Ferrari seeks a forced revenge on the return to Montreal – Spain’s News

The Gilles Villeneuve circuit once again vibrates with action. Three years later, Formula 1 lands on one of the tracks that drivers and fans like the most, even if that entails an absurd round trip to America, contravening all the environmental sustainability discourse that the organization tries to put through the eyes of the championship.

The already legendary wall of champions will measure the ability of Max Verstappen, who has not yet tested it since his crown, but also that of a Ferrari that is bound to achieve a good result. The disastrous performance in Baku has thrown them into the air in their fight for the two championships, the drivers’ and the manufacturers’, to the point that not only do they not occupy the first position that seemed clearly theirs at the beginning of the year, but they are also not in a position to defend the second. In the drivers’ category, in fact, Leclerc has fallen to third place, surpassed by a Checo Pérez who is willing to do anything, even to become the uncomfortable alternative to Verstappen within the Red Bull team itself.

Leclerc and Sainz are injured after a tough week in Maranello. The bustle of the trip from Azerbaijan to Canada has not given much room for reflection on what happened, and although these reliability problems are expected to have been resolved without major difficulties for Montreal (in Leclerc’s car for sure, since they will have to put a complete new engine on it), they cannot aspire to anything other than winning.

Especially critical is this race for the Spanish side of the Ferrari garage, because Sainz is clearly at a disadvantage compared to his teammate. While Leclerc aspires weekend after weekend to pole position and victory, although of the top six positions he has achieved for the grid he has only converted two, a pitiful ratio, he is still seeing them coming.

And that is if the problems he suffered in Azerbaijan are solved: if for Leclerc it is clear what they have to do, for the Spaniard they have only achieved “a short-term solution” until they can take the car to the headquarters in Maranello and fix it from all. They assure that there will be no problems, but this smacks of worsening of Ferrari that backs down.

Alonso, more points, and a signature?

After a difficult start to the season, Fernando Alonso has found the balm in the points. As if from an order that supposedly arrives in 24/48 hours and in the end takes a week, the Asturian pilot adds three consecutive weekends scoring points and his goal for Canada is to continue doing so. Alonso, however, is aware that any good result depends on things happening ahead, and that must change. “We need to understand why there are differences between what we feel on Friday and what happens on Sunday,” he advanced in the preview of this weekend’s race.

One of the focuses of attention will be on whether and how the porpoising problems suffered by many drivers in Baku are repeated. Seeing Hamilton or Ricciardo get off their single-seaters half limping with his hand on his waist and senile movements when walking makes it clear that the dance of the rebounds was not comfortable at all. Alonso, on the other hand, did not notice it: that speaks very well of how the Alpine is created.

“Our car is quite good at managing the rebound effect of this year’s cars. I didn’t feel it too much in Baku and we focused more on managing tire degradation, especially the rear tyres. It will be different in each circuit. For example, in Jeddah it was very smooth and Australia too, and nobody said anything there », he recalled, in addition to advancing that these hypothetical changes in regulations that are being considered imply a level of agreement that will be difficult to produce.

The other big news that can happen this weekend is the confirmation of the renewal of Fernando Alonso. The domino effect will occur as soon as Williams and Alpine confirm the agreement for the Grove team to carry Renault engines, under whose conditions Oscar Piastri will take the seat of the more than expendable Nicholas Latifi. The immediate consequence will be that Alonso signs one more year, with the option of another, except for surprise, with Enstone for what may be his last dance, this the definitive one, in Formula 1 after more than two decades .