How Canadian Grand Prix prepared for early F1 return through "rough" winter

The Canadian Grand Prix promoters say that their venue is ready for this weekend’s Formula 1 race despite a “rough winter” making it even harder to meet this year’s earlier date.

Due a calendar reshuffle by F1 that created an unbroken run of European races from Monaco to Madrid the Montreal event was moved forward to May 24th from its traditional June date, and thus up to four weeks earlier than usual.

By way of comparison the four races held since the two-year COVID-19 break took place on June 19th, 18th, 9th and 15th respectively.

A huge amount of effort is required to ready the venue given that many of the facilities, including the grandstands and team hospitality buildings, are not permanent.

The long Quebec winters always make that process hard, and this year the earlier race date meant that the work had to commence in the autumn.

“We are a Nordic country, so we started our build in the fall,” said Sandrine Garneau, the event’s Chief Operating Officer Brand and Strategy, when asked by Crash.net about the impact of the weather.

“Without having our build started in the fall and being able to start most of our scaffolding structures, it would have been very difficult for us to deliver this, given the winter that we had.

“There were people with torches in the Olympic basin to be able to melt the ice to be able to put in the anchoring for the team hospitalities and the paddock.

“So it was a very rough winter. It started about mid-November, which caught us a little bit off-guard, and then lasted until March.”

Garneau noted that the early start had paid dividends, but conceded that extra help was required.

“The advantage that we were able to start most of our scaffolding build,” she said. “Which meant that in our timeline we had allowed ourselves for a two-week grace period for all finishing touches.

“We did have some freezing rain, we did have a little bit of rougher weather, a lot of cold temperatures as well.

“At one point, we did need to put in more effort, and to bring in more crews, and nights and weekends to be able to bridge that gap.

“I’m happy to say that, as of three or four days ago, that gap has been bridged, and we’re now in a very good position to be able to deliver an optimal site by Tuesday.”

She added: “We’re now in very, very good shape. We put all the efforts on site to be able to deliver an optimal experience. The leaves have started peeping, as well as the fruit trees, so it’s a very nice season in Montreal.”