There’s hardly anything in common between the Montreal and Monaco layouts, yet Sebastian Vettel sees Red Bull Racing keeping up the momentum it enjoyed in the Principality thanks to Daniel Ricciardo.

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve demands engine and braking power to cope with its long straights and slow corners, theoretically putting Ferrari and Mercedes at an advantage.

But the presence of Pirelli’s hypersoft tyre in its selection coupled with the impressive way in which Red Bull’s RB14 handled the rubber’s degradation – not to mention the benefit of a Renault engine upgrade – incites Vettel to view his former team as a contender for another victory on Sunday.

“I think first of all they had a better tyre wear than other people in Monaco and obviously that could help them here,” said the German on Thursday.

“This track is different again and a different layout but I don’t know what they are having or not – and what they have brought for updates and so on.

“I think we need to wait and see, but I expect it to be close just like the other races and hopefully Ferrari (are) in front.”

Verstappen: I might headbutt anyone who keeps asking me to change!

Monaco was lambasted by many for its boring spectacle two weeks ago, but Vettel selfishly wouldn’t mind another procession on Sunday if it means the red cars are in front.

“It’s normal that every now and then you have a boring race. Monaco is not the best race to overtake, but it should be different here so let’s see,” adds the four-time world champion who has won only once in Montreal, with Red bull back in 2013.

“If we have a boring race on Sunday, having the cars running one and two, we would still be happy with that, but that’s a long way from now.

“We’ll see (if we can win). So far we’ve had a good car on the straights. We have a very efficient car this year.

“It should help us on this type of track. The tyres will be key, make sure they work and that they last. A couple of key points, but I like the track, I like being here.”

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Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel admitted that he simply pushed too hard in his final qualifying run on Saturday afternoon at Le Castellet.

Vettel had experienced a lacklustre day on Friday, finishing both practice sessions in fifth place. At past events he’s been able to improve things overnight, but the loss of final practice to heavy rain meant that wasn’t possible this week.

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Even so, he was just a tenth off Lewis Hamilton’s time in Q2 and believed that he still had a good chance to snatch pole position in the final top ten pole shoot-out round at Circuit Paul Ricard.

Vettel went third fastest with his first Q3 run, and when the light drizzle that had plagued the session eased off he saw his chance to go for the top spot.

“After the first attempt I saw that we are maybe there,” he said afterwards. “I knew that maybe with really amazing lap I maybe had a chance. But it didn’t come.

“I tried to push everything in the last attempt,” he continued. “But looking back I pushed too hard.

“You try a little bit too much here and there, you lose the tyre, the car then it slides and you lose the line.

“You end up losing time rather than gaining,” he admitted. “It’s a difficult one to get the right balance.”

Vettel ended up almost four tenths off Hamilton’s final pole position time. But even so, he felt that he had proved that the Ferrari had the pace to be a challenger in race trim.

“For tomorrow I think we have a good chance,” he insisted. “I’m happy because the car should be good in the race. It was a good session.”

• Hamilton and Bottas lock-out the front row at Le Castellet

While Vettel had once again come alive in qualifying, his team mate Kimi Raikkonen once again found it difficult to sustain his form when it really mattered.

The Finn will be sixth on the grid tomorrow, and ended up over a second slower than Hamilton in the final round.

“I don’t know,” Raikkonen replied when asked what had happened in Q3. “Obviously I was pretty disappointed with the end result. I was feeling fine until the last qualifying.

“It was pretty straightforward until the last qualifying,” he continued. “And then the first run was quite good until turn 11, where it was a bit damp from the rain. After that we never really got any laps.”

Regardless of their qualifying fortunes, both drivers had been delighted to see the crowds turn out in force on Saturday to support the first French Grand Prix in a decade.

“I raced at the last French Grand Prix, but it’s amazing to see so many people, the excitement,” Vettel said.

“Obviously the weather today was a bit comme ci, comme ça, but it’s amazing to see so much support, so many fans for Ferrari as well.

“I think for all of us it’s nice to be here,” he said, adding that it was so different from his previous visits to Paul Ricard where it’s been used for test sessions.

“Normally this place is a bit grey, but now there’s a lot of colour, there’s a lot of people, so it really comes alive!”

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Lewis Hamilton has revealed that the fear of losing McLaren’s crucial support during his formative years in motorsport forced him to leave no stone unturned in his quest for an F1 drive.

The four-time world champion was picked up at the age of 13 as a young karter by McLaren who then included the teenager in its young driver programme.

Financially supported, mentored and groomed by the Woking-based outfit, Hamilton successfully progressed up the junior ranks before reaching the big time in 2007.

However, the run up the ladder to the pinnacle of motorsport was a source of constant worry for Hamilton and his father Anthony, who supported his son’s passion from the outset and looked after his affairs, as the pair obsessed over their relationship with McLaren and the massive prospects it represented.

“I was signed by McLaren but every day was a worry that I could lose it,” Hamilton told F1‘s Tom Clarkson in an in-depth interview podcasted on the official F1 website.

“My dad and I – particularly my dad – would spend just hours and hours just communicating with McLaren just trying to make sure ‘Are we doing everything you guys want us to do, is there anything more we can do?’, just trying to go over and above to make sure…

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Hamilton would understand Alonso quitting ‘wrongly configured’ F1

“Because we had to be squeaky clean, you know. We were the only black family in the sport. It was by no means an easy route,” he added.

“We were very very lucky that we got funding, which we wouldn’t have made to Formula 1 without, we just couldn’t find the money.

“But, we still had to navigate, we had to make sure that every weekend we crushed it.

“We had to make sure that every single person that we came in contact with, be it with the team, the sponsors, whatever it may be, they would go back to the big boss and they’re like ‘Wow, these guys are switched on, these guys are the best people, they’re so kind…’ Just making sure that you’ve left no stone unturned, so that when it comes to the day when they say ‘So, who should we put in the car?’, there is no question or doubt in their mind.”

Reflecting on his twelve years at the top of the sport, the successes and the failures, Hamilton acknowledged the privileges bestowed upon him, but also the heartbreaking moments.

“Formula 1 has given me a life, given me a purpose, which is pretty special,” he told Clarkson.

“But F1 has also broken me. It’s broken me and built me, broken me and built me.

“When you go through it, you put so much into it, it breaks your heart and kills you when you fail. When you stumble, when everyone’s watching when you stumble.

“But, when you get back up and when you succeed it lifts you up. You fall and you break a bone, you heal and you keep going. That’s what I mean by it.

“It’s the passion for what you do and the will to succeed. It’s just something that’s hard to express but everyone has it in some shape or form.

“Formula 1 has helped me grow and I have gained a lot more confidence within myself. What it has given me is the platform to be able to do things I want to do, live the life I could only have dreamed of.”

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Zak Brown believes that Red Bull is upset about the prospect of losing Toro Rosso technical director James Key, but the McLaren boss is adamant the British engineer will be heading to Woking sooner rather than later.

Following McLaren’s announcement last week of Key’s recruitment, Red Bull’s Helmut Marko responded by saying that Toro Rosso’s lead engineer had a contract running until 2020 with the Faenza-based outfit.

The opposing forces are now engaged in a stand-off. However, a confident Brown is sticking to his guns.

Toro Rosso at odds with McLaren on James Key’s appointment!

“We have hired James Key, he will become our technical director,” said Brown in Hungary.

“We do not have a start date. He does have a current agreement with Toro Rosso, of course, we respect contractual situations.

“Toro Rosso and Red Bull are understandably upset that they’re losing a great talent like James Key.

“He’s recognised as one of the best technical directors up and down the pitlane, so we’re very excited to have him join us in due course.”

©ToroRosso

Haas’ Guenther Steiner believes F1 should impose a cost cap on customer engines to ensure all teams pay a reasonable price for their power units in the future.

Formula 1 and the sport’s manufacturers are currently in the final stages of defining the engine rules that shall be introduced in 2021, with hopefully an outcome that will result in a cheaper, more affordable power unit for all.

However, Steiner sees the imposition of a flat rate as the best way forward for customer teams.

“I don’t want to tell them [the manufacturers] what to do, they know what to do,” Steiner told Motorsport.com.

“What I would like to have is a cost cap on the money we have to pay the engine manufacturer, that that is set. And then they can do what they want.

“If they want to make an engine out of gold, then we get it for set price, feel free to do so.

“That is more because we don’t have the expertise to get involved, V6 one turbo or two turbos, MGU-H, as long as we are sure that there is a supply and the cost of the supply is controlled whatever money we can agree on, we are happy.

“We don’t want to get involved with one or two turbo because for me, we don’t produce one.”

Carey – 2021 regulations in ‘final details and compromise’ phase

While Formula 1’s roadmap for the future has yet to be set in stone, Renault’s Cyril Abiteboul says the sport’s manufacturers are now all on the same page with regard to keeping the current engine format intact.

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Liberty Media and the FIA had initially proposed a simpler platform, stripped of its MGU-H component in order to reduce costs, improve reliability and attract independent engine manufacturers.

F1’s four manufacturers have argued however that a new engine design would only drive costs up, while they also underlined the fact that no new entrant had committed to entering the sport in 2021.

“I think we are talking about details right now but I think in general we agree on the target, we agree it is better to keep the existing platform, and we agree that we can make a better job with the existing platform,” said Abiteboul.

“In our opinion, we still accept the fact that we need to improve the power unit for other reasons, mainly for the show, for the race, for the customer teams, for the manufacturers in terms of cost also.

“We accept all of those objectives, and I think, and frankly we praise that, the focus is how we can make change to the existing platform, to make it better, to make it deliver against those targets that we continue to agree.”

Targeted as a main culprit of cost and excessive sophistication, the controversial MGU-H element will therefore remain an intricate component of the power unit of the future.

“We believe that MGU-H is a good device for F1, which is a sport where you want to be in a position to constantly attack, and if you didn’t have the MGU-H then you’d really have a problem with the sustainability of the power,” added Abiteboul.

“It would be silly to have used the MGU-H for a number of years and actually do the opposite of what the car makers will be doing.

“Maybe we can simplify the way that the MGU-H is working, maybe we can simplify the way that the MGU-K is being used, the way the energy deploys, the way the energy can contribute to the show rather than removing something from the show.

“Maybe there can be some element of standardisation on the way that the energy is managed, that would be good for the race, that would close the gap down a little, and that’s typically the sort of thing that will help with enforceability.”

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