Formula 1: Canadian Grand Prix Predictions

The Canadian Grand Prix will be the seventh race of the 2012 season.

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve has produced dozens of exciting races, the simple, quick layout promoting close racing and providing plenty of opportunities to overtake.

And with the chance of seeing the seventh different winner in the first seven races this year, the event promises to be a great antidote to the tedium of Monaco.

Trying to predict the winners and losers has become something of a lottery, and even the wise old minds down the pit lane have had little success.

But as with most things in life, there's no harm in trying.

Note to regular readers: my apologies for the lateness of this article, and for the fact it's not as in-depth as I would have liked. I've had an extremely busy week and, while most of it was written prior to the first practice session, I had to rush to finish the rest today before qualifying. Hopefully normal service will resume for the next race.

Qualifying

Before Monaco, qualifying had been reasonably easy to predict, even before the first practice session.

After Monaco, it all seems a little less clear.

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve rewards two characteristics above all others—straight-line speed and performance through short corners. Fast, sweeping turns are thin on the ground at a circuit made up of two hairpins, four chicanes and very little else.

The uniqueness of the track makes it difficult to use information from previous races to gain an idea of how each car will perform. Add in the fact they're so very close together, and it's even harder.

But the cars with the best straight-line pace should do well. So of the expected front-runners, that should be Lotus, Mercedes and McLaren going for pole—with an outside chance of a midfielder crashing the party.

McLaren seem better around circuits with long corners, while Mercedes showed at Monaco they have great pace around tracks with lower-speed turns. And while I still think the Lotus is the best overall package, it doesn't seem to qualify especially well.

Driver-wise, Lewis Hamilton is definitely good around Montreal. Jenson Button won last year but has struggled to qualify well in the last few races.

Michael Schumacher's confidence will be high after his pole lap in Monaco (a five-place grid penalty dropped him to sixth) and he's won here seven times. Nico Rosberg can't be counted out either, and will be a strong challenger.

Kimi Raikkonen is always threat when the Lotus steers to his liking, and Romain Grosjean has qualified well several times this year.

I've got a feeling Hamilton is the man to beat, but I pick him a lot and don't wish to sound like a broken record.

So—perhaps against my better judgement—I'll go for the old master, Michael Schumacher, to take his first (proper) pole since his comeback. 

Will Red Bull Notice the Missing Hole?

Red Bull's hole in the floor has been ruled illegal, and the team must change the design for Canada.

It's very clearly broken down, explained and described by F1 technical expert Craig Scarborough on his website here. He does the details better than I ever could.

But in short, the issue is over the lack of a tiny (and rarely has the word "tiny" been more appropriate) slot between the hole and the edge of the car floor.

Monaco Grand Prix winner Mark Webber said the team are "very optimistic that the change won’t affect us at all."

You have to imagine someone might notice a difference, because if the enclosed hole design wasn't better, they wouldn't have had it.

But that someone will probably be an engineer back at the team base next Thursday, poring over telemetry graphs and searching for anomalies with an electron microscope.

That's how much of a difference it'll make. The drivers probably won't notice a thing.

Can Felipe Massa Take His Monaco Form to Canada?

Felipe Massa performed admirably in Monaco. Though the Brazilian ended up one place behind his teammate in Q3, his Q2 lap was faster than anything Fernando Alonso produced all weekend.

His race speed was good too, running with the leading train behind Mark Webber in the later stages to take sixth place—within sight of Alonso for the first time all season.

Scoring eight points in a Ferrari might not sound like much, but after the season he'd had, it was like a race win for Massa.

A return to his dreadful form looks unlikely for Massa, but Canada is a track that rewards those brave enough to throw the car across curbs and brake a fraction of a metre later. One Ferrari driver is better at doing that than the other.

For that reason, Alonso will probably reassert his dominance in the team this weekend, and a greater gap between the two will almost certainly appear.

And with the whole field so close together, Massa could once again find himself battling to stay ahead of the likes of Sauber and Williams.

The Midfield

Force India took the "best of the rest" crown in Monaco with Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg finishing seventh and eighth.

But they weren't mind-blowingly quick—di Resta was over 40 seconds behind sixth-placed Massa, and on pure pace the chasing Williams of Bruno Senna looked faster.

Moving on to Canada, all the midfield runners look good. The Sauber C31 is a formidable car, as is the Williams FW34. Either team could easily put one or both cars into Q3.

Even Toro Rosso, who tend to be around the rear of the midfield, usually go well around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and are capable of a strong result.

But I'll back the Indian team to again come home ahead of their rivals.

They have a good engine and two quality drivers who'll be willing to attack the Montreal chicanes. Both drivers in the top ten is a very realistic goal.

Race Winner

Will we see seven winners from the first seven races?

So far, 2012 has seen six different winners from the first six races—an F1 record. Never before, going all the way back to 1950, has that happened.

But with men like Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen and Michael Schumacher among the non-winners so far, the streak extending to seven is a real possibility. 

And I think one of the three will be the winner in Canada. But which one? 

While I'd predict Schumacher on pole and would love to see him claim a victory, I just can't see it happening. I'm torn between Hamilton and Raikkonen for the race win. 

Both will have strong cars when it comes to race speed, and assuming no problems hit either man, they'll almost certainly be at the sharp end after 70 laps of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Of the two, I'd lean very slightly towards Hamilton. Broken record or not, he's my pick for the race win.