After an eventful Turkey post-mortem for a number of teams, we look at five of the drivers who’ll be hoping it’ll be plain sailing as we revisit Montreal for the first time in two years.
Robert Kubica (POL), Renault – 6th, 67pts
A solid sixth, just a second or so behind the Mercs of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, was probably satisfying enough for Kubica. Now we come to Canada, where Kubica has previous form. You may remember that he achieved his first and only victory here for the the then-high-flying BMW team in 2008, at which point he topped the drivers’ standings. (He’s been playing catch-up ever since.) Also worth remembering is that he had a catastrophic 300kph/-28G shunt in Canada just the year before that broke his leg (and handed a debut in the next race to a certain Sebastian Vettel, who replaced him). Kubica is being coy about his Renault future, but expect him to drive the wheels off the R30 again nevertheless – this place is never dull when he’s around.
Lewis Hamilton (GBR), McLaren – 3rd, 84pts
So many times this season, Hamilton has not won but has publicly professed himself happy, but speaking to Jenson Button in the podium 'anteroom' when he finally sealed a season’s first victory in Turkey, he was very clearly not. A team miscommunication saw a rare McLaren one-two, handed to them by Red Bull’s misfortune, jeopardised in copycat fashion as Lewis and Jenson, told different things about the team strategy, suddenly began fighting for the lead with almost disastrous consequences. Their car is now hunting down the Red Bull RB6 in terms of performance, but Lewis will hope that the team themselves – and his relationship with Button – will not hinder their progress in Canada.
Sébastien Buemi (SUI), Scuderia Toro Rosso – 15th, 1pt
Despite a full season last year, Canada’s removal from the ’09 schedule means that Montreal adds Buemi to its list of first-timers, along with the new boys on this year’s grid. Thankfully, Buemi has had the Red Bull simulator to help him accustom virtually to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, and after early-season woes, he also has points on the board from 10th in Monaco and a solid finish in the last race on which to build. The Toro is not quite the car it was in 2008 when Vettel and Sébastien Bourdais achieved eighth and 13th respectively here, but if Buemi can just nail it and get into quali 2 against more experienced drivers in ‘lesser’ cars (Jarno Trulli, Heikki Kovalainen et al), he’ll have made a fine start.
Jaime Alguersuari (SPA), Scuderia Toro Rosso – 14th, 3pts
Seven finishes out of seven, two of them in the points, none below 13th place… Alguersuari is proving a lot of people wrong so far this season. Like his team-mate, this race marks his Canada debut, but as a number of commentators have mentioned, Alguersuari has started walking around the paddock with his head held high when once he would have scuttled by looked sheepishly at the ground, so yet another new track won’t bother the 20-year-old, and points are a possibility if he can qualify strongly. Next race after Montreal – the season’s ninth at the European GP in Valencia – will be the first in which the Spaniard has competed in F1 before. The future looks bright.
Michael Schumacher (GER), Mercedes – 9th, 34pts
From a young driver with a bright future to the other end of the scale… Schumi’s decision to return to a sport in which he was already a legend is still not bearing fruit, despite Mercedes’ hopes that car improvements – rightly or wrongly judged by some to be designed to benefit the seven-time world champion rather then team-mate Rosberg – would yield better results. Fourth, in normal circumstances, is no bad position to end a Turkish GP, but when you consider that it’s behind three drivers on the verge of self-destructing at various points in the race, and that you have your team-mate and another driver in a ‘worse’ car (Kubica) right on your tail, those past glories must seem a long way away. Even some fans in the anti-Schumacher camp must secretly be hoping he gets at least a podium in Canada – where he’s won no fewer than seven times and come second on five occasions – before it’s too late.
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