Despite the rain preventing most cars from circulating Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, some teams managed to get in some long runs in FP2. The times set on the option tyre during FP2 heavy fuel runs are almost always quicker than the first stint of the race leaders (this may be because teams run ~20kg less fuel), but the conditions on Friday were colder than expected on race day, so the times are a slightly better representation of Sunday’s pace.
Kimi and Felipe were the two drivers to use the prime tyre.
The fact that Kimi Raikkonen was able to go faster than his team mate, Sebastian Vettel, on the harder compound of tyre shows that the red-marked SuperSofts require a lot of conditioning to be able to last the distance until the first pit stop on Sunday.
Lewis and Nico, along with most others, practiced option tyre management with the drivers receiving radio feedback within the new driver-aid restriction to guide them on the right path, and from the times they didn’t suffer from the same tyre degradation as the Ferrari.
Malaysia FP2 Runs. Ferrari victorious on Sunday.
Comparing this to FP2 in Malaysia where Vettel won the race, you can see the Ferrari at least had the upper hand on tyre deg.
In the 2014 Canadian GP the Mercedes duo pitted on lap 18 and 19 of the race, they had the longest stint of any team starting on the SuperSoft tyre. No-one ran that tyre twice, which shows the preferred race tyre is definitely the prime tyre – the yellow-marked soft.
Race Forecast
Demonstration of laptime and deg curve accuracy
I am in the process of creating a lap time sim in Excel, its an ongoing project since pre-season testing and it allows race pace to be forecast after FP2. It caters for the top teams but does not yet factor in variables that are determined by individual driving styles, but it can be used to forecast team pace. Currently it can only simulate an entire race if it has just one pit-stop, hence why it worked at Monaco for Lewis’ times as shown on the left.
For the Canadian GP we can forecast the first stint (which I have maxed at 20 laps because of last years race):
Montreal 1st stint forecast. Mercedes vs Ferrari
Firstly, a judgment was made to start the Mercedes from the front row of the grid. The pole time was estimated to be 1:14.46 based on the average percentage difference between the pole driver’s best FP2 and Pole time this year (dry sessions only) with a couple of tenths subtracted due to the chance of temperature change. Ferrari could upset Mercedes’ day however.
During the opening laps, the Ferrari will have accelerated tyre degradation due to being in the turbulent air of the car close ahead. This means as the stint goes on, there will be an increasing tyre performance difference between the two cars, or at least the person in the lead to the drivers behind.
10 more simulations, with Ferrari starting behind.
The reason why the lap times are inconsistent on the graphs are because I’ve given the drivers a standard distribution error. They are 66% likely to lap +/-0.25s within the previous circulation, so I can repeat the simulation and have slightly varied outcomes every time. The closest I’ve seen Ferrari to Mercedes at the end of 20 laps was 7 seconds, and the furthest was 13 seconds.
This sounds like another win for Mercedes but 13 seconds is not a good gap for the German outfit. The reduced pit lane time means that Lewis or Nico could pit and rejoin in the traffic of one Ferrari whilst the other stays out and effectively reduces the gap whilst the Mercedes is stuck. Mercedes will have to either create an ~18 second gap to the Ferrari’s or pit later than them.
It will come down to when Ferrari can pit and come out into free space as their times should drop off faster than Merc. This may happen on lap 15/16, but the prancing horses have a good opportunity here to complicate things for the Mercedes pit wall again.
“Anything can happen in Formula 1, and it usually does” – Murray Walker
