Showers expected through Montreal race weekend

2013 Canadian Grand Prix weather

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Unpredictable conditions face the teams heading into this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix.

Showers are forecast throughout the weekend although there is a fair chance they will recede in time for the race.

Practice will begin in cool conditions on Friday with temperatures around 15C. Conditions will be overcast with periodic showers during the day.

Saturday will be similar but temperatures will pick up by around 5C. The threat of rain will diminish on Sunday but there is still the possibility of occasional showers.

Two years ago a prolonged downpour forced a lengthy stoppage to the race, which took over four hours to complete.

These radar images will give updated information about the weather during the race weekend:

There will be regular updates on the track conditions during each session on F1 Fanatic Live and the F1 Fanatic Twitter account.

Location of Circuit Gilles Villeneuve

See the location of every race on the 2013 F1 calendar here:

2013 Canadian Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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30 comments on “Showers expected through Montreal race weekend”

  1. Pirelli must have bad karma. Rainy practice sessions prevented them from testing a new hard tyre compound last year and tomorrow doesn’t look like the best day for testing the new ‘anti-delamination’ tyres either.

    1. @girts You’re right and they didn’t had much luck this year’s Spanish GP as they brought a new hard for Friday.

      1. But they did it with Merc afterwards ;-)

  2. F1 is like cricket these days. If it rains they stop the race. So im expecting alot of red flags this weekend. With respect to the drivers only they know how hard it is, but they are meant to be the best in the world

    1. @um1234

      I’d rather have the race red-flagged than see the cars go pedestrian. It’s mainly a problem with how the regulations and cars are nowadays, got nothing to do with drivers’ skills (as many of the current drivers have raced through the 2000s and proved themselves in extreme conditions just as well).

      We’ve been complaining all year about drivers having to race well off the “real” pace and it’s a bit weird the same people would want to have the same with wet races. Is it real racing to have F1 cars go around the circuit at speeds of 30 km/h and lower?

      1. I meant generally. Been following F1 since 05. To me it seems like they stop more races now because of weather than a few years ago. Eg Australia this year

    2. Circuits like Albert Park and Gilles Villeneuve aren’t as well equipped in drainage as well. There can be standing water in corners or even moving water from other places on the track, which can catch a lot of drivers out, like at Brazil in 2003. http://youtu.be/8dEYJFn0ndA

      I think they’ve simply realized having 8 cars crossing the finish with today’s budgets, today’s points system and TV audience doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It might be nice to have both Marussias and Caterhams in the points, but if they both crash out and wreck a chassis, they might face serious financial troubles as well.

      1. @npf1
        At Brazil 2003 teams only had intermediate tyres, no full wet tyres. Today, full wets seem virtually useless, because they red-flag the session as soon as we get to that point, anyway.

      2. It would be nice if the tv companies would show some of the lower battles…. I keep hearing about Caterham’s & William’s battling together but you never see it!

  3. I know there is no ‘wet setup’ anymore, but I still expect teams to fail to finetune the cars perfectly for a dry race in the wet weather of Friday and Saturday.

    Not to mention the somewhat different pecking order on Sunday compared to the wet qualifying session.

    Throw in the usual easy passing opportunities, which may be painful to watch, but do make room for highly divergent strategies, and I think we are once again in for a thrilling Canadian Grand Prix as usual.

  4. If it had rained in China (I don’t remember), then every qualifying, or practice session except Bahrain of cource has had some wet running

  5. Bring it on!

  6. That would be fun! And at least nobody would cry about the tires.

  7. oh no. :( safety car imminent

  8. “Out of the last corner … and Jenson Button WINS the Canadian Grand Prix!”

    Looking forward to this.

    1. @starbuck
      They’re showing the 2011 race on SKY Sports F1 channel tonight at 8 !

      1. Oh man I wish Australia’s Network Ten will broadcast some classic races of the past.
        In other news Arizona may be joining the calendar so there will be 4 in US.

    2. Bad memories. The only thing in the world that could be worse than a RBR victory was… a Macca victory.

    3. Haha you have no idea how loud a cheer there was in my house at the end of that one – that race…it was just…

  9. I reckon its going to be like Brazil last year for the race. Wet qualifying is interesting. But for Brazil it was 40% chance of precipitation

  10. The last two weeks have been very rainy here, but in recent days the ‘chances of precipitation’ haven’t translated into much actual rain. But mostly it’s been fairly unpredictable with quick heavy showers coming in and out, so it could make for a fun race.

  11. Currently it’s raining here. As in previous years we’ll have our webcam up for this year’s Montreal GP – we’re located about 1.5 miles due west of the circuit so any weather heading towards the circuit (including snow which we’ve had in the past two weeks) normally can be seen on the webcam a few minutes before it hits the circuit. We also have some weather radars etc.

    Webcam: http://adrianplatts.com/webcam

  12. Cucamest (@kevincucamest)
    6th June 2013, 21:49

    There is a tropical hurricane in the gulf of Mexico, but by the time it will reach the height of Montreal (this weekend), it will just be a t-storm. The storm is supposed to pass over the Atlantic Ocean with very heavy rain expected for the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. but the rain might just extend enough to reach Montreal and make for a wet race, though most of the rain is forecasted for Saturday.

  13. Who can tell me if Sutil is any good in rain? Thanx Tom

  14. Saturday update: More rain is expected throughout today, not high intensity but quite persistent. Temperatures will stay cool with a high of around 17C. Qualifying looks likely to be wet. During practice yesterday Toro Rosso advised their drivers they would most likely end up qualifying on intermediate tyres.

    Conditions for tomorrow are still set to improve with sunshine breaking through, warmer conditions and a reduced risk of rain.

    1. I’ll add a few seconds onto my pole prediction then…

    2. Race will still be wet but not as bad for Qualifying. I hope come Sunday that there will still be precipitation to make the race even more interesting.

    3. I just came back from biking around the city. We had light rain until about 6am and though it hasn’t rained significantly since, there’s still a lot of standing water on the roads. This is unlikely to disappear quickly as we have a thick layer of low cloud that intersects Mont-Royal about half way up and temps ~14C. They can suck puddles up on the island, but it’s likely to perhaps drain back onto the track in places. Nothing significant incoming on the radar right now.

  15. What is the latest weather details for Montreal on race day particularly for 2pm local time?

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