop and go penalty for the incident, though Webber didn’t seem badly effected as he started lapping quicker than anyone else, but a mistake at the hairpin allowed Alonso through.

Sutil’s recovery drive continued strongly with Di Resta turning around a bad qualifying once again. Now he was free of Webber, Alonso started to catch Hamilton ahead as Rosberg quietly dropped away from Webber. The McLarens seemed to have found each other again and continued their latest battle as Van der Garde struck again, this time having an accident with Hulkenburg. It was only minor contact, but the Sauber’s tyre was punctured while the Caterham’s wing fell off and got stuck under the car. The Dutchman parked up in an easy to recover from location and the safety car wasn’t nessasary.

With the race and possibly the season threatening to descend into the almost unwatchable 2000-2004 period again, Alonso came within sight of Hamilton. The back markers seemed reluctant to let the Mercedes through quickly while Vettel made his own mistake.

With over fifteen seconds advantage, Vettel was able to get himself confused as to where the run off went at the first corner and rejoin without getting caught. The holding up of Hamilton continued, with Sutil even getting a penalty for doing so before Alonso got a run into the hairpin, though the Spaniard pulled out of completing the move as the pair had just gone through the DRS sensor and threatened giving the advantage to Hamilton (something I expected to happen when they announced the system). Alonso completed the move with the use of DRS on the next straight, farcical as it was and immediately pulled away, lapping quicker than Vettel but with no chance of catching him.

Raikkonen’s bad day continued as Massa’s fight through the same cars over and over finally wielded results, the Brazilian passing the Finn near the end of the race as Webber seemingly worked out how to get speed out of the Red Bull and set the fastest lap.

Gutierrez went off track off camera and retired in a similar position to Jarno Trulli a few years ago in the Toyota (seemingly sliding off the track while exiting the pit). Returning to the runners, Vettel won with a huge margin over the storming Alonso and dawdling Hamilton. Raikkonen finished in the points, putting him level with Michael Schumacher for number of consecutive points scoring finishes.

For a Canadian Grand Prix, there was a distinct lack of action or much excitement until Alonso picked up the pace, but it was pretty inevitable he would catch and pass the Mercedes. It seems in the desperate attempt to ‘improve the show’, Pirelli and the FIA managed to neutralize the action and hide that lack of real racing behind some cars struggling with no grip getting passed by cars with superior grip.

Sadly, any celebrations were put to rest (though it amused me no end when the Canadian fans booed Vettel on the podium during the interview) as news broke of one of the marshals getting hit and killed by a recovery vehicle that was removing Gutierrez’ car.

My condolences go to Mark Robinson’s family and friends.

	Driver	Constructor	Race Time	Grid
1st	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	1:32:09.143	1
2nd	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+0:14.408	6
3rd	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+0:15.942	2
4th	Mark Webber	Red Bull	+0:25.731	5
5th	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	+1:09.725	4
6th	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	+1 lap	7
7th	Paul Di Resta	Force India	+ 1 lap	17
8th	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+1 lap	16
9th	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus	+1 lap	10
10th	Adrian Sutil	Force India	+1 lap	8
11th	Sergio Perez	McLaren	+1 lap	12
12th	Jenson Button	McLaren	+1 lap	14
13th	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	+1 lap	22
14th	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	+1 lap	3
15th	Daniel Riccardo	Toro Rosso	+2 laps	11
16th	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	+2 laps	13
17th	Jules Bianchi	Marussia	+2 laps	19
18th	Charles Pic	Caterham	+3 kaps
19th	Max Chilton	Marussia	+3 laps	20
20th	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber	DNF (crash)	15
21st	Nico Hulkenburg	Sauber	DNF (Accident)	9
22nd	Giedo van der Garde	Caterham	DNF (Accident)	21

Driver’s Championship:

	Driver	Score
1st	Sebastian Vettel	132
2nd	Fernando Alonso	96 (-36)
3rd	Kimi Raikkonen	88 (-48)
4th	Lewis Hamilton	77 (-59)
5th	Mark Webber	69 (-63)
6th	Nico Rosberg	57 (-75)
7th	Felipe Massa	49 (-83)
8th	Paul Di Resta	34 (-98)
9th	Romain Grosjean	26 (-106)
10th	Jenson Button	25 (-107)
11th	Adrian Sutil	17 (-115)
12th	Jean-Eric Vergne	13 (-115)
13th	Sergio Perez	12 (-119)
14th	Daniel Riccardo	7 (-125)
15th	Nico Hulkenburg	5 (-128)

Constructor’s Championship:

	Constructor	Score
1st	Red Bull	201
2nd	Ferrari	145 (-56)
3rd	Mercedes	134 (-66)
4th	Lotus	114 (-87)
5th	Force India	51 (-150)
6th	McLaren	37 (-164)
7th	Toro Rosso	20 (-181)
8th	Sauber	5 (-196)