MONTREAL // The Wall of Champions added a new name to its growing list of victims yesterday as Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull Racing's world champion, suffered his second serious shunt in the space of a month during his first flying lap at the Canadian Grand Prix's morning practice session.
Vettel, who ploughed into a barrier in Turkey while exiting the challenging Turn Eight five weeks ago, approached the chicane at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve too quickly and ran wide before careering over the track kerbs and crashing nose-first into the safety barrier. The front wing became detached and much of the right side of his RB7 appeared severely damaged.
"I hit the kerb, slid off the track and hit the wall. I'm fine," Vettel said over the team radio.
The 23 year old, who became the youngest world champion in Formula One history when he triumphed at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last November, joins a pantheon of former drivers' title winners who have succumbed to Montreal's Wall of Champions. Damon Hill, Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher have all been involved in shunts at the circuit's final corner.
Nico Rosberg, who has also crashed into the wall during his career, had no such misfortune yesterday as he finished fastest in the morning session. But the Mercedes-GP driver, whose teammate Schumacher was third fastest behind Ferrari's Fernando Alonso, warned that unless his team can rectify their tyre degradation during the race, a win tomorrow is unlikely.
"Our car just destroys the tyres in the race," Rosberg said before first practice. "It has generally been a bit of an issue this year. Even in Malaysia and Istanbul, we qualified third and then really struggled with rear tyres in the race. So it has been a general problem.
"This is why it is going to be important for us here because this is a track that is very difficult with rear tyres. It will be important that we make some changes so we don't get similar problems, and we improve the situation."
Circuit Gilles Villeneuve provides one of the lowest grip levels on the calendar and Vettel was forced to delay his participation in the first session when his car suffered brake problems. The German will take encouragement from his shunt earlier in the season at Istanbul Park's illustrious Turn Eight, also during first practice.
As he exited the challenging bend, he lost control of his car and careered into the barrier, yet his engineers were able to rebuild his car and get him out again by the afternoon. During the Saturday qualifying session the following afternoon, he secured pole position and later converted it into his maiden Turkish title. He will be hoping for a similar outcome this weekend, starting with today's final practice and qualifying.
