"Cato Batista" 19/06/2011 18:53:57 ID #63
Ladies and Gentlemen:

The main talking point is the weather. It looks like a wet Saturday and chances of rain for Sunday are now at 60% during race time. Either way this GP has all the marks to be an exciting one.

This track is about braking and traction, with its long straights and slow corners is not as aerodynamically demanding, so Red Bull downforce advantage will not count for as much, and both McLaren and Ferrari look potentially very quick here.

The surprise though, could come from Mercedes, they are 20 kph quicker when using DRS compared to 12 kph from the rest. Their practice times are not showing their full potential because they concentrated in long runs with high load and we never saw their QF form because all the red-flag interruptions at the end of the session. But we’ve learnt that Mercedes is better on QF than race trim, the opposite of McLaren.

Still no clear picture of how much faster the super-softs are, it looks like 1.5 secs per lap. Tire duration is not as bad as first thought, 26 laps for the primes (soft) and 15 for the options (super-soft), which makes this a possible two stopper.

How does it look for qualifying? It’s hard to beat against Hamilton, he’s been on pole every time he’s visited Montreal (3 times) and has won twice. But we know Vettel is ‘on the zone’, and his crashed RB7 was repaired with little time lost. Ferrari has a new special rear wing and their form is on the rise. It will be a hard call, no doubt, even more unpredictable with the expected changing track conditions. Either way as I said, we’re up to be treated to a fantastic weekend, rain or shine.