2026 Canadian Grand Prix - Montreal, May 22 - 24

[AR3-GP]

Really? You might be right, but then I don't really get Ferrari.
I always imagined that smaller turbo would help them in all accelerations and it seemed to me a reasonable compromise to give up some peak power for a good exit from the corners.
I'm not so sure about that compromise if it only benefits them during the starts.

There's was never going to be much in that, imo. The cars are traction limited exiting the low speed corners because the MGU-K has so much torque that wheels will simply spin when it is deploying at max power. So it makes no difference to have slightly better spooling on the ICE to make 510kW instead of 500kW at the instant that the driver picks up the throttle. It's still a race to turn on the MGU-K. It dwarfs the ICE. Everyone is at the grip limit immediately.

Without the MGU-K, then Ferrari would have the advantage that you are describing.

[Paa]

There's was never going to be much in that, imo. The cars are traction limited exiting the low speed corners because the MGU-K has so much torque that wheels will simply spin when it is deploying at max power. So it makes no difference to have slightly better spooling on the ICE to make 510kW instead of 500kW at the instant that the driver picks up the throttle. It's still a race to turn on the MGU-K. It dwarfs the ICE. Everyone is at the grip limit immediately.

Without the MGU-K, then Ferrari would have the advantage that you are describing.

Yes, it makes sense.
Then my only explanation of Ferrari being so close here, that this is a short track and the gap would be like ~0.6s on a normal one.

[Luscion]

[AR3-GP]

There's was never going to be much in that, imo. The cars are traction limited exiting the low speed corners because the MGU-K has so much torque that wheels will simply spin when it is deploying at max power. So it makes no difference to have slightly better spooling on the ICE to make 510kW instead of 500kW at the instant that the driver picks up the throttle. It's still a race to turn on the MGU-K. It dwarfs the ICE. Everyone is at the grip limit immediately.

Without the MGU-K, then Ferrari would have the advantage that you are describing.

Yes, it makes sense.
Then my only explanation of Ferrari being so close here, that this is a short track and the gap would be like ~0.6s on a normal one.

Something else that is strange is how slow Alpine are. In Miami all the Mercedes powered cars were in the top 10 except for Gasly who got taken out by Lawson. So they had 7 of 8 cars in the top 10 at the end.

This weekend Alpine took a step back and Audi are ahead on what we think is a PU dependent circuit. The Honda made SQ2. So I think we are seeing the effect of the reduced recovery limit in qualy which helped Ferrari, Audi, and Honda. Weaker PU suffers less when most of the recovery is done by the braking instead of running the ICE as a generator.

[AR3-GP]

I'm sure Mercedes is ahead of everyone but I'm not convinced that the gap is this small. Ferrari was too close with their PU deficit. Merc had 1 session to dial in a new car. The other teams are running in their Miami spec. So the gap could be larger tomorrow. Toto and Antonelli both seemed to imply this in their interviews.

I think the other teams will also improve for tomorrow's qualifying after tweaks (but maybe not as much as Mercedes).

Fully agreed Sir! Extremely well summarized!

Autoracer transcribed the interview that I saw with Sky:

Despite the positive result, the Mercedes Team Principal was not completely convinced of the overall performance: "For today I didn't like our speed, it's all new, I expected 1-2 tenths better but let's see tomorrow." Despite the pole position, Mercedes must continue to watch its back, although satisfied with today's result: "It's first place, but not by a much margin, but we have to be happy." Mercedes, however, starts with confidence: "For today we had the fastest package, but we have to keep pushing tomorrow as well."

https://autoracer.it/mercedes-wolff-mi- ... -partenze/

[Badger]

Kind of agree with Toto. The gap doesn't correspond with the reported 3+ tenths upgrade. To me they were only 1-2 tenths faster, and even that might be reaching a bit. McLaren's upgrade was disappointing, they took a step back relative to Miami.

[mzso]

Any footage of the Albon crash?

https://dubz.co/c/9e361c

Thanks!

Why don't they just trap and collect all these critters in the area for the weekend? It would be better for everyone, every thing.

[FrukostScones]

Any footage of the Albon crash?

https://dubz.co/c/9e361c

Thanks!

Why don't they just trap an collect all these critters in the area for the weekend? It would be better for everyone, every thing.

they do and try, but full task is impossible.

[Mogster]

https://dubz.co/c/9e361c

Thanks!

Why don't they just trap an collect all these critters in the area for the weekend? It would be better for everyone, every thing.

they do and try, but full task is impossible.

It’s the same at Bathurst every year with Kangaroos on track, it’s just impossible to keep them out and roos are a much bigger animal. Really nasty incident at the start of the Bathurst 12hrs this year.

[Mogster]

Weather looking worse for tomorrow now, rain increasing across the day, max temps lower.

FOM must be getting the heebie-jeebies. They dodged a bullet with Miami.

[AR3-GP]

Weather looking worse for tomorrow now, rain increasing across the day, max temps lower.

FOM must be getting the heebie-jeebies. They dodged a bullet with Miami.

On the other hand, the sprint format hedges the racing across Saturday and Sunday.

[haza]

Kind of agree with Toto. The gap doesn't correspond with the reported 3+ tenths upgrade. To me they were only 1-2 tenths faster, and even that might be reaching a bit. McLaren's upgrade was disappointing, they took a step back relative to Miami.

Always hard to judge upgrades in a sprint weekend as teams only get 1 session to test them could be completely different next race once teams have dialled them in

[search]

Merc starts on 6-lap old used mediums, everyone behind on new ones. Lindblad on Hards.

[CjC]

Mercedes trolling everyone by starting on used mediums

[AR3-GP]

It's guaranteed rain tomorrow. That's why the others are using new tires. Verstappen had a set of mediums with only 3 laps on them that he could have taken but has taken another new set.