The Île Notre-Dame is an artificial island that was created in the Saint Lawrence River in Montreal to host the Olympic Games rowing competition in 1976. The first Formula 1-race was held in 1978. Previously the race was held at Mosport and the Circuit Mont-Tremblant. The first Canadian F1-GP, the 7th Canadian GP overall, was held in 1967 at Mosport, Chris Amon was the only driver for the Scuderia and came in 6th on his 312 with S/N 0005.
The Circuit Île Notre-Dame was renamed Circuit Gilles Villeneuve after his fatal accident in 1982. Out of his five starts at home Villeneuve was able to win the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix (312T3, #034).
The Scuderia achieved six pole positions to date; four of them provided by Michael Schumacher, two of them led him to success in 1997 and 2000. In 1999 he crashed into the “Wall of Champions”, the pitwall at the beginning of the finishing line with S/N 194, the pitwall was ironically renamed after the race because Schumacher was joined by world champions Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve in the same race. René Arnoux is the second driver of the Scuderia who’s pole position resulted in a race victory (1983, 126 C2/B #064).
The first driver to achieve a Scuderia-win in Canada was Jacky Ickx on #001, a 312B in 1970. His victory was followed by ten further wins. Beside the remarkable Villeneuve victory, Canada provided the only GP-victory of Jean Alesi in 1995 with a 412 T2 (#161). The statistics are dominated by Michael Schumacher again who won the Montreal-race six times, making his victory in 2002 the Scuderia’s 150th F1-victory.
The last victory results from 2004! It was again Michael Schumacher with #239, no pole, no victory ever since. Don’t you think it’s time?