cannot say what will happen in the Canadian GP, makes the race a
voyage “into the unknown.” The Montreal race is expected to be
heavily wet according to current forecasts, with only a few drivers
and teams having experience of the 2026 cars in wet weather
conditions, none of which have come in competition. Pirelli has
advised teams to start on the full wet tyres owing to concerns
about the low air temperatures making it tricky to generate tyre
temperature on a cold track, with no high-speed corners to generate
heat. It is not just the tyres which are a cause for concern, with
many drivers and teams having no experience of running the
2026-spec power units in wet conditions. It is a combination that
McLaren’s Piastri, due to start fourth behind George Russell, Kimi
Antonelli and team-mate Lando Norris , believes is a “large element
of the unknown.” “I’ve not heard amazing things about the power
units. I mean, they are tricky enough in the dry to be consistent,
let alone in the rain, so both will be a big problem,” Piastri told
media, including ApexF1 , about the tyre-power unit
combination “I think the power unit will just be a lap time loss;
it could be quite big, but obviously getting the tyres into the
window or not is the risk factor, which is significantly higher.
“So we’ll see what we get in terms of a wet race. “We did a lot of
preparation in Miami, trying to understand [running the power unit
in wet conditions] and I think the conclusion was we don’t know
what’s going to happen, and when you’ve got a few hundred, if not
thousands, of the best engineers in the world that don’t know
what’s going to happen, it’s an interesting place to be in. “So I’m
sure it’s the same up and down the grid, but there is definitely
going to be a large element of the unknown.”
