Canada Preview: Looking for a seventh winner

It's an easy thing to say, but the form book suggests this year's Canadian Grand Prix will be a thriller. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve's unusual layout has a habit of closing up the competitive order at the front, producing spectacular racing and creating random incidents. In a season already characterised by constant surprises, that makes the 2012 F1 guessing game that much harder...

Fittingly for such a changeable opening, there are plenty of subplots heading into the weekend. The relative form of this year's winning teams continues to fluctuate, with the opening six races still yet to establish a clear favourite.

Ferrari's resurgence - or at least the success of its recent, and substantial, upgrades package - is one talking point. Fernando Alonso helped disguise the F2012's deficiencies at the start of the year, but two podiums in the last two races, combined with a sixth-place finish for Felipe Massa at Monaco indicate the Scuderia has indeed moved closer to the front. Massa's performance, incidentally, might just have earned him a longer stay at the Prancing Horse...

Mercedes too will expect to be in the hunt this weekend, especially with Canada's long back straights well suited to its DRS system. Pole means less here than at places like Monaco, but the long straights and emphasis on power makes the Silver Arrows an obvious challenger.

If China was something of a false dawn - fifth was Rosberg's best finish in the following two races - Monaco also backed up claims from both the team and Rosberg that it was getting on top of Pirelli's 2012 compounds. That bodes well not just for Canada but indeed for the rest of the year.

Then of course there is Red Bull, which became the first team to win twice in 2012 in Monaco. Mark Webber's victory may have owed much to his clarity under pressure and his ability to nurse his Pirelli rubber, but it shouldn't be forgotten that Michael Schumacher was actually fastest in qualifying before his five-place penalty.

While Mercedes and Red Bull have been making strides, McLaren has meanwhile had to fend off suggestions that it has gone backwards since the opening two races, when it appeared to be the 2012 benchmark with a victory for Jenson Button in Australia and two straight pole positions for Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton remains the team's trump card this weekend. Four times he has competed in Montreal, three times he has had pole position and twice he has stood on the top step of the podium.

Hamilton led a McLaren 1-2 back in 2010 when tyre degradation was high - which is likely to be the case this year as Pirelli retains the soft and super soft option it also served up for Monaco. Button meanwhile famously collected victory on the final lap of last year's race, depriving Sebastien Vettel of what would have been his first Canadian GP win.

Add in a Lotus team which has threatened, but thus far failed, to deliver a first win of 2012, Williams' and Sauber's strong promise and the fact Monaco has a habit of throwing up the unexpected - think Nigel Mansell and Alessandro Nannini in 1989 - and its hard to deny the potential for this to be a classic.

Strategy

Pirelli will repeat its Monaco offering of the soft and supersoft compounds, but has already warned that the natural characteristics of Canada will not permit the long supersoft stints drivers were able to manage in the principality.

Strategy will therefore be key, particularly in qualifying where the choice of using the supersoft in Q3 could be crucial to securing pole, but could then prove a hindrance during the opening phase of the race. Expect a wide variety of strategies as a result, with teams likely to split tactics between drivers.

Weather

Key Montreal Stats

• Monaco winner Mark Webber's only podium at Canada came last year, despite the Australian having been punted into a spin by Hamilton and suffering gearbox problems. He has scored points only four times out of nine, and has never started from the front row despite qualifying inside the top-10 since 2007. He also has a bad habit: he recorded spins or accidents in the races on no less than five occasions (2004, '07, '08, '10 and '11).

• One driver who has an excellent qualifying score here is Lewis Hamilton: he has landed pole three time from four attempts and is 4-0 up against his team-mates. He has also won twice, in 2007 (his maiden grand prix victory) and in 2010, while in 2008 and last year he was out after respective accidents with Kimi Raikkonen and his team-mate Jenson Button.

• Bad news for the beleaguered Felipe Massa, who has never started from the front row or finished on the podium in Montreal. In his last four races he has had problems: he was black-flagged in 2007 for exiting the pits despite a red light, had refuelling problems and had to make a supplementary pit-stop in 2008, rammed Liuzzi and Schumacher in 2010 and last year miscalculated a pass while lapping an HRT and had to replace his front wing. His best result in Canada dates back to 2005, with Sauber: fourth. He also has a 0-8 qualifying score against his team-mates.

• Michael Schumacher scored six poles and seven wins here up to 2004, and is 15-2 in qualifying - beaten only by Rosberg after his comeback in 2010. He missed the points here only three times: 1996 (halfshaft), 1999 (accident) and 2010 (puncture).

• Nico Rosberg meanwhile has never been beaten by a team-mate in qualifying in Canada, but has scored points only once.

• Paul di Resta doesn't have good memories of his first Canadian Grand Prix: last year he rammed Nick Heidfeld, was given a drive-through penalty and then spun out. That is his only career retirement due to an accident (even if he was classified 18th). Since then he has always seen the chequered flag.

• Ferrari has won 11 times in Canada (10 in Montreal) but never in the post-Schumacher era, its last win coming as a Schumacher-Rubens Barrichello double in 2004. It has since climbed onto the podium only once, Alonso sealing third two years ago. Last year the team recorded its best qualifying performance of the season, and indeed its only front row of the year with Alonso, but its last pole in Montreal dates back 2001.

• Sauber won as BMW Sauber here with Kubica in 2008, and last year scored a seventh with Kamui Kobayashi.

• In the last 10 grands prix the safety car has not appeared only in 2003, 2004 and 2010. Last year there were five safety car periods (a record for Formula 1) and almost half of the race was under a full-course yellow (32 laps out of 70).

• In the last 10 Canadian Grands Prix, there have been only three instances where the winner also started from pole.

Famous Five

1973

The 1973 race had a bit of everything: wet and dry conditions, a multitude of tyre changes and strategies, a collision, the first earnest use of a pace car and even two winners.

At the finish of the race, Colin Chapman threw his cap in the air to celebrate Emerson Fittipaldi coming home in front of Jackie Oliver and Jean-Pierre Beltoise. The Brazilian had been ahead of Oliver on the road, but effectively one lap down, when the pace car came out into traffic. He made incredible progress however, setting a best lap more than one second clear of the field and, two laps from the finish, blasted past Oliver.

The problem for Fittipaldi, and Chapman, was that Peter Revson had already stolen ahead of Oliver - almost completely under the radar - on lap 47. When the flag fell, it did so for Revson - and while Fittipaldi was waved into the winner's circle, so too was the Yardley McLaren man. A few hours of patient cross-checking revealed Revson to indeed be the victor, almost 32s ahead of Fittipaldi and Oliver's battle.

1979

Alan Jones took a clean sweep of pole position, race victory and fastest lap in 1979, but the apparent domination belied an intense race in which he and Ferrari's Gilles Villeneuve were rarely separated by more than one second.

Jones took pole against a backdrop of political dissent due to a row between Alfa Romeo - which refused to pre-qualify - and event organisers, who insisted it must. In the end a compromise was reached, with Vittorio Brambilla allowed to enter (he started 18th) but Bruno Giacomelli denied.

Villeneuve took the lead at the start to the delight of his home crowd, holding onto the position for the first 50 laps. Jones however never let him truly escape and on lap 51 barrelled down the inside at the hairpin. The pair banged wheels but Jones was through, moving into a lead he would never surrender despite heavy pressure from the Canadian, the pair finishing just 1.080s apart.

1991

Nigel Mansell gifted rival Nelson Piquet an easy win in Canada in 1991, making a catastrophic error just one lap from home.

The Briton had deprived poleman and Williams team-mate Riccardo Patrese of the lead at the race's start, with the pair running in formation for the first 40 laps. Patrese then suffered a puncture and dropped back, handing Mansell a comfortable lead which it appeared he would convert with ease. On the final lap however, while waving to the crowd in acknowledgement of his certain win, he allowed the engine revs to drop too low and the car stalled. He quite literally couldn't coast home and was out with less than a lap to run.

Piquet therefore inherited victory, and in the process moved up to second in the drivers' championship, ahead of Stefano Modena - taking his best ever F1 finish for Tyrrell - and the recovering Patrese. Mansell was eventually classified sixth.

1995

Ninety-one races into his Formula 1 career, and on the day of his 31st birthday, Jean Alesi scored his first and only grand prix win in Canada.

Michael Schumacher, surfing a wave of confidence with his Benetton squad, had qualified on pole position and led for almost the entirety of the race - his cause aided by several shunts in the chasing pack and a universal one-stop strategy which limited the pitlane's impact upon the race.

With Damon Hill struggling, Jean Alesi moved into second but was still well down on Schumacher when the German slowed abruptly and headed into the pits, his car stuck in third gear. Eleven laps from the finish Alesi was therefore leading comfortably. To the delight of the crowd he maintained his position to record his first grands prix win - the fans spilling onto the circuit even as the others cars, including a returning Schumacher who was pressuring Olivier Panis for fourth, fought to finish.

2011

Jenson Button produced a pair of amazing comeback drives to win a truly remarkable Canadian Grand Prix. Records shattered, not just in the 89 passes during the race but in the race time of more than four hours.

A healthy dose of changeable weather proved the catalyst for Button's remarkable feat. The Briton had earlier clashed with team-mate Hamilton - the latter ending up in the pit wall after an optimistic attempt to pass on the main straight. Button pitted immediately for checks and to take on intermediates. He would soon be back in for exceeding the speed limit while trying to catch the safety car, and again for wets when the rain returned with a vengeance.

Despite that sequence Button was still in the top 10 when he and Alonso, on colder tyres, clashed - which left the Ferrari in the wall and Button with a puncture. The safety car was back, Button was back in the pits and down to last.

The track soon dried however and Button was among the first to gamble for slicks. It paid off spectacularly, and by the time the rest of the field had followed suit Button was up to fifth. The charge didn't stop, and by the penultimate lap he had turned - with the help of another safety car - Vettel's serene lead into a serious fight for victory. At Turn 6 on the final lap Vettel succumbed, sliding wide and allowing Button to claim a famous victory.

From the forum

Seems like there is a decent chance of rain during both qualifying and the race. If it rains...It's Schumi's to lose based on last year's performance in the wet/this year's car...
finignig

Yes, I think we will see a new winner this year, that is, seventh winner this year. Nevertheless I suspect it is going to be from that list of previous years' winners.
SpaMaster

Hot: Lotus with ease. Cold: Mercedes. Rain: Roll the dice. Also, will be interesting to see how McLaren will f*** up this time. Hamilton and Button taking each other off perhaps?
Baddoer

*Key stats supplied by FORIX collaborator Michele Merlino.

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