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2005 Canadian Formula 1 Grand Prix
What the teams and drivers said - Friday

Team and Driver Quotes following Friday Practice Sessions

(selected team quotes, for a full team and driver preview click on the team name)

McLaren Mercedes ( Pedro de la Rosa - 1st, Juan Pablo Montoya - 4th, Kimi Raikkonen - 5th )

RON DENNIS
"The circuit here in Montreal traditionally tests the limits of the car's braking system. As a result today carries with it not only the necessity to chose the optimum Michelin race tyre but also spend sufficient time with high fuel loads to verify the durability of the brakes., Bearing these issues in mind our performance so far is satisfactory with no problems incurred by either of the three drivers other than high levels of traffic throughout practice."

Full Team and Driver Practice Report  Back to Top

Toyota ( Ricardo Zonta - 2nd, Ralf Schumacher - 9th, Jarno Trulli - 11th )

Mike Gascoyne - Technical Director Chassis
"That was another reasonably productive day. We had no mechanical issues on the cars and we completed the programme on all three cars. Ricardo was working on tyre comparison, carrying out a performance evaluation in the first session and two long runs in the second session. Both race drivers were reasonably happy with the balance of the cars, we looked reasonably competitive and we have plenty of data for making the tyre choice."

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Renault ( Fernando Alonso - 3rd, Giancarlo Fisichella - 6th )

Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering
"A reasonably normal Friday programme for us. We didn't run too much in the first session as we felt the new track surface needed some rubber on it. But we made up for this in the afternoon with some long runs. As always on this track, traffic is a problem, but we gathered some useful data and everything looks in reasonable shape for the weekend."

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BAR Honda ( Jenson Button - 7th, Takuma Sato - 8th )

GIL DE FERRAN, SPORTING DIRECTOR "As usual on Fridays we concentrated mostly on tyre choice, nevertheless we were quite satisfied with the results from free practice. Both cars ran reliably and the drivers seem reasonably happy with them, however there are still some characteristics in the car balance that we hope to improve for tomorrow."

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Ferrari ( Rubens Barrichello - 10th, Michael Schumacher - 16th  )

Jean Todt:
“As usual, today’s work centred on fine tuning the set-up of the cars and evaluating the two types of tyre available to us. Although, we have to take into account the unknown factor of what fuel load everyone is running, it is clear we were expecting better. Now we have to study today’s data carefully.”

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Williams BMW ( Mark Webber - 12th, Nick Heidfeld - 15th )

Sam Michael (Technical Director, WilliamsF1):
We have had a good day as we were working through our programme for the race. We achieved long runs on both tyres, which has given us good information to make our tyre choice with Michelin. We have also recorded plenty of information regarding the brakes which is one of the most important things in Montréal. Obviously a lot of rubber is going down and the track is going faster. However, the new track surface does not make a big difference. Now we will look for the best set-up for tomorrow's qualifying.

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Sauber ( Jacques Villeneuve - 13th, Felipe Massa - 14th )

Peter Sauber (Team Principal): "At first glance 13th and 14th places after the first day are nothing special, but if you take out the Friday drivers and look at the gap between us and the front runners it is clear that we have reduced the deficit. Now it is crucial to make the right decisions on tyre choice and set-up so that we can qualify well tomorrow."

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Red Bull ( David Coulthard - 17th, Christian Klien - 18th, Scott Speed - 23rd )

Günther Steiner, Technical Director:
“We need to look at why Scott suffered his incident and will be analysing the data we get from his car. At the moment, the overriding factor is that we’re not fast enough. We need to analyse why this is and try to do something about it before tomorrow."

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Jordan ( Narain Karthikeyan - 20th, Tiago Monteiro - 22nd )

ADRIAN BURGESS, SPORTING DIRECTOR
“We got through much of the programme today even though Tiago had a technical problem this morning which restricted his running and compromised his times a little bit. Narain had a silly spin at the end of the second session, which spoilt his last run. However, we were able to collect a lot of data and we are in a reasonable shape for tomorrow.”

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Minardi ( Patrick Friesacher - 19th, Christijan Albers - 21st )

PAUL STODDART, Team Principal, Minardi Cosworth

“Considering the resurfacing of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and the fact the track was always going to be ‘green’ on the first day of the race weekend, it’s pleasing to be competitive with the Jordans and within two-tenths of a second of one of the Red Bulls. All in all, today’s sessions went well, especially considering neither Christijan nor Patrick has competed here before. We look forward to making further progress tomorrow in preparation for Sunday’s race.”

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Bridgestone

Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager, said: “The new track surface was quite dusty this morning and although tyre performance was reasonable, it did mean that the cars were sliding a lot. This also continued through to the second session and consequently we did see some tyre graining today. However, we believe that as the circuit cleans up and as more rubber is laid down, the graining should reduce. Meanwhile, the teams have also been working on their car set-ups for this race and once we have checked the tyres which were used today we shall be making our recommendations in order to assist them further.”

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Michelin

Pierre Dupasquier, Michelin motorsport director “It is difficult to assess the complete picture after Friday’s free practice sessions, because the test and race drivers have different routines and objectives. What is clear, however, is that Michelin’s three tyre compounds worked well in challenging, humid conditions and several of our partner teams look set for a very competitive weekend.”
“The organisers in Montreal deserve credit for the excellent job they have done with their new track surface. The circuit has evolved significantly, which was to be expected, but it has done so in a consistent fashion and conditions have been remarkably stable. The pre-race preparatory work has been absolutely first-class.”

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