After the week's break for F1, we're back to working on the single-seaters. This time, the premier category of motorsport flies to Montreal, IN Canada.
The history of the Canadian circuit named after Gilles Villeneuve
The Montréal circuit is a semi-permanent city circuit built in 1976 and approved for the most important car races in 1978. 4361 meters long, it has 14 curves. It is one of the fastest tracks on the calendar. The first edition, in '78, was won by the home hero Gilles Villeneuve who, after his death in 1982, received the honor of having a circuit named after himself. As with any other event, over the years, we have tried to make everything happen as safe as possible. The shape of the area where the runway was built is not suitable for creating wider escape routes. So, no matter how many attempts have been made to expand them, the whole route remains quite enough complicated, where the pilot's skills come from highlighted. For this reason, the Safety car.
we find three DRS zones, one on the finish straight, one between 7 and 8 and a last one between the hairpin and the chicane that leads to the checkered flag. The best place to overtake is certainly in Turn 1, but the circuit, being very fast, lends itself quite well to overtaking in other areas and, consequently, to the spectacle. The overall lap record was set by Sebastian Vettel on his Ferrari SF90 in the 2019 qualifying in 1'10 "240. The race record belongs to Valtteri Bottas on his Mercedes AMG F1 W10 EQ Power + again in 2019 1'13 "078.
Stop&Go route, watch out for fuel
In Canada, Pirelli has decided to bring mixes them softer of those available. As pointed out by Esteban Ocon, despite Montreal's smooth surface, is expected a lot of degradation. We could therefore see a race where the drivers are even forced to stop 3 times higher over the course of the 70 laps scheduled.
Furthermore, the curves are of type Stop & Go, that is, where the brakes are put to the hardest test. This involves the teams finding the set-up that will allow the car to demonstrate excellent traction and an equally excellent one full speed. Another key factor for the race will be the very high fuel consumption demonstrated in past editions.
GP Canada, is it still necessary to say who is the favourite?
Let's get to the hot point: who can be the favorite? Only one name, unless there are problems related to a car that seems perfect, can be said: Max Verstappen. With the victory this weekend, the Red Bull would reach the goal of 100 victories in F1, while SuperMax would grab the immortal Ayrton Senna a 41 victories in career. The track, then, adapts perfectly to the characteristics of the RB19. Traction and maximum speed, the two strong points of the car made in Milton Keynes. Another leading weekend therefore awaits for the two-time world champion of the Austrian team.
ARTICLE BY FRANCESCO ORLANDO
