I am beginning to sense a pattern in this year’s races. I make a prediction. The prediction is, on the whole, bang on the money. Then, with about a third of the race left to go, it falls apart. Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel, I’m looking squarely at you.
If you care to look at my predictions for Turkey, you’ll see I had Webber to win, followed by Vettel. Okay, so I had Alonso third, which didn;t exactly go to plan, but I had the McLarens right behind. Pretty on the money. Except Vettel decided to turn in on Mark Webber, taking himself out of the race and dropping Mark down to third at the same time.
For the record, it was Vettel’s fault. No shadow of a doubt. It completely wrecked my picks. Anyway, we now travel to North America, with a return to the Canadian Grand Prix, one of my personal favourites! In 2008, Kubica won the race, although he was rather helped by Hamilton running in to the back of an obviously red Ferrari.In 2007, Robert Kubica went for a mid-afternoon barrel roll. In 1997, the race ended under a red flag as Olivier Panis smashed both legs in a nasty accident. The Canadian Grand Prix rarely disappoints.
The circuit itself is hard on brakes. The long back straight past the hairpin leads on to the final chicane, Champions’ Wall, which is followed by the home straight and another hard braking area. There are about half a dozen heavy braking areas, so if anyone is marginal on brakes, they can expect to become acquainted with the wall at some stage. The chances of a safety car are high, and there are always high-profile casualties in the race. The pit lane has caused angst on many occasions, with Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella disqualified in 2007 for driving through a red light in the pit lane.
There are no high speed corners in Montreal, so the Red Bull car may struggle to gain much of an advantage over the other cars. Expect McLaren to be strong. Expect Mercedes to be a little quicker as they make use of their strong engine on the straights. Expect Force India to do the same. Don’t expect much from Ferrari though. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here are my top three for Canada:
- Lewis Hamilton;
- Jenson Button;
- Sebastian Vettel.
I do expect Lewis Hamilton to win. He likes circuits like this. He took his maiden Grand Prix win in Canada. I fully expect him to edge Jenson, who will, I suspect, be fighting to keep Vettel behind him. We’ll see how accurate those predictions are soon…oh, and don’t forget, the action is late afternoon, since it’s coming from North America!