Ohhhhhh Caaaaanaaaaaadaaaaaa! Ah yes, it is out first trip across the Atlantic for the Canadian GP. Montreal will be the host of the next round in the ongoing saga of soap opera style drama brewing in the Mercedes camp. I can roughly estimate that this weekend Hamilton will put all his toys back in the pram and decide milk the victory for all it worth on Sunday with all the subtlety of a flaming brick thrown at a petrol station. Because while Monaco was a track which favoured Rosberg, we suspect that Montreal will play more into Lewis' hands - given it was the track he scored his first win on in 2007... while he was falling out with another team-mate. But we can hope that the Canadian GP will not just be another parade of self-importance and snide remarks passed back and forth across the paddock - it is a special track that has seen some monumental races. Some of which have seen a grumpy Mr Hamilton failing to make the chequered flag, the outstanding race of 2011... oddly Lewis also managed to have a team-mate related incident then too, with Jenson Button. Jenson went on to claim victory in an event which was so long it forced new regulations to limit red flag delayed races. Who needs any of these new fangled Tilke-dromes when there are venues like this.
The Venue
The rest of the world could learn a lot from the design of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, because it is wonderful in it's effortless simplicity - Abu Dhabi is the ultimate example of trying to do everything and making a mess of the important bit. When you examine the individual corners, there isn't really a single curve which stands out on a global level - the way that Eau Rouge, 130R or St Devote do. The track isn't overly imaginative either, with a lot of chicanes bolted together with a long straight and a slow hairpin tying them all together. But when these seemingly simple and basic elements are knitted together, the result is truly magnificent, in the same way that Monaco defies expectation and flows from one bend to the other almost seamlessly. To make things more interesting the track is bounded by concrete walls with only the tiniest of margins between ultimate lap time and a shattered race car.
The opening sequence of corners do seem a little dull in comparison to the remainder of the lap, probably because it is one of few sections of the track where running wide won't cost you a wheel or two. Turn one appears to be a fairly innocuous left hander but positing the car on the exit directly impacts the line you can take through turn two. A tighter exit allows for a smoother wider approach to the everlasting second corner. It starts to get a little more claustrophobic as the walls start to close in on the approach to turn three. Now this chicane is masterful, a blind first apex hidden behind the inside wall while the road itself drops out of sight. Sort of like a toned down version of Laguna Seca's corkscrew - and on the exit there is only a solid wall of concrete for comfort.
Following a slight curve in the road the track arrives at our second chicane, which isn't as fun as the first, but nonetheless challenging. Each phase of the 6/7 chicane is slightly elongated, with a narrow groove of repaved tarmac on the inside where the grip is, step outside of that - especially in the wet. Exactly what caught out the all dominant Vettel in that spectacular race in 2011. In the dry, tyre marbles on the exit of the second phase of the chicane have seen cars understeer powerlessly into the wall - Jaques Villeneuve manage to crash his BMW Sauber just by being marginally offline. The second chicane is succeeded by the third chicane - it is odd how this lack of variation can produce such brilliance. Turn nine also beings the cars very close to another concrete barrier, against which many wheels have been shed.
Another long curve brings the cars round to the hairpin at the bottom the island, where Kubica suffered one of the most severe accidents in recent memory - after which the inside wall has been redesigned. On the exit we have a very rare occurrence, a long straight that had nothing to do with Herman Tilke, and one that has over the years managed to generate overtaking into the final corner. This final corner is of course another chicane, and another wonderful one at that - unlike the abminations that have tainted Barcelona and Spa, this one is taken at good speed with no room for error. The closest comparison would be Variante Alta at Imola which also requires some liberal curb usage, however take too much and you may find yourself bouncing off the the most famous stretch of wall on the F1 calendar. The wall of champions, which has been visited by several champions... hence the name, along with many other victims.
The Form Guide
In a season where Mercedes have an all dominant car, there are going to be tracks where the opposition will have the chance to claw back some of that deficit... Canada is not going to be one of those places. It is one venue where they should have even more of an advantage... because the long back straight and a greater dependence on mechanical grip rather than aerodynamics favours the Mercedes team. To make matters worse for their closest - a term used very loosely - competitors Red Bull and Ferrari, the rest of the Mercedes powered teams will be getting in the way of their damage limitation exercise. McLaren have historically done well here, as have Force India, while Bottas qualified a truly horrible Williams in 3rd in difficult conditions.
Further back there are rumours that Lotus expect to have a very difficult weekend, and Sauber have struggled to make any real progress further forward and remain on zero points for the season thus far. So there is another outside chance for Marussia so sneak back into the points for the second successive race after the outstanding performance in Monaco. Caterham on the other hand have lost ground to Marussia and with the Renault power plant and aerodynamic weaknesses might find scoring points a lot more difficult.
Canada always promises to deliver one of the highlights of the season, and with the added intra team issues at the sharp end of the field, the off track action might be just as destructive...
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