Another wet race possible in Canada

2016 Canadian Grand Prix weather

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Montreal is experiencing cool, almost autumnal conditions ahead of this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix. Although it is forecast to become warmer over the coming days the race itself could see some showers.

A low pressure weather system is keeping the air chilly in Montreal at present – a peak of just 17C is forecast on Thursday. However that will improve over the coming days with outbreaks of sunshine pushing temperatures to 20C during practice on Friday and 24C for qualifying on Saturday.

Following showers on Thursday the rain should stay away for the first two days of track action. That may change on Sunday, however, giving us the possibility of a second consecutive rain-affected race.

At present it is unclear whether the rain will arrive during the race or, as some forecasts indicate, fall earlier in the morning of race day. However it is expected to be a much cooler day on Sunday, with temperatures closer to that seen on Thursday, and quite a bit cooler than last year’s peak of 22C during the grand prix.

For more updates on the track conditions during each session keep an eye on F1 Fanatic Live and the F1 Fanatic Twitter account.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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31 comments on “Another wet race possible in Canada”

  1. Remember the days when a wet Sunday following a dry Friday and Saturday would trigger an additional Sunday warm up before the race?
    Turn 1 could be a bit crazy with a wet start unless the safety car ruins the fun.

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      9th June 2016, 10:54

      for once, please no safety car.

      Does lower temps help or hinder Mercedes vs RBR?
      Rosberg showed in Monaco that he/they still struggle(s) with warming up the tyres.
      AFAIK, at the same time lower temperatures will reduce tyre pressures; an area mercedes is struggling with more than the rest it seems.

      1. I thought it was the other way around? Hamilton showed great pace in Monaco and they prefer the tyres to be lower pressures (Hamilton being investigated after Monza last year?)

        1. ColdFly F1 (@)
          9th June 2016, 11:24

          Yeah that’s what I meant; Merc struggles with the prescribed higher pressure levels by Pirelli. Thus low temps and low pressure should help them.

    2. I can undetstand Monaco Safety car start… But Canada please NO.

      They have wet weather tires for a reason. Use them.

      1. That’s what bothered me in Monaco, they bring the full wet tires, but only start racing when the track is good enough for intermediates. I get the Safety car start, but they drove way to long behind it. After 1 lap of green, some drivers already changed to intermediates. Well, don’t bring the full wets then.

        I actually hope Canada will have a dry start, and that it will start raining after a few laps. So Charlie Whiting gets one less possibility to influence the race outcome.

      2. “They have wet weather tires for a reason. Use them.”

        Erm weren’t you watching? They DID use them in Monaco.

        Anyway I thought the point of the safety car starts was visibility issues not tyre track interaction issues.

        1. Michael Brown (@)
          9th June 2016, 12:38

          By that, they mean actually race with them. When wet tires are needed, the safety car comes out. When the safety car comes in, most drivers switch to intermediates. Hamilton is an exception because he learned the hard way that track position is key at Monaco.

          If there’s so much spray, then Pirelli need to rethink their tires, because it was hardly a problem in the Bridgestone years.

          1. Ask Schumacher about visibility. Wasn’t Coulthart on Bridgestones at Spa?

            I think that it’s something Pirelli can’t do anything about. If you want the tyres to throw away a certain amount of water, you end up with spray.

          2. @mbr-9, there were races where visibility was an issue during the Bridgestone years. The 2010 Korean GP comes to mind – multiple drivers complained about visibility just at safety car speeds, and even Bernd Mylander was heard complaining during the stoppage period that the cars were throwing up so much water that he couldn’t see most of the cars behind him (which was one of the reasons why the race was halted after a few reconnaissance laps).

      3. @jureo: Jules Bianchi. There’s your answer.

        1. Bianchi incident has nothing to do with Starting under safety car.

          Entire race was organised in a poor fashion with numerous safety risks.

          I am talking light rain, track has no standing water, just wetness everywhere. When was the last time we had a proper wet start?

          1. @jureo

            Safety risks is the point. Spray presents a safety risk. Hence the starts under safety car.

          2. @jureo There certainly were other safety flaws – such as allowing engineers to cross the pit exit as Verstappen was coming out at the start. But Bianchi’s death has caused the stewards to be overly cautious about allowing drivers to race in wet conditions. There’s no point re-opening the debate about who was to blame, but this sort of backlash is only to be expected.

    3. The good ol’ days

  2. It will be fantastic if it rains come race day.

  3. Danielson Rici looks very good for a win then.

    Mercedes is struggling in low grip conditions and has poor tire warmup considering recent wet races… Like Monaco and Austin, Texas.

    But anything can happen in a wet race. Maybe even McLaren can win it. Not likeley or probable, but possible.

    Just dont ruin everything with a safety car. Like brundle always says: Throttle pedal works both ways.

    1. “Danielson Rici” ? hmm not bad :)

  4. Google weather predicts it to be dry on sunday now, but always exciting if the weather becomes a factor.

  5. After the safety car staying out on Monaco until Intermediates were considered, I have low expectations of an actual wet race happening any time soon in F1 :/

  6. The weather’s been very very irregular the past week or so in Montreal, any given day we’ve had one end of the city getting rain for half an hour, elsewhere not and so on, so I’d say that any predictions for what’s going to happen over the circuit on race day are akin to reading tea leaves for now.

  7. When was the last tume F1 did a proper wet start? I cannot remember it.

    1. @jureo The first one that springs to mind off the top of my head is Malaysia 2013: standing start with the whole field on intermediates.

      1. So pretty far back. And even that was not full wet.

        I guess safety is more important, than a proper wet race.

        1. With track with endless run-offs and cars, which are essentially safety capsules, let them race flat-out under any weather conditions. @jureo

          1. Exactly. Then if they crash bring safety car out.

            As suposed best drivers in the world give them benefit of a doubt and let them race until they get in trouble.

            I am all for safety, Halo head protection etc… But safety car when rain starts… It wasn’t always like that.

          2. @jureo “As suposed best drivers in the world give them benefit of a doubt and let them race until they get in trouble.”

            Problem is that even the best drivers in the world can’t do much if visibility is so bad you can’t see the car in-front or if its so wet the tyres/cars can’t cope with it.

            Its easy to say that they could slow down but in poor visibility if you lift off & the car behind can’t see you then your just going to get hit from behind. See Brundle/Senna At Adelaide in 1989 or DC/Schumacher at Spa in 1998 or for more dramatic consequences Prost/Pironi during practice at Hockenheim in 1982.

            “But safety car when rain starts… It wasn’t always like that.”

            True, Mainly because there never used to be a safety car.
            As soon as F1 adopted the Safety car you started seeing it used for wet conditions, Especially after Spa 1998 where pre-race most of the drivers were saying should have started under the SC….. The FIA ignored them because at the time SC starts were not really a thing & as a result half the grid crashed exiting the 1st corner because the cars towards the back had virtually no visibility so didn’t see that somebody had crashed towards the front.

            The FIA tend to make these decisions based on driver feedback now. If drivers feel a standing start will be too dangerous (Which tends to be for visibility more than anything else) then the FIA take there concerns far more seriously than they used to.

            If you look at Monaco for example, Go back & look at the run up the hill from turn 1 on the 1st lap. Even behind the SC there was a lot of spray & visibility was virtually non existent….. Imagine how much worse it would have been at full racing speed which also considering that the in-car/trackside cameras tend to see through the spray better than what the drivers actually can.
            http://oi64.tinypic.com/1znuag6.jpg
            http://oi63.tinypic.com/sgnx1d.jpg

          3. @gt-racer all super valid points.

            I am not saying for Monaco. That’d be one mighty incident.

            But for regular tracks…

            I guess such a pile up is worth easy 10 milion €, well worth bringing out AMG safety car.

      2. Hungary 2014, US 2015 were both wet starts with no safety car

  8. For F1 drivers sake I hope its not wet race. Because we all know modern F1 drivers are like Guinea pigs from lab. They are taught one way to driver and suffer in difficult condition.

    Hence I understand why FIA decide to start all wet races under SC or so it gives impression to outsiders like me.

  9. Please please please no SC start…

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