Canadian Grand Prix — Post Race Analysis
Wider cars, stickier tires, limited fuel and complex aero packages means that we are going to see less overtaking this year for sure. Was Canada an exciting race? Not really. It’s getting harder for me to write now but nevertheless there were some good drives and some unfortunate events that we can go through for this weekend;
- ) Sebastian Vettel takes his 50th win in Canada, ending Ferrari’s 12 year barren run in Montreal since they last won in 2005. As the drivers themselves have said, the way the cars are designed and it being very difficult to pass — track position is everything.
“If I was in pole, I would have won the race. The same goes for Bottas as well. It’s all about track positioning as every one had good pace with marginal differences’’— Max Verstappen
2.) Valterri Bottas had a good race and did as much as he could to chase down Seb. He ended up taking 2nd place and saving face for the Mercedes team who have been so dominant in Montreal in the V6 Hybrid Era. It was really surprising how their weekend went. The more I analyse the results, I see that it’s really not a question of powerunit and suspension packages anymore, though it does play it’s own role. Those are subsystems that the teams can control, but overall victory will come down to how well the teams understand the tires. So far no team has been able to do this consistently. Aerodynamics and Tires remain the dark arts of Formula 1. The former has been easier to deal with so far but the latter especially this year is proving tough to tackle. Believe me, as an Engineering Student who is studying Vehicle Dynamics, I would say tires remain the single most important part of a race car. No matter what sort of engine, chassis and aero package you have; the only point of contact between the car and the road is the tires.
“I was talking to a host of engineers and designers up and down the paddock, the likes of Rob Smedley and James Allison, and they all seem to say same thing. They have spent millions of dollars in R&D and human resources on trying to understand tires and they still haven’t made any inroad since Pirelli joined back in 2011! Which is just mindboggling!” — Karun Chandok
3.) Lewis Hamilton had a really strange weekend, struggling in Free Practice and Qualifying and the troubles didn’t stop there. He was losing power during the race which they were able to rectify but it seemed like that engine was on it’s last legs and he was happy to actually finish the race because he was pretty certain of 8th place or even a DNF with the way things were. He was still able to score good points for the team which is what matters going in to a busy European Season with 4 races in a space of 6 weeks.
4.) Redbull boys Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo had a very good race, finishing 3rd and 4th respectively. Max has answered his critics to ac certain extent after his mistakes in the past races were causing people to question if he really had the winning mentality and championship maturity. He definitely kept it clean this weekend and credit to him for his good performance.
5.) Kimi had a very quiet race. He lost out on a grid place early in the race and from there on it was just a matter of trying to score as much points as possible.
6.) Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz finished best of the rest in 7th and 8th place respectively. Best result for Renault so far and beating Force India will do them a lot of good for the constructors championship.
7.) Ocon had a decent race unlike his teammate Sergio Perez who had an incident with Sainz into turn 1 early in the race which cost him a few places and he finished outside the top 10.
8.) Really bad week for Mclaren, Alonso fighting for the points early on but had to retire later with an exhaust issue. He won’t care much as he is leading the driver’s championships in WEC (World Endurance Championship) and will look to win the 24 hrs of Le Mans later this week. Stoffel Vandoorne had to pit early after the debris from the Stroll-Hartley incident caused a puncture which lead to him finishing outside the points.
9.) Toro Rosso with the upgraded Honda engines were looking pretty good this weekend. So good in fact Redbull are planning on a partnership for 2019 to challenge for the title again. Pierre Gasly just finished outside the points while his teammate was unlucky.
10.) Going into the first lap, Lance Stroll again had a mega launch off the line gaining three places in the process. Going into turn 5 all seemed ok but as he was trying to defend his place, he went off his racing line and on the dirty part of the track and in turn lost grip and his car oversteered. In correcting that, he went back online and was going wider and wider and didn’t realize Brendan Hartley was right behind him and it became a Stroll-Hartley-Wall Sandwich with Brendan almost climbing the wall. Luckily the two escaped unhurt. Williams compounding their result with a DNF and one car finishing last. It’s becoming hard to tell if they are a midfield team anymore with the likes of Sauber doing better than them in more than a couple of races this season. Long way off their championship cars of the past.
As I said earlier, the way things are going, purely from an Engineering point of view it’s going into the clouds.They are making breakthroughs that will forever help humanity and the automotive industry (**read below for more info**). But from a spectator point of view, it seems to be getting boring. Gone are the days where we would see Sebastian Vettel fall back last with some problem and overtake his way upto the top. Gone are the days when Drivers could push throughout the race. At the end of the day, Formula 1 will have to bring out a balance. It’s not endurance racing, it’s open cockpit, open wheel to wheel racing. That’s what it should be. As much as teams must now be environmentally conscious and will have to work with reduced engines and conservative fuel loads, it can’t go to a point where the hard core fans start to leave the sport altogether. Petrol heads for certain hate the current form because back then things were different. Screaming V12s and V10s, refuelling, different manufacturers and different tire companies, there were the chassis wars and engine wars with each team looking to come out on top. Well the sport has come a long way from those days, but I hope we do keep the same spirit and essence of racing alive. Making the aero packages a lot simpler does help, but it’s not as simple as that.
“We have spent millions of pounds of R&D into the current restrictions that the new rules would really be detrimental for the teams. To try and drop everything we have done uptill now and reinvest all the money again is going to create more problems. The gap between the top three and the midfield teams will increase even though the cars will in theory be easier to overtake.” — Christian Horner
We head to Paul Ricard for the next race, and I’m telling you in advance that it’s not going to be what you think. I have seen a couple of endurance races on this track and by no means is it exhilarating for the spectators and even for the drivers. Very open corners, long straights. I do hope we get to see some overtaking. Well we haven’t had a Grand Prix here since the 90’s so let’s see how it goes.
Hope you like what you read. Stay tuned to The Automotive Anecdotes for your daily dose of motorsports and just about everything on four wheels.
**( Last year the Mercedes W07 Engine achieved a thermodynamic efficiency of close to 60%. Let’s put that into perspective. The car that you drive on the road today produces around 30%. Think about how much more efficient the F1 engines are. Off course they can only achieve that with the auxiliary attachments like the battery, the MGU-H, MGU-K. But this technology in a few years time will end up in the road cars as well. Imagine if a billion cars on the road today can run at 60% efficiency as opposed to 30%. How many billion tonnes of CO2 could be saved in the process, it is unbelievable. Cars were never the highest polluting source to start with, but saving that much amount of greenhouse gases will go a long way in reversing global warming issues )**
