10 June: Canadian Grand Prix - Friday Practice Report - McLaren Mercedes
Team McLaren Mercedes drivers Pedro de la Rosa, Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen finished today's practice sessions for the
Canadian Grand Prix first, fourth and fifth fastest overall. Pedro set a time of 1:14.662, Juan Pablo did 1:15.679 and Kimi 1:15.679
around the 4.361 KM Gilles Villeneuve Circuit.
JUAN PABLO MONTOYA "I'm quite pleased with today's practice. The
car is behaving really well and it's looking pretty good. There is still some time to find in the last sector but we will work on
that tomorrow morning. We have been evaluating our Michelin tyres and it's always difficult to make the decision as you have to look
at both consistency and speed but we have some good data to work with. I think we have the pace to qualify well and finish on the
podium. It's a lot hotter out there than normal here in Canada which makes the tyres work harder but that should hopefully be an
advantage for us."
KIMI RAIKKONEN "We had a trouble free start to the weekend. I'm still not 100 percent
happy with the set-up of the car but we can work on that tomorrow morning and I'm sure we will be strong again. It's still quite
bumpy out there but grip wise everything is fine. We are aiming to qualify on the first row and do what we can to win so we look
forward to the rest of the weekend."
PEDRO DE LA ROSA "My main priority today was to evaluate the Michelin
tyres to gather as much data as possible. As the track has been resurfaced since last year and it's a lot hotter than normal it's
even more for us important to gather as much information as possible. The surface was constantly evolving which provides us with a
real challenge. However I believe we have found a lot of useful data and hopefully Kimi and Juan Pablo should have a strong race
weekend."
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."
NORBERT
HAUG "A good start to the weekend when the team went through the planned programme. Kimi, Juan Pablo and Pedro compared
both types of Michelin tyres available and worked on set-ups for the race"
