Canadian GP Friday free practice notes

Canadian GP - A Grand Entrance

By Erica Southey - Motorsport.com

It was a battle for who could take their car apart in the most spectacular fashion in the quickest time. Emerging the clear winner was, local hero, Jacques Villeneuve who made a grand entrance that certainly caught the attention of all present. In first free practice, he slammed his BAR into the wall completely losing the front wing and wheel while in second free practice it was Heinz-Herald Frentzen's turn to bring the car into a full spin. Of-course this was not good enough, so he retried skimming the pitwall just seconds before the end of the session was announced. Sorry Frentzen, Canadian Ace Jacques Villeneuve is a professional at this. Eau Rouge ring any bells?

The top spot was reserved for McLaren only, with Coulthard dominating in the first session and Mika Hakkinen taking honours in the second session. At Ferrari the picture looked quite odd with Rubens Barrichello topping his teammate Michael Schumacher in both sessions. The second session is probably one, Schumacher Sr would rather forget not featuring in the top ten, while the BMW Williams of Juan-Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher were prominently featuring in the top ten.20

For the first time in many free practice sessions, Montoya was not hampered by serious mechanical failure and made it to the end of both sessions. Montoya made no secret of what his intentions were, because the Colombian was flying around the track, matching and bettering times in various sectors. Eddie Irvine on the other hand, thought he'd drive the point of the third podium finish at the Monaco GP home with some people by putting the Jaguar in third position on the log in second free practice. Are the leaping cats catching up with the top runners?

Nick Heidfeld constantly kept in the top ten with teammate Kimi Raikkonen matching the pace in second free practice. Completely off pace were the Benettons of Giancarlo Fischella and Jenson Button who is running a good engine that showed promise of moving the cars further up the ranks. Talking off being off pace - suprisingly low in ranks was the Arrows of Jos Verstappen who had a nightmarish first free practice only finishing one lap followed by Tarso Marques in the Minardi who only managed only three in both sessions. The reason for both the afore-mentioned was not clear. Verstappen managed a better second session by finishing it, but not making it to his usual mid field position.

Is going off under breaking a problem Williams need to worry about? Will McLaren continue this good show for Qualifying and the race? Are we going to see another exciting battle between Schumacher Sr and Montoya?

Tomorrow's qualifying session will be crucial for the top runners, especially for Jacques Villeneuve who said that this is the most important GP of his career.