Strong start for McLaren at Montreal
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Fernando Alonso set fastest times in both of Friday’s free practice sessions for the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal with 1m17.759 in the morning and 1m16.550 in the afternoon. His team mate Lewis Hamilton was second fastest in the first practice with 1m17.967 and third fastest in the second session with 1m17.307. Fernando did 17 and 37 laps respectively whilst Lewis completed 20 and 36 laps.
Fernando Alonso “A good start to our weekend at a challenging circuit. In the first session we limited our running slightly as the track was very dirty and only used one set of tyres, but still emerged fastest. The second session was spent on tyre evaluation and also looking at the brakes and we have made some good progress. I don’t think we will dominate like we did at the last race in Monaco and the track conditions here means that it’s very hard to estimate where our competition is, but so far so good.”
Lewis Hamilton “Today was the first time I had the opportunity to drive at the Montreal circuit and I really enjoyed myself. We had done a lot of work back in the UK with our simulation programme and also I have watched a few of the past races here but you can’t beat the real thing. We worked on set-up, tyre evaluation and also looking at the brakes as this circuit is notoriously hard on the brakes. There were no problems and it looks like we are in good shape.”
Ron Dennis “A troublefree start to our Canadian Grand Prix weekend. The team has worked hard since Monaco on finding further improvements and so far it looks like we could have a competitive weekend. As always on a Friday both drivers focused on general set-up work and tyre evaluation but we also did some work with the brakes as these are a key factor at this particular circuit.”
Norbert Haug “A positive first day which saw us improve step by step. Fernando was fastest in both sessions whilst Lewis ended up second and third respectively, so it looks like both drivers and the technical guys found a good basis for tomorrow’s qualifying.”
