The race at the 4.361-kilometre Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal promises to be full of excitement. At least, that’s the situation emerging from Friday’s action on Île Notre-Dame. McLaren ran more of a testing program than a free practice session. In FP1 both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri completed many laps gathering data, using rake tools and flow-viz to check the behavior of the new front wing and the new suspension (geometry changed to improve airflow). After this work, they reverted to the previous specifications, the Spanish version to be precise, and in FP2 they realigned with the rivals’ performance levels.
Mercedes, on the other hand, brought a new floor that seems to work quite well in Canada. George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were very competitive during the second session, both in pure pace and race pace mode. Especially George. Red Bull and Ferrari brought no updates. Between the two, however, the RB21 clearly shows better behavior, referring to Max Verstappen, who seems to have all the potential to fight for pole and victory.
Ferrari is struggling. Charles Leclerc crashed in FP1 and, having damaged the chassis, Ferrari decided to take all the necessary time to replace the element calmly, causing the Monegasque to miss FP2 as well. This was not entirely Maranello’s decision. The Federation has its timing to verify that the team properly reassembled the car, so to avoid bureaucratic pitfalls, it was decided to proceed calmly, putting Charles Leclerc in a position to run FP3 this evening.
Lewis Hamilton did not shine. His lap times are not such as to hope to fight for pole, a possibility that today could only manifest with Charles (he had a good rhythm in FP1 before the crash). Things go even worse in race simulations.
The Analysis – George Russell and Max Verstappen in the fight, uncertainty grows for qualifying and race
Looking at the graphs, George Russell and Max Verstappen are perfectly in line with McLaren’s race pace. George is even the fastest, but Max and Norris are very close: a pace difference of just 40 thousandths of a second per lap between these three. If this repeats in the race, we will witness a truly thrilling event.
Lando seems to have more than Oscar this weekend and will have to seize every opportunity if he wants to prevent the Australian from escaping. All drivers used the Medium C5 tires to evaluate pace and we believe the yellow and white C4 tires will be the best for Sunday’s GP. The C6 suffers a lot, like in Imola, and some drivers may prefer the C5 not only in the race but also in qualifying. Russell proved this yesterday, achieving his best time on yellow tires in FP2.
No need to discuss Yuki Tsunoda’s run, which was decisively slow not only compared to the front group but also to drivers fighting for top-10 positions.
Graining a Major Issue in Montreal
The track is very dirty and offers very little grip, causing many graining problems for all drivers, especially Ferrari. If these problems persist in the race, the Italian team will have to worry more about defending against attacks from Williams, very competitive on this track, rather than pushing for the podium.
Depending on the levels of graining that appear on Sunday, we could see a race with multiple pit stops and therefore very lively.
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