Walter Buchignani, Stu Cowan and Jeff Pappone help get you primed for Sunday’s race with coverage that includes a season recap and a glimpse into Canadian GP history
The 2017 Formula One championship comprises 20 drivers representing 10 teams competing at 20 disparate venues around the globe — from Monaco to Mexico City, Singapore to Sao Paulo, Baku to Bahrain.
And Montreal, of course. The Canadian Grand Prix, which this year marks its 50th anniversary, is the seventh stop on the Formula One calendar. To get you primed for the weekend, here’s a race-by-race recap of the season so far:
AUSTRALIA (MARCH 26)
Podium: 1. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 2. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 3. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes)
You never know what you’ll get at the start of a new campaign — and this one arrives with an especially heightened sense of anticipation.
That’s because Formula One’s technical regulations have undergone a significant rewrite, sending all the teams back to the drawing board to start again with a clean sheet.
Result? The cars that hit the track in Melbourne are much different than before — wider and grippier, and able to get around the circuit up to five seconds faster than their recent predecessors.
The key question is what, if anything, will change on the leaderboard after three years of crushing Mercedes domination, the silver cars accounting for 51 wins out of 59 races?
The initial answer: not much. In qualifying, Hamilton easily secures the pole position with a lap time 0.268 seconds quicker than Vettel in second, a considerable cushion in F1 terms.
But then comes the race. When the go-lights blink, Hamilton gets away cleanly but — big surprise — is unable to shake off Vettel as the laps begin to tick over.
In the end, Vettel jumps the leader during the pit stops and goes on to give Ferrari its first win since 2015 and F1 fans of all stripes the tantalizing prospect of a tightly contested championship.
Then again, the first race of the season is seldom an accurate gauge of performance; the next few races are expected to provide a better picture.
CHINA (APRIL 9)
Podium: 1. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 2. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 3. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
Shanghai produces a bit of good news for fans clamouring for more diversity at the front of the pack. For the first time in 14 races, stretching back to last season, the podium features drivers from three teams.
On the other hand, Hamilton takes his familiar spot on the top step, again after starting from pole, and this time without too much bother from Vettel — an all too familiar scenario.
So was Vettel’s victory in Melbourne a fluke? Has the threat to Mercedes sputtered already?
The truth is things are not always what they seem in F1, and the result in China might have been different if, say, the safety car had not been deployed at an inopportune time for Vettel.
To help clarify matters, it normally helps to look at the results of the second drivers — in this case, Bottas at Mercedes and Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari.
But here again things get skewed. Both drivers underperform — Raikkonen finishes fifth, Bottas sixth — and fail to provide much useful intelligence on the relative strength of their respective teams.
Meanwhile, another bit of good news: Verstappen’s unlikely run from 16th on the starting grid to third on the podium helps allay fears — for now at least — that the 2017-specification cars have made overtaking overly difficult.
BAHRAIN (APRIL 16)
Podium: 1. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 2. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 3. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes)
Fluky? Vettel does his best to put that theory to rest, scoring his second win of the season and providing more evidence to suggest the Red Menace is for real.
As always, though, there are extenuating circumstances — namely, Hamilton is forced to absorb a five-second penalty for a pit-lane infraction, giving his Ferrari foe a little breathing room at the desert circuit in Sakhir.
But not much. Vettel crosses the finish line 6.66 seconds ahead of Hamilton. Factor in the fivesecond penalty and, well, you do the math.
Plus, Mercedes again proves quicker in qualifying, with the silver cars locking up the front row and Bottas earning his first F1 career pole position.
Setting aside mitigating factors, it seems increasingly clear there is little to choose between Mercedes and Ferrari, with the former holding the advantage over one lap in qualifying, but the latter able to hold its own over race distance.
Winning, then, appears to have as much to do with luck and strategy as car and driver performance — a welcome dose of unpredictability embraced not only by the spectators, but also by the team that has had it too easy for too long.
“It’s very good to see people talking positively about Formula One — clearly, the close fight between Ferrari and Mercedes is something that is interesting for the fans,” says Toto Wolff, head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport.
“It’s interesting for us, too. This is why we go racing — because we’re racers and we thrive on the competition and the battle.”
Podium: 1. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) 2. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 3. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari)
In a race of firsts, the most impressive comes courtesy of Bottas, who earns his maiden win in F1 in his 81st start.
The long wait isn’t as remarkable as it seems, though, considering the former Williams driver has never been in a top car until his move to Mercedes this season.
A better measure is that it takes only four tries with his new squad to climb to the top of the podium — no small feat when you are up against a three-time champion teammate and a suddenly resurgent Ferrari team.
Ferrari, for its part, scores a season first by out-qualifying both Mercedes cars, with Vettel taking the pole ahead of Raikkonen.
Alas for the tifosi, on race day, neither driver manages to stay ahead of Bottas, who snatches the win from third on the starting grid.
Raikkonen’s presence on the podium is also a first in what has been a disappointing start of the campaign for the struggling onetime champion.
Further down the grid, another dubious first: Montreal-born rookie Lance Stroll finally sees the finish line after failing to complete the previous three races.
Stroll, driving for Williams, finishes 11th — one agonizing spot removed from a point-scoring position.
SPAIN (MAY 14)
Podium: 1. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 2. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 3. Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull)
No two tracks are alike, but the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is the most representative of all, the one that best combines characteristics and conditions found elsewhere.
That’s why results here are especially scrutinized — they are seen as indicators of where drivers and teams stand, and where they might end up down the road.
Certainly, the qualifying order in Spain appears to reflect the prevailing state of affairs, with Hamilton beating Vettel to the pole, followed by Bottas.
The race, too, follows a familiar script — a toss-up battle for victory between Hamilton and Vettel that in the end favours the Mercedes driver but just as easily could have gone the other way.
Mitigating factors? Of course. First, a collision at the first corner puts Raikkonen and Verstappen out of the race. Later, Bottas suffers an engine failure and opens the door for Ricciardo to make his first podium appearance of the season.
As for Stroll, Spain paints a picture of a young driver in trouble. In qualifying, he places 18th and is badly outclassed — again — by teammate Felipe Massa in ninth. In the race, the Montreal native finishes 16th and last among the drivers who finish.
“The tables will turn,” he had promised a few races earlier in the face of mounting doubts. For now he seems stuck in reverse.
MONACO (MAY 28)
Podium: 1. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 2. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 3. Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull)
If Barcelona is the most representative of all the venues, Monte Carlo is the least with its slow, twisty street circuit with few run-off areas that leaves little room for error.
Stroll is quick to learn that lesson the hard way, crashing into the barriers during the first practice and causing the session to be red-flagged.
But this place can trip up even the best drivers. In qualifying, Hamilton is unable to get his Mercedes to work properly and ends up a shocking 13th on the starting grid.
He does well on race day to limit the damage, finishing seventh, while teammate Bottas has difficulties of his own, slipping off the podium to end up fourth.
Ferrari takes full advantage and stages its second one-two finish of the season, with Vettel leapfrogging pole-sitter Raikkonen during the pit stops.
Oops. Did we say “staging”? That’s a loaded word at Ferrari, known for employing team orders to favour one driver over the other. The evidence here, though, suggests Vettel is the faster teammate and deserving.
Vettel’s victory means he’s finished first or second at every race so far, and gives him a 25-point lead over Hamilton in the drivers’ championship going into the Canadian Grand Prix.
As for Stroll, brake problems put an early end to his day with five laps remaining and while running 14th and last, the fourth time in six races he does not see the checkered flag.
Certainly, he could use a bit of Lady Luck on his side. No doubt he’s hoping she shows up in time for his home Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.