ADVANTAGE VETTEL AND FERRARI AT A ‘HAMILTON’ TRACK

Few people expected that, particularly Mercedes. On a power-hungry circuit where Lewis Hamilton has won six times, Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel were dominant last weekend. Not only did Vettel’s 50th Formula 1 victory put him back into the lead of the drivers’ standings – by a single point – but it also showed that Mercedes is still not on top of its troubles, particularly with the softer Pirelli tyre compounds, though Hamilton’s weekend was also compromised by an old engine. The gaps in qualifying demonstrated how close the top three teams currently are. Just 0.173 seconds covered the best laps from Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, while sixth-placed Daniel Ricciardo was 0.352s off pole. That promised a good race, but last Sunday’s event will not go down as one of Montreal’s finest. Dull Monaco GPS are never really a surprise, but Canada often throws up an entertaining spectacle. It didn’t this time, as many fans pointed out, but a balanced response is necessary. There have been some good races this year – the Chinese GP in particular – and F1 has rarely provided wheel-to-wheel battles throughout a season. But it’s also true to say that the current cars, which are among the fastest in F1 history, do not encourage overtaking. ‘Dirty air’ has been a problem for more than two decades and is not as easy to fix as it first appears, but F1 has at least accepted there is a problem by looking at rules tweaks for 2019, ahead of the big regulation changes in ’21. Overtaking is unlikely to be such a problem at Le Mans this weekend, thanks to the long straights of the Circuit de la Sarthe. Following our bumper preview last week, in this issue Gary Watkins looks at the LMP1 privateers chasing Toyota (page 50) and outlines why he thinks an LMP2 car has a real chance of an overall win.