Think of the Canadian GP and it’s incredible track and one can’t help but think of local hero Gilles Villeneuve, in whose honour the circuit is named. The venue has hosted 39 of the 49 Canadian Grands Prix, with the circuits being Mosport and Mont Tremblant. This race dates back to 1967, the first of eight times it was held at Mosport Park in Toronto. There were also two Grands Prix staged at Mont Tremblant, a ski resort up country from Montreal.
Inevitably, thanks to the popularity and success of Gilles Villeneuve, the race then moved to the city itself in 1978.
Notre Dame combines F1 with Canada
The venue is the Ile Notre Dame, which was the site in 1967 of “Expo 67,” a giant world fair celebrating “The Peoples of the Earth.” “It was the summer of love and the summer of Expo,” wrote a local hippy poet.
The following year the island was part of the site for the 1968 Olympic Games and today, the F1 teams’ hospitality units sit on what was the Olympic Rowing Basin. The track is a short metro ride from the centre of a city that always gives the Canadian F1 GP a warm welcome, with F1 in evidence everywhere.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was first past the flag in the 2018 Canadian Grand Prix, having started from pole. Max Verstappen set the race fastest lap in 1.13.864, but the outright circuit record still dates back to 2004 when Rubens Barrichello stopped the clocks in 1.13.622.
Join us later in the afternoon for the latest updates and results from the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, as the second practice session for the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix is about to get underway, with Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc at the wheel of the SF90, ready to continue evaluating the ideal set-up ahead of the qualifying session and the race on Sunday.
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