Ferrari’s Hopes Washed Away in the Canadian Rain

Ferrari’s Hopes Washed Away in the Canadian Rain

Following the best qualifying result of the season, Ferrari started the Canadian Grand Prix at the weekend (12 June 2011) with victory a distinct possibility but rain washed away all of team’s hopes, first to Fernando Alonso’s hopes, the Spaniard having to retire on lap 37 while Massa got as high as third place before a back marker put paid to his podium hopes.

“Everything went wrong, right from this morning when we saw it was raining,” said Alonso. “We had our best qualifying of the year and we found ourselves starting behind the safety car, when I felt that for me, the intermediates were the best tyre. When we fitted them, the downpour came, along with the red flag which meant those who had not changed tyres could now do it practically for nothing. Finally there was the coming together with Button, which as a final insult left my car beached on a kerb and I was unable to get going again. It’s a real shame because today we really had a good race pace but we were unlucky: that’s not a feeling I have, it’s a fact. When you don’t score points then you must immediately turn the page and look to the next race. I think that in Valencia we can do well, because it is another circuit which should suit our car well, as was also the case here. The championship is not finished yet, but we must now hope for errors from others to have some hope. Our performance level here was good, especially because of the characteristics of the circuit, but also thanks to the updates we brought here. We must keep our heads up, have confidence in our ability and work hard.”

Felipe Massa’s chances of a good result went down the drain when he spun after being obstructed by a back marker. The Brazilian continued to come home sixth.

“I can’t draw much satisfaction from this sixth place, given the potential we had here,” said Massa. “My chances of finishing on the podium and also of fighting for the win given how things went, just evaporated when I was passing Karthikeyan. He was going very slowly on the dry line but then, as I was passing him on the wet, he accelerated and I lost control of the car ending up in the wall. Thanks to the next Safety Car, I was able to catch up to the pack and then, in the end, I passed a few cars to get as high as sixth. I am angry, there is no point denying it. We qualified well and we were in the top three up until the red flag. Then what happened happened and it was all over. I am pleased with how the car performed, both on the extreme wets and on the slicks, but with the intermediates, I was struggling a bit. Now we go to Valencia, a track where we can be competitive, given its characteristics are fairly similar to here. We will have the medium tyres, that we tested here on Friday: we will see what sort of grip levels they give us.”

In a season that has delivered so much excitement, there was plenty more today and although it was a result to forget for the Scuderia, the race will be remembered as a classic and a very long one, given that it eventually lasted just over four hours because of a two hour break caused by torrential rain and a flooded track.

Jenson Button secured victory on the very last lap in his McLaren, after pressuring race long leader Sebastian Vettel into a mistake. The championship leader recovered to finish second ahead of his Red Bull team-mate, Mark Webber.

Because of the poor conditions, the race started behind the Safety Car, which released the cars after four laps. Fernando immediately tried to pass pole man Vettel but could not, while fourth placed Webber was hit by Hamilton and dropped down the order The top three were in grid order and behind Felipe came Rosberg, Schumacher – up from eighth to fifth – Hamilton, Button, Di Resta, Heidfeld with Kobayashi tenth, although the Sauber man moved up to eighth on lap 6. One lap later, Hamilton crashed into his team-mate and had to park his McLaren at the side of the track, which brought out the Safety Car once again.

On lap 10 the rain intensified and the Safety Car was in again at the end of lap 12. On lap 17, Alonso and Rosberg pitted to change tyres, which promoted Felipe to second behind Vettel and Fernando was up to fifth by lap 18. However, on lap 20 the rain got heavier again and so the SC made a third appearance and because of the track conditions, Fernando had to come in again for extreme rain tyres. Vettel also changed tyres on this lap putting Felipe into the lead for one lap until he stopped for fresh tyres, while Fernando was now back down in eighth.

Lap 24 saw the rain become a deluge and Race Control decided to red flag the race, so that all the cars were called back to the grid to await developments, with one hour and 45 minutes of racing still available before the two hour limit would be reached. With daylight lasting till late in the Canadian summer, there were none of the concerns that we had seen in Malaysia in 2009 for example, when rain stopped the race and it could not be restarted because it was dark. So, at 15.50 the cars finally left the grid again, all on mandatory extreme rain tyres behind the Safety Car. Felipe really tried to get past second placed Kobayashi but was unable to pass.

Alonso’s run of points finishes was about to come to an end when Button collided with the Ferrari’s right rear wheel and the Spaniard’s 150º Italia spun and got stuck on the kerb, while Button had to pit with a puncture. It was time for a fourth Safety Car period which lasted to lap 41, when Vettel pulled out a lead from Kobayashi and Felipe and as the track dried, the DRS which had been forbidden in the wet was now enabled for use by the race director. With 20 laps remaining, Vettel led the Sauber driver by over six seconds and Felipe was right on the tail of the Japanese driver and behind the Brazilian was his former team-mate, Schumacher. Then, on lap 51 as Felipe again tried to pass Kobayashi, Schumacher got the better of both of them to go second, chasing Vettel.

At this point, Felipe’s race was about to be compromised, as he came up to lap a backmarker, Karthikeyan, who suddenly accelerated in the Hispania, leaving Felipe nowhere to go on the wet line and the Brazilian spun. Eventually, he caught up with the pack thanks to yet another safety car and eventually came home sixth – far from what had been within his grasp.

When the race resumed, with only nine laps left, Vettel was being chased by Schumacher, Webber, Button and Kobayashi. The Australian Red Bull driver passed the German in the Mercedes, but he had to cede the position, having cut the chicane and one lap later, as he made the same error, Button went by into second place. The McLaren man then put Vettel under enormous pressure, which paid off when the German lost control of his car, ran wide leaving Button to score his first win of the year.

Behind the podium trio the rest of the points went to Schumacher in fourth, followed by Petrov, Felipe, Kobayashi, Alguersuari, Barrichello and Buemi tenth.

“Regret is the feeling affecting all of us at the end of a chaotic Canadian Grand Prix,” said Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari Team Director. “Today we had the potential to fight for the win, but everything that could go wrong did go wrong. In the end, Felipe’s sixth place is definitely a result that is hard to swallow given how the race ended. Two incidents in particular – the collision between Fernando and Button and the passing move on Karthikeyan that caused Felipe to go of the track – leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Now we must put this Sunday behind us, while retaining the fact that our performance level was a match for the situation, just as we had seen two weeks ago in Monaco. We must do it again starting in Valencia and then improve for those races – I’m thinking above all of Silverstone – where aerodynamic efficiency will count for more and maybe the new interpretation of the regulations concerning the exhausts could change the pecking order in the field.”

ENDS

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