LANCE STROLL IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Full coverage of F1 weekend
Fifty years of Grand Prix racing in Canada — in a country that is celebrating its 150th anniversary and a city that is marking its 375th. Boy, that’s some birthday cake. Question is, will this weekend’s big race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve live up to the occasion?
That’s impossible to say, of course. Anything can happen. Mother Nature, for one, has been known to rain on a good party.
Putting aside unforeseen circumstances, though, it’s fair to say this: All the ingredients are in place for a special weekend on Île Notre-Dame.
To start, there’s Lance Stroll — the first Canadian to race in Formula One since Jacques Villeneuve made his last appearance on the track named after his late, great father a dozen years ago.
Stroll, 18, is from Montreal, and though he moved to Europe to pursue his racing career at age 12, he still has family and friends here and considers this his home.
Whatever your F1 allegiance — if you have one — it’s hard not to wish the kid well, and it will be nice to see Canadian flags waving
from the grandstands again.
Stroll won’t have it easy. He’s never raced on this circuit before, in any category. And it’s an unforgiving track, where barriers are close, run-off areas rare and the margin for error thin.
Then there’s the infamous Wall of Champions, so named for having ensnared a number of notable heroes, including Michael Schumacher, the most decorated driver in F1 history, and Jacques Villeneuve — twice.
This year, the angle of the concrete wall — at the final chicane before the stretch to the finish line — has been altered to give a bit more breathing room to the faster-cornering 2017-specification cars.
Still, at a promotional event this week, Stroll observed that area of track was probably not the best place “to take a risk” at the wheel of his Williams. Smart kid.
Let’s hope his home Grand Prix will bring him better luck than he’s had so far in his rookie season. Montreal is the seventh round on the 20-race calendar, and he’s finished only two of the first six events.
There is probably some truth to the adage that you make your own luck, but it would be hard to blame Stroll for any of his retirements so far. A pair were due to mechanical problems, and the other two were the result of crashes with other drivers in the heat of racing.
Not to put a hex on things, but worth noting: Both mechanical breakdowns were brakes-related, and the stop-and-go nature of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is famously punishing in that regard with its mix of low-speed corners and high-speed straightaways.
No doubt, the mechanics and engineers at Williams will do all they can to give Stroll the necessary tools to see his race through to the finish line in front of his home crowd.
A win, though, is pretty much out of the question. Williams is far from the powerhouse it was in the days it carried Villeneuve to the drivers’ championship. Now it’s more of a mid-field team. A top-10 finish for Stroll would be a more realistic goal.
It would even be historic in a sense. Stroll’s two finishes thus far have been outside the top-10, meaning he has yet to collect any points in the championship standings. Here’s a chance to put his native city in the record books as the place where he registered his first points.
But let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not the Maple Leaf that will turn the grandstands into a sea of red this weekend. It will be another emblem: the Prancing Horse.
Ferrari is the undisputed sentimental home team in this city, as it is at many other Grand Prix venues, thanks to the large Italian communities scattered around the globe and the international allure of the fabled stable.
The tifosi here and elsewhere have had little to cheer in the last decade, but that has changed this year. The Prancing Horse seems to have found its footing, at last.
Ferrari arrives atop both the drivers’ and constructors’ standings, thanks to three wins by German ace Sebastian Vettel.
In this year of birthday convergences, the scuderia seems in good position to gift local fans a victory on Sunday.
But it’s not a given. Mercedes, too, has three wins — two by Lewis Hamilton and the other by Valtteri Bottas.
You can argue Ferrari holds the edge, because Mercedes has struggled with its tires this season and tire performance is crucial at a demanding track like Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
On the other hand, no driver among the current crop has been more successful in Montreal than Hamilton. The Briton has won five times here, including his maiden F1 triumph in 2007.
That’s more wins at Île Notre-Dame than any driver in the history of F1 save for Schumacher, who transformed the top step of the podium into his Montreal pied-à-terre with seven visits.
Schumacher’s win in 2004 was Ferrari’s last here. No wonder the tifosi are restless.
But if the drought is to break this weekend, who will be the hero — Vettel or teammate Kimi Raikkonen?
Certainly the momentum is with Vettel, who accounts for all three Ferrari wins and holds a 25-point lead over Hamilton at the top of the standings.
Raikkonen, meanwhile, is alone among the top-four not to have registered a victory this season. In fact, he hasn’t won a race in four years.
On Friday, Raikkonen sent a message to his rivals — and his teammate — by posting the fastest lap time during practice. The cars hit the track again Saturday for qualifying.
No doubt, a win by the brooding but popular Finn on Sunday would make this special anniversary edition of the Canadian Grand Prix even more so.
So back to the birthday cake. If I got to blow out the candles, this would be my wish: a win for Raikkonen, and a top-10 finish for Stroll.