Lewis Hamilton, McLaren (1st, 1m 15.752s):
“It’s great to be back in Montreal, the scene of my first grand prix victory one year ago. We chose not to use our allocation of wet tyres for the majority of the opening session but managed a run on dry tyres towards the end of the morning. In the afternoon, we were able to improve the car on every run - I felt very comfortable with the set-up and balance, particularly when we switched to the option tyre, which allowed me to lean on the car as the track conditions improved. We’ve still got some work to do ahead of qualifying and the race, but we’ve already got some positive running under our belts.”
Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber (2nd, +0.271s):
“We had a very busy afternoon, after losing quite a bit of time in the morning due to the damp track. We ran a very comprehensive programme in the second session, trying a lot of different things on the car’s set-up. The grip level is still very low, which makes the car quite nervous. However, we were also able to do the tyre comparison, so we have a good base to start with for tomorrow.”
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari (3rd, +0.341s):
“I am quite satisfied with this first day of testing. We were always quick. The car turned out to be well balanced right from the morning and I think we can aim for the top spots over the rest of the weekend. From what we have seen today, there is not much difference in the performance of the two types of Bridgestone tyre we have available to us, but the track conditions are bound to change over the next couple of days. At this track, it is very important to have the brakes sorted in the race and we also worked on this.”
Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren (4th, +0.579s):
“Today was a pretty useful day, although I don’t really feel as though I’ve yet found a truly perfect balance. We chose not to carry out too much running this morning, but we were able to start developing the car in the afternoon. We worked hard on set-up, focusing particularly on calming the rear-end, but I have yet to really start attacking the track. However, by the end of the session, I felt we’d come a long way towards resolving our main issues. After we’ve had a good look at the tyres and made some changes ahead of tomorrow morning’s practice session, I think we’ll be in much better shape.”
Felipe Massa, Ferrari (5th, +0.661s):
“My car seemed to suffer some sort of blackout: gradually all the systems shut down and I had to stop at the side of the track. Of course, that’s not good but it’s better to have a problem in free practice than in qualifying or, worse still, in the race! Even if we did not get through everything we wanted to do, this problem won’t cost us anything. From what we could understand today, it is very close between us and our main rivals. As usual on a Friday in Montreal, the track was very dirty and will therefore improve bit by bit as the surface gets rubbered in. I hope I can have a great qualifying and claim a good position on the grid.”
Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber (6th, +0.837s):
“In the morning session I did one installation lap on wet tyres. Luckily towards the end of the session the track dried out and I was able to do some laps on dry tyres. It was enough to gather information for the afternoon and make some set-up changes. In the second session there was always a yellow flag somewhere when I was on fresh tyres, but we did a lot more running and had no technical problems.”
Mark Webber, Red Bull (7th, +0.852s):
“A reasonable day. As always this track is quite challenging for set up and also for the comfort that you have on the brakes, so we’ve got a bit of work to do. I had a small off on the last run in Turn 6, but managed to get back onto the track, so no problems. Apart from that, it was an uneventful day, now we’ll use the data we’ve gained to get ready for tomorrow.”
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