Pirelli sure Canada will be a thriller

Pirelli is hopeful that the battle for victory in Canada this weekend will be just as close as it was in Monaco a fortnight ago, even though tyre strategy will be very different this time out

Sebastian Vettel took a hard-earned victory in Monaco on a one-stop strategy - fighting off the best efforts from Fernando Alonso on a two-stop and Jenson Button on a three-stop.

However, tyre degradation is expected to be much higher in Montreal - which could make the event a very different kind of race to that witnessed in Monte Carlo.

Pirelli's director of motorsport Paul Hembery said: "Monaco was a fantastic race, with three drivers battling closely for the win even though they were using three very different strategies.

"From the data we can see that Sebastian Vettel's tyres would have gone the distance if he had continued to drive on them in the same way that he had been doing up to the red flag period. This means that he could have covered 62 laps, the equivalent of more than 200 kilometres, on the PZero Yellow soft tyre, with an extremely close finish.

"The characteristics of Canada mean that we're unlikely to see a one-stop strategy this weekend, but we're hoping that the racing will be just as close and that the opportunities for overtaking will give teams even more possibilities than Monaco in terms of race strategy."

As well as intrigue caused by the high-degradation often witnessed in Canada, Pirelli will give teams two additional sets of its new medium compound tyre to test during Friday's free practice sessions.