2012 Canadian Grand Prix.

**Swami** · 06-07-2012, 07:24 PM

Over to Montreal this weekend, which invariably produces a lively race - last year's was a particular epic. McLaren need to get more wins on the board ASAP.

Swami

**Swami** · 06-08-2012, 07:09 PM

Lewis Hamilton heads Sebastian Vettel in Canada
By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer McLaren's Lewis Hamilton headed Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg in first practice at the Canadian Grand Prix.

Hamilton, searching for his first win of the season in the seventh race, was 0.118 seconds quicker than Vettel, with Rosberg only 0.1secs further adrift.

Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, and the second Red Bull of Mark Webber was fifth.

McLaren's Jenson Button was only 10th after reliability problems.

Button had a trying session - he was out late, set his time, and then was called back into the garage when the team noticed some excessive clutch slip.

Use accessible player and disable flyout menusAnimal madness in Canada practice
They took off the gearbox and discovered there an was oil leak, leading to the 2009 world champion completing about half the number of laps of his rivals.

That will not help him as he attempts to get on top of the troubles that have seen him score only two points in the past three races.

The top 11 cars were covered by a second, with Force India's Nico Hulkenberg sixth on super-soft tyres, ahead of the Saubers of Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez, and Michael Schumacher's Mercedes.

The second Force India of Scot Paul di Resta was 11th.

Hamilton, in contrast to his team-mate, had a largely untroubled session, apart from a brief off-track moment at the first corner, and looked impressive throughout, setting the pace whenever he was out on the track.

The fastest times of Hamilton, Rosberg and Alonso were set on the 'soft' tyre, the harder of the two options in Montreal, while Vettel leapfrogged from fourth to second when he fitted the softer 'super-soft' tyre at the end of the session.

Rosberg's pace confirmed the potential that most expected of the Mercedes at this race, while Ferrari spent the session comparing a new rear bodywork design with the previous one.

The team have introduced a design similar to McLaren's, where the exhaust is channelled down towards the inside of the rear tyre in an attempt to increase downforce.

Alonso started the session with the older bodywork and team-mate Felipe Massa with the new design, with which the Brazilian went 0.318secs faster than the Spaniard.

Continue reading the main story
“I haven't had a shunt for a long time, it was bound to happen one day”

Heikki Kovalainen

Alonso, the world championship leader, then leapt up to third - before being demoted by Vettel - once his car had been fitted with the newer design, and Massa's revered to the older one.

BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson said: "It's an A-B, B-A swap. It's good to do these comparisons sometimes because it's hard to get a definitive answer from the drivers when the time difference is only going to be in the region of 0.1-0.2secs.

"From what I've seen so far, the developments look good - there are also some new front brake ducts on Massa's car that look effective. It will be interesting to see what parts are on which car in the second session."

The session was stopped after 40 minutes following a crash by Caterham's Heikki Kovalainen at the exit of Turn 9.

The Finn said: "I haven't had a shunt for a long time, it was bound to happen one day.

"I was carrying a bit too much speed into that corner. I thought I'd got away with it, but the rear end snapped away and that was it. It was just a small error but it happens sometimes.

"We have got good mechanics. I don't think the chassis was damaged. It's just about replacing the two corners and we go again in the second session."

An incident involving Vettel and Williams driver Bruno Senna is to be investigated by stewards after the session.

Senna was seen to be waving his arm at Vettel as the two cars approached the final chicane, with Senna on the outside, apparently accusing the world champion of holding him up.

There appeared to be a second, less significant, incident later on, when Senna may have held up Vettel in retaliation.

Swami

**Swami** · 06-09-2012, 10:30 AM

Lewis Hamilton heads Fernando Alonso in Canada practice
By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer Lewis Hamilton headed the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso in a closely-fought Friday practice at the Canadian GP.

Just 0.151 seconds covered the first three cars, with Ferrari's Felipe Massa in third place, while Sebastian Vettel was only 0.121secs further back.

Force India's Paul Di Resta was an impressive fifth fastest ahead of Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.

McLaren's Jenson Button was ninth, managing only 18 minutes of the 90-minute session because of car problems.

“[McLaren] is a top team challenging for the championship. Changing the gearbox should be 30 minutes. It was nearly four hours. It's not good enough ”

Gary Anderson

BBC F1 technical analyst

Button suffered an oil leak in the first practice session and it took the team nearly four hours to fix it.

When he did take to the track, he concentrated on race preparation as he sought to make up lost time. He complained over the team radio of a lack of front grip.

Button said: "It's been a tough day. I didn't get many laps in and we didn't get a good feel. But we have the data.

"Lewis was very quick so the car is good. We missed out because we had a gearbox problem and an oil leak problem.

"We didn't really get any set-up work; I was just out there to get a feel for the circuit. But tomorrow is another day and we are still confident we can have a good weekend."

But BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson said of McLaren's problems: "This is a top team with a world champion in it challenging for the world championship. It was nearly four hours.

"Changing the gearbox should be 30 minutes. It's not good enough.

"During that time Caterham rebuilt the car of Heikki Kovalainen, who hit the wall in first practice.

"McLaren discovered they hadn't fixed an oil leak, and they had to change the gearbox but that should be a half-hour job.

Did you know?
In the past decade, only three races in Canada have been won by the man who started on pole - Fernando Alonso in 2006 and Lewis Hamilton in 2007 and 2010.

"If you're trying to win the championship, you can't afford to make mistakes like this."

McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh said the problem was more complicated than it appeared.

"Jenson suffered an oil leak in this morning's session which necessitated the removal and re-fitting of his gearbox," Whitmarsh said. "Then, prior to this afternoon's session, we diagnosed another problem and as a result we had to change his gearbox yet again.

"Consequently, he lost a lot of running time - and then, when we finally got him out onto the track with only 18 minutes of P2 to go, he encountered quite a bit of traffic and was unable to get a decent run in the few laps available to him. Still, hats off to his mechanics, who did a splendid job to remove and replace the back-end of his car, not once, but twice, today."

McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale said that changing a gearbox takes "on average an hour and three-quarters up and down the pit lane" because of the complexity of modern F1 cars.

Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher was seventh fastest in the second session, split from team-mate Nico Rosberg in ninth by the second Force India of Nico Hulkenberg.

Sauber's Sergio Perez was 10th, ahead of the Red Bull of Mark Webber.

Webber's team-mate Vettel was pleased with his progress: "We used the super-soft tyres in P1 because we were a little bit afraid of the rain, which didn't come. We had a good day, we had decent laps, even with a little bit of a different approach in terms of when we put the tyres on. It looks to be very close."

Just as Kovalainen fell foul of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve's unforgiving walls in the first session, losing control in Turn 9, Williams driver Bruno Senna suffered in the second session.

The Brazilian lost control at the final chicane and hit the barrier that has become known as the 'wall of champions' because of all the big name drivers who have crashed there.

Did you know?
Michael Schumacher has been on the Canadian Grand Prix podium 12 times - including seven victories - in 17 starts and has started on pole six times.

Senna said: "I pushed a bit too hard into the chicane. The kerbs are very aggressive there. I took a bit too much and I lost the car. It was a big crash and it caused a lot of damage."

Kovalainen said of his crash: "I haven't had a shunt for a long time, it was bound to happen one day.

"I was carrying a bit too much speed into that corner. I thought I'd got away with it, but the rear end snapped away and that was it. It was just a small error but it happens sometimes.

"We have got good mechanics. I don't think the chassis was damaged. It's just about replacing the two corners and we go again in the second session."

Hamilton, searching for his first win of the season, looked in good form all day - he headed the first session from Vettel and popped to the top of the times whenever he was out on the track.

Use accessible player and disable flyout menusHamilton and Button optimistic
The Briton suggested he could have gone even quicker had it not been for the mid-session stoppage following Senna's crash.

"I was out there pushing for quite a while on the option [super-soft] tyre. It is very, very difficult to put all the sectors together.

"Sometimes I would go quicker in one sector, and then would lose it in another sector. So I kept asking can I have one more lap, one more lap... and eventually I did get a good lap. Then the red flag came out, but I was already a couple of tenths up by then so that is positive for us."

Ferrari were trying out new parts - they had new rear bodywork and revised front brake ducts.

Massa started the first session with the new bodywork while Alonso stuck with the old, before they swapped later on. Both cars ran in the new spec in the second session. Only Massa ran the new brake ducts.

Anderson said: "From what I've seen so far, the developments look good - there are also some new front brake ducts on Massa's car that look effective. It will be interesting to see what parts are on which car in the second session."

Vettel was given a reprimand for an incident with Senna during the first session.

Senna was seen to be waving his arm at Vettel as the two cars approached the final chicane, with the Brazilian on the outside, and it turned out that the Red Bull had hit the Williams as it went past.

There appeared to be a second, less significant, incident later on, when Senna may have held up Vettel in retaliation.

Swami

**Swami** · 06-09-2012, 06:36 PM

Canadian GP: A dominant Sebastian Vettel takes pole
By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel took a stunning pole at the Canadian Grand Prix from McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

The world champion was 0.303 seconds quicker than Hamilton - the biggest margin between the two quickest cars there has been all weekend.

Hamilton and Alonso both seemed to be on target to challenge Vettel's time on their final runs but fell short.

Force India's Paul di Resta was eighth and McLaren's Jenson Button 10th.

Button had struggled all day after missing much of Friday practice with reliability problems and was never in with a shout at the front.

Continue reading the main story
“We trusted the car we had and were able to go with the circuit and try to read the conditions, I was very happy in qualifying”

Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull's Formula 1 driver

That battle was left to the three men who most regard as the finest drivers in the world.

Vettel was the form man throughout qualifying. He headed the first two sessions and was the only man to dip below the one minute 14 seconds barrier.

Vettel managed that on both his runs in final qualifying, setting a pole time of one minute 13.784 on his final run.

As Hamilton joined Vettel at the weigh-in afterwards, he appeared to say: "Wow, that's a good time."

Vettel said: "We have learned a few lessons in the last two races where we were quick but didn't get it out of the car in qualifying.

"We trusted the car we had and were able to go with the circuit and try to read the conditions, I was very happy in qualifying.

"I was able to always go a little bit quicker. It looked very tight but in the end it seemed we could make a bit more of a difference."

Nevertheless, both he and Alonso looked as if they might challenge Vettel on their own last laps, but they faded in the final sectors.

Hamilton, who had been very happy with his car on Friday, said it had not been as good in the run-up to qualifying.

"It was definitely a bit harder for us today," he said. "We struggled working with the tyres in P3, and we were having to work hard to switch the tyres on.

"I'm very happy with the performance. I'm surprised to see us on the front row."

Alonso's performance equals his best qualifying position of the year and comes after a re-design of the rear bodywork improved the Ferrari's downforce.

"The car felt quite good on Friday when we tested some new parts and we feel much more happy now with the balance and grip," he said.

"It's a first step. The work will never stop for us and the competitors, but at the moment we are extremely happy and thankful to the guys in the factory."

Mark Webber's Red Bull was fourth, while the expected challenge from Mercedes never materialised - Nico Rosberg was fifth and Michael Schumacher only ninth.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa was sixth, ahead of Lotus driver Romain Grosjean, whose team-mate Kimi Raikkonen did not make it into the top 10, his attempts hindered by a hydraulics problem.

Williams's Pastor Maldonado was on course to knock Button out of the top 10 but crashed at the last corner on his final lap.

That meant he ended up 17th - and out-qualified by his team-mate Bruno Senna for the first time since the Bahrain Grand Prix three races ago.

There was an impressive performance from HRT's Pedro de la Rosa.

The veteran Spaniard qualified 21st - ahead of both the Marussia cars, to underline the strong progress the restructured Spanish team has shown in the last few weeks.

Swami