So it is that Formula One leaves the European continent with a completely different set of expectations to those it held just a fortnight ago.
For some, this weekend presents little more than a return to damage limitation mode.
Red Bull Racing’s temporary reprieve from power circuits has now ended, and its best result of the season at chassis-dependent Monaco feels like but a blip on the radar.
Its difficult season is likely to only continue at the Canadian Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which demands power Red Bull’s ailing Renault engines simply cannot deliver.
But while performance in 2015 is a world away from that of the team’s golden era of the last six seasons, the battle between teammate Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat remains tense.
Kvyat has had a difficult transition into the team after a single season with junior squad Toro Rosso, and clouds quickly gathered over his future with the energy drinks brand in light of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz’s outstanding opening performances.
The Russian lifted in Monaco, however, and put barely a foot wrong all weekend on the way to squeezing out Ricciardo at the first turn to snatch fourth place from him.
For Ricciardo the pain was twice as bad, with the team putting him on a strategy that allowed him to gamble for his second successive Monaco podium only to force him to give fourth place back to his teammate when he was unable to do so by the final lap.
The 2014 Canadian Grand Prix was Ricciardo’s first F1 victory, and in 2015 it is an opportunity to reassert his ownership of the team.
The reassertion of dominance is a long and slow tale for McLaren, which similarly holds little hope for a decent result after scoring its first points of the season in Monaco.
Honda’s F1 return continues to be a struggle, but Canada will mark its first significant engine upgrade of the season.
The Japanese engine supplier has used two of its allocated nine development “tokens”, meaning it has upgraded approximately 7 per cent of the engine.
With its two championship-winning drivers having recorded victories around this circuit, and with both enduring trying seasons fighting at the unfamiliar back of the grid, Canada is the moment for Honda to prove it is moving in the right direction.
But the need for redemption is most salient in the number one Mercedes garage, where Lewis Hamilton continues to brood on the mistake he and his strategists made in Monaco that cost him victory.
Hamilton looked good to begin his sprint to his third career title with a dominant pole in Monaco, but the race loss has rattled him and his momentum.
This story is familiar: it was at the same race last year that Hamilton’s run of four successive victories was halted by teammate Nico Rosberg, who Hamilton continues to believe cheated his way to pole.
Canada was a sorry second race, during which he was forced into retirement after failing to manage his overheating brakes, from where he watched Rosberg take second place.
The Canadian Grand Prix is a circuit Hamilton feels matches his driving ethic like none other on the calendar. It rewards his late-braking flair and natural feel for the car, and in doing so conjures the myth of the man from which it draws its name — the uncompromising Gilles Villeneuve, one of the sport’s quickest ever drivers.
The Briton’s Canadian record is one of booms and busts. For Hamilton it is finish on the podium or fail to finish — only one will do this weekend to fortify his loosening grip on the championship lead.
With the glitz and glamour of Monaco behind them, Canada is the time for Formula One’s teams and drivers to reassert themselves as they slog their way into the midseason.