Formula 1: Ferrari can’t afford to blow Canadian Grand Prix opportunity
By Asher Fair
Once again in the 2019 Formula 1 season, Ferrari have an opportunity that they cannot afford to blow, this time in the Canadian Grand Prix.
Scuderia Ferrari have had several opportunities to assert themselves as true rivals to Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport, which have been the dominant team in Formula 1 through six of the 2019 season’s first 21 races, so far this season, namely in the season’s second and fourth races, the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, respectively.
But they have squandered each of these golden opportunities, and Mercedes have won all six races so far this season and secured 1-2 finishes in five of them. Their two drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas, have recorded a combined 12 podium finishes so far in 2019, the maximum amount of podium finishes for a pair of teammates through six races.
Now Ferrari have another chance to knock Mercedes off of their gilded pedestal, this time in the season’s seventh race, the Canadian Grand Prix.
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Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel took the pole position for the 70-lap race around the 14-turn, 2.71-mile (4.361-kilometer) Circuit Gilles Villeneuve road course on Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Ferrari’s first pole position since Charles Leclerc took the pole position for the Bahrain Grand Prix and Vettel’s first pole position in the last 17 races going back to last July’s German Grand Prix.
Hamilton only managed to split Vettel and Leclerc on the starting grid for this race, as Leclerc qualified in third place, while Bottas was only able to qualify in sixth behind Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo and Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Pierre Gasly in fourth and fifth, respectively.
After Vettel took the pole position for this race and led every lap of it last year, this is another race that is truly Ferrari’s to lose and has presented them with a golden opportunity that they cannot afford to blow.
At this point, the constructor championship appears to be well in the hands of Mercedes, and Hamilton is the heavy favorite to win the driver championship. Hamilton himself has scored 137 points while Ferrari have only scored two more than that with 139 points so far this season, which is 118 points fewer than Mercedes have thanks to Bottas’s 120.
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Will Ferrari earn what would be their first victory in Formula 1 since Kimi Raikkonen won last October’s United States Grand Prix, which was now 10 races ago, in tomorrow afternoon’s Canadian Grand Prix? Tune in to ABC at 2:10 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the race from Circuit Gilles Villeneuve to find out.