The Driver's Eye: Montreal

Sky Sports F1's Anthony Davidson looks ahead to this weekend's Canadian GP. The good news is that this is one of his favourite races of the year. The bad news is that some rather important prior important commitments mean he'll just have to watch it on the television this year...

The Canadian Grand Prix is a great event and there's only one unfortunate thing I can say about Montreal and this weekend's race: I won't be there as part of the Sky Sports F1 team because the event clashes with my preparations for Le Mans. It's a real shame because this is one of the best weekends on the F1 calendar and there are so many positive things to be said about the event. Admittedly, it's not the most glamorous race on the calendar - Montreal certainly doesn't have the same sort of glitz and glamour as Monaco - but it is an historic race in its own right, boasts a very strong and knowledgeable fanbase, and, in terms of atmosphere, is right up there with the best of them. From the moment you land until the moment you take off again, you're aware of the buzz and energy of the place; if feels electric all week long. Even in the heart of the city, Montreal really embraces F1, with parties every night and a carnival atmosphere throughout. I've actually visited Montreal outside of an F1 week and I found the city to be much quieter and calmer - which goes to show what a big event it is when F1 comes to town. Then again, that's also true of Monte Carlo but, whereas Monte Carlo can be a bit of a 'show-off fest' during the GP weekend, in Montreal it feels as if everyone comes along purely to enjoy the show. From a driving perspective, it's a parkland circuit like Melbourne, but I'd describe it as a bit more hardcore than Melbourne. The barriers are very close to the track for a lot of the lap and, because so much of the lap is also run at very high speeds, every driver knows that if he does go off, it's likely to be a big one. It's quite an involved lap, and one that needs a lot of confidence in your car. Yet in so many ways, it also demands a similar style to what a driver has just grown accustomed to in Monaco - it's a bit of a fiddly lap but you have to wrestle the car a lot and you are constantly having to throw the car where it doesn't want to go, grabbing it by the scruff of the neck and staying aggressive. The big difference, of course, is the speeds at which you approach the corners and the high-speed sections mean that this is the second-lowest downforce circuit of the year after Monza. The high speeds also put a heavy emphasis on braking and mean that a driver will experience a far twitchier car than he has just run in Monaco - a circuit which sees the second-highest downforce set-up of the year! These long braking zones from high speeds also make it a far more gruelling race on the brakes. Sometimes a driver might be told to take it easy, but for the majority of the race you'll be flat-out on your brakes and a driver will just be focused on extracting the maximum performance out of his car. If mistakes do occur, they will tend to be under braking, and trying not to run wide and miss the apex is very much part of the challenge in Montreal. The long straights also lend themselves to overtaking and it's quite a punishing circuit in terms of its surface. Canada has extreme weather patterns - very cold winters and very hot summers - and because of this the track surface suffers a lot of punishment throughout the year, with the resultant effect that it feels like a very hard surface and there tends to be a lot of marbling. The corners themselves, however, are slow and tight, putting very little stress on the tyres and it's because of the absence of any high-speed corners that Pirelli have selected the soft and supersofts tyres this weekend - the same choice of compounds that we had in Monaco. I know Montreal seems very different to Monaco because the straights are so long, but its actual nature - with the corners being slow and tight - is not radically different. Put together the barriers, the heavy-braking zones and the soft-compound tyres and you can see how Montreal isn't that different from Monaco as you might at first think. And there's one other thing to remember about Montreal - it was this Grand Prix back in 2010, featuring so much exciting racing and drivers struggling with the tyres and marbles, that planted the seed that F1 needed more 'spiced-up' racing and tyres that would drop off the cliff quickly. So, if you've enjoyed this year's racing, you have Montreal to thank! AD