Why Mercedes' rivals are up against it

In theory the Canadian Grand Prix should be a Mercedes silverwash all the way. Similar to Italy's Monza, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal is basically a sequence of flat-out blasts punctuated by chicanes, so he who hath the best engine in Formula 1 should prosper here.

Despite the best efforts of Ferrari, Renault and Honda, which have all recently updated their power units, that best F1 engine still belongs unequivocally to Mercedes.

There are nevertheless some trade-offs. The long straights make this a low-downforce circuit, but any downforce you can retain will help significantly in those heavy braking zones, and the more energy you can generate here should help make what remain quite hard tyre compounds work better on one of F1's smoother track surfaces.

Mercedes holds all the aces with the extra power generated by its class-leading V6, combined with very efficient (ie: minimal drag) downforce produced by the W07 chassis, so it can generally run its car with more wing for less penalty than rivals, and get the best trade-off between straightline speed, braking and cornering performance.

This grand prix should therefore be a straight fight between the two works Mercedes drivers, despite the fact Ferrari brought a turbocharger upgrade to Canada and Sebastian Vettel split Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at the top of the timesheet after the second free practice session.

Hamilton is the clear favourite. The reigning world champion holds a tremendous record at this track - he's started on the front row for seven of the eight grands prix he's contested in Montreal, won four of them, and has stood on the podium every time he's made the finish.

"The track is fantastic to drive," he said. "It's a challenge; no run-off areas. It's a bit like a kart track - it's all about late braking, setting the car up to be able to pitch it in on the brakes and hit the apex to then bounce onto the second, and have the confidence that the car is going to land where you want and not be in the wall.

"There's always work to do, small things you can change. At the moment it's just trying to find that next half a tenth here and there. We need to keep pushing. I was up a tenth and a half on another lap, so I know I've got more time [to find]."

Braking performance and feel is crucial to a quick laptime here, and this is an area where Hamilton often excels. By contrast it's an aspect of driving in current F1 that team-mate Rosberg admits he feels far less comfortable with.

Rosberg ended Friday practice over half a second adrift of Hamilton, the bulk of which he dropped through sector one (Turns 1 and 2 and the first chicane) and the rest in sector two (the second and third of the four chicanes).

He felt a lack of tyre temperature for the start of the lap was possibly to blame for the large gap, and the fact he got closer to Hamilton's pace over the remainder suggests he should be able to go much faster with a better build up.

"I need to understand if it's tyre temperatures or just me and driving lines," he said.

One gets the feeling Rosberg's confidence may have taken a knock from his disappointing Monaco performance last time out, and whether he can improve enough to topple Hamilton here remains to be seen.

He will need to up his game regardless, because Vettel looked to be driving well throughout the day and will be ready to pounce should Rosberg underperform again on Saturday.

"In qualifying trim we were pretty happy," said Vettel. "[But] not entirely happy with the lap, and we can still improve the car, so that should help on Saturday.

"It's true that the last weekends weren't great for us on Saturday, but equally there is nothing wrong [with the car], so we don't need to be worried."

His team-mate Kimi Raikkonen probably should be worried, after lapping only eighth fastest and nearly eight tenths down on Vettel, despite completing his qualifying run much later in the session, when conditions were theoretically more favourable.

"It's a struggle to make sense of the car," he rued. "One of those days..."

Ferrari engineer Jock Clear said the Scuderia's latest turbo update was performing as expected. It should improve energy harvesting and allow Ferrari to maintain more consistent race pace, but Mercedes still has the edge on pure combustive power, so it will probably take mistakes from Mercedes for Ferrari to really challenge in qualifying.

PURE PACE RANKING (all ultra-soft)
1. Mercedes (Hamilton) 1m14.212s
2. Ferrari (Vettel) 1m14.469s
3. Red Bull (Verstappen) 1m15.156s
4. Williams (Bottas) 1m15.213s
5. McLaren (Button) 1m15.213s
6. Force India (Hulkenberg) 1m15.321s
7. Toro Rosso (Sainz) 1m15.410s
8. Haas (Grosjean) 1m16.093s
9. Renault (Magnussen) 1m16.255s
10. Sauber (Nasr) 1m16.582s
11. Manor (Wehrlein) 1m17.023s

Though Renault has undoubtedly improved its engine too, it's clear there is still a deficit to Mercedes and Ferrari. The Red Bull RB12 has perhaps the best braking performance on the grid, but that trades off against the fact it must trim out downforce to compensate for a lack of power.

"I expect a bit more from me, a bit more from the set-up, and that should put us a lot closer to Mercedes and Ferrari," said Daniel Ricciardo, who was only fractionally slower than team-mate Max Verstappen over a single flying lap.

"I expect the gap to be less than a second. How much less I'm not sure, but we can be close to Ferrari, and I hope to fight with them for P3."

Red Bull seems very adept at getting the Pirelli tyres to work properly as track conditions change. This is something Ferrari has struggled with recently, so perhaps could present a chance for Red Bull to pose a threat, despite getting sucked back towards the midfield on Friday.

"The ultra-soft tyre is quite tricky, and to get it to work on one lap is not so easy," Ricciardo added. "That will be the challenge - to get it working on the perfect lap, and if you can do this then you can find a good step in laptime."

This should be a strong circuit for the low-drag Mercedes-engined missile that is the Williams, and Valtteri Bottas was driving well on Friday, so Red Bull may need to be wary of him as engine performance is ramped up for qualifying.

If Red Bull has a chunk of engine performance of its own in hand (as Rosberg suspects) then it should still be the third quickest team at minimum, despite this track being well suited to Williams.

Jenson Button is hopeful of a strong Saturday for McLaren-Honda too, after lapping seventh quickest following an engine change between sessions. But his qualifying run came much later than the rest, and given only 0.346s blanketed the next seven cars (back to Daniil Kvyat's Toro Rosso in 14th) McLaren should probably expect to slip behind Force India and Williams when the Mercedes engines are cranked up for qualifying.

Honda's turbo update has improved energy efficiency, so Fernando Alonso is unlikely to be made to feel like an amateur again on Sunday here (as he declared in 2015), but the combustion engine still lacks power compared to the rest, so a tight fight with Toro Rosso to be sixth quickest team overall is probably a more realistic aim.

Haas is still struggling to understand how to make the Pirelli tyres work for a single lap, and has been cast back from the midfield to the head of the final pack. Fights with Renault for the final spot in Q2 are becoming a regular theme of recent times, and Sauber could be in the mix in this battle too.

LONG RUN RANKING (all ultra-soft)
1. Mercedes (Hamilton) 1m18.538s (9 lap average)
2. Ferrari (Raikkonen) 1m18.642s (6 lap average)
3. Williams (Massa) 1m19.348s (8 lap average)
4. Red Bull (Ricciardo) 1m19.743s (8 lap average)
5. McLaren (Button) 1m19.761s (5 lap average)
6. Force India (Hulkenberg) 1m19.916s (10 lap average)
7. Toro Rosso (Sainz) 1m20.048s (12 lap average)
8. Sauber (Ericsson) 1m20.079s (11 lap average)
9. Haas (Grosjean) 1m20.211s (14 lap average)
10. Renault (Magnussen) 1m20.546s (14 lap average)
11. Manor (Haryanto) 1m22.455s (12 lap average)

It's easy to see why Ricciardo feels Red Bull has some work to do to get itself in shape for the race. Verstappen was actually fractionally faster on average during his long run on the harder super-soft compound.

In fact there were some impressively quick and consistent runs on the harder compounds, perhaps because the teams have a better handle on the nuances of these compared to the relatively unknown ultra-soft.

Raikkonen averaged 1m18.662s over 16 laps on the soft tyre at the very beginning of practice two, when the track was at its worst, and his quickest lap of that run came right near the end.

Felipe Massa and Kvyat were fast on the soft rubber too, while Nico Hulkenberg and Bottas put together decent runs on the super-soft.

All in all it seems the ideal tyre choice for this track is not obvious, and we could see some mixed up strategic choices across the grid.

But one thing that is abundantly clear is the edge Mercedes enjoys on this circuit. Ferrari was only three tenths adrift of its main rival on Friday here last season, but got nowhere close when it counted - though in fairness Vettel might have stayed in the mix had he not suffered a power unit problem.

The game has moved on considerably since then, but however well Vettel drives again this year the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve will highlight the discrepancies that remain between the different engine manufacturers in V6 hybrid turbo F1, and thus how much work the others still have to do to give Mercedes a real run for its money.