Showers predicted during Canadian GP weekend

2011 Canadian Grand Prix

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Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso, Montreal, 2010

We’ve had six dry races so far this year and the Canadian Grand Prix hasn’t seen a wet race since 2000.

But both those things could change on Sunday. The Canadian Grand Prix weekend will start off dry but there’s a chance of rain later on.

The first day of practice tomorrow should see clear skies and sunshine with maximum temperatures around 20-23C.

But the chance of rain will increase as the weekend goes on with around a 50% chance of rain falling on race day.

Temperatures on Sunday are also likely to be much cooler, in the low-to-mid-teens.

The teams have already seen some heavy rain at the track earlier today.

Montreal weather radars

Location of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve


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    Keith Collantine
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    34 comments on “Showers predicted during Canadian GP weekend”

    1. What is the degradation of the intermediates/wets? If it does rain, will we still see many pit stops?

      1. No one really knows what the degradation is like on the new wet tyres. Could be a real eye opener. Bring it on!

        1. would be a bit like last year, when no one had a clue. And as the friday is likely to be dry, they won’t even be able to fine tune it.

          1. Tyre degradation in the wet never even crossed my mind. But for the first time in years, I haven’t been praying for wet races!

    2. Yes, we had some heavy rain this morning for abotu 30 minutes & it’s all dry and ready to go for tomorrow.

    3. We had our first safety car last time out, will we have the first rain of the year too?

      1. I kind of want it to be a dry race, but at the same time, I want to see what a wet race is like this year with the new rules.

    4. I hope it’s a quick rain on Sunday, but then dries up.

      1. I hope it does an awkward raining/not raining gig, that is always fun to watch.

        1. Yeah that’s always the least fun to drive in, but the best fun to watch!

    5. Environment Canada is now predicting 40% chance of showers on Saturday with rain on Sunday.

      http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/qc-147_metric_e.html

    6. If i remember correctly from Turkey 1st practice when it was wet the tyre degredation was said to be quite heavy, so potentially if its wet we might see lots of stops.

      1. or not enough wet weather tyres.
        YIKES!!!

    7. The whole double DRS could be a moot point!

      1. It certainly could!

        1. Does anyone know anything about the DRS rules in wet weather? Will DRS be disabled if it rains heavily? Or will it be decided on a case-by-case basis by Charlie Whiting? (this is probably it)

    8. It wouldn’t be Montreal if this wouldn’t be the prospect, would it?

      One of my favourite milieus. Always unusual races.

    9. Bring on the wet…, It helps to showcase the abilities of more gifted drivers. I have a feeling We are in for a treat.

      1. I’ve got the same feeling!

    10. There are races, and then there is Montreal.

      I still remember Massa’s double pass, and Sato taking on Alonso in the Super Aguri. In fact I have a clip of that.

      What do you guys remember?

      1. Hamilton hitting Raikkonen, amateurish doesn’t even start to describe how bad that error was. Sato on Alonso was also very enjoyable.

    11. If it rains in the race & in quali then I think drivers won’t be able to use DRS?

      1. yep. as a rule of thumb, if you have inters or wets on, then no DRS use!

      2. That’s 100% correct as far as I can tell.
        Rain = no DRS.

      3. It’s not clear exactly how the FIA are going to do this.

        Are they going to decide when it’s not safe to use DRS and declare it “disabled”, as they do during safety car periods?

        Or will they just not let drivers use DRS when they have intermediate or wet weather tyres fitted?

        I hope it’ll be the latter, because I believe it should be down to the drivers to decide. But I expect it’ll be the former.

        1. Are the stewards able to turn of the DRS of individual drivers, or does it have to be the whole field? The 1-second rule works electronically, but surely the system being de-activated because of tyres would have to be a manual process?

          1. I think it’s down to the tyres – if you have dry tyres, normal rules apply, if you have inters or wets, you can’t use DRS at all.

        2. I fear you are right about it being like the SC periods.

          I think there was one training where a mercedes driver was on intermediates and the others got a message from their teams it would be disabled for that.

    12. I hope it rains will make the race more interesting.

    13. God, I hope so – can you imagine the smell if the drivers and crews didn’t take any?

    14. To clarify the rule for DRS and rain is that as soon as just ONE car has Inters or Wets on, DRS is banned for the whole field, i remember the 5Live guys talking about it in Australia practice :)

    15. LL Jehto (@)
      11th June 2011, 14:35

      My dream race would be constant rain through all the race.. but without race-ruiny car

    16. Luke is Saubers no.1 Fan (@)
      12th June 2011, 3:13

      i think why mclaren were slow is cause they were running higher downforce,a more favoured set up for rain,nd i wouldnt be surprised if Lewis was to become a contender tommorow if it rained and also i hope the degredation on the wet pirellis isnt too bad because as far as i last checked they only have 3 sets of wets so if its a full wet race,they could only make 2 stops,so if they last set is about to fall off the cliff with 15 laps to go,they cant exactly stick inters on in pouring rain,daunting task for them all,ecpecially P.De La Rosa as he has only about 40 laps experience in the Sauber C30. Should be a great race and i would like either Lewis,Felipe,Fernando or ,although its slim but he is capable its whether the car and step up is Nico Rosberg.Also fro Di Resta and Kobayashi from the Q2 boys to score points!

    17. Big ole batch of rain moving directly toward the track.

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