The weather continues to be
the talking point of the paddock in Montreal for this weekend's
Candian Grand Prix, as more rain soaked the track for the first
free practice period on Saturday. It was a Bridgestone field day,
with Fernando Alonso's fourth placed Renault the only Michelin-shod
car in the top seven. Rubens Barrichello led the way once again
for Ferrari.
Ferrari dominated the session, just like
it did in yesterday's wet first qualifying session. The track got
slightly less wet as the free practice period went along, but you
could hardly say that it dried out. Barrichello was on the money,
however, outpacing team-mate Michael Schumacher by three-tenths
of a second.
The rest were in a different league. Local
hero Jacques Villeneuve was third fastest for BAR-Honda, but was
1.454s in arrears of Barrichello. Alonso was an impressive fourth,
the only Michelin runner at the sharp end of the field, and he was
followed by Jenson Button (BAR), Nick Heidfeld (Sauber) and Giancarlo
Fisichella (Jordan).
Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren was the second best
Michelin-shod car in eighth, ahead of Antonio Pizzonia, who spun
his Jaguar at Turn 4 midway through the session. Jarno Trulli's
Renault was 10th fastest, ahead of Ralf Schumacher's Williams-BMW.
Heinz-Harald Frentzen was 12th fastest, but
planted his Sauber in the Turn 2 tyrewall. Yesterday's hero Ralph
Firman also had a few grassy excursions on the way to 13th. Olivier
Panis almost took a visit to 'Champion's Wall' on the exit of the
final corner, but just avoided damaging his Toyota. He was 18th,
behind Justin Wilson's Minardi – even though that lost part
of its engine cover during the session.
Regular
frontrunners David Coulthard (McLaren) and Juan Pablo Montoya (Williams)
were a lowly 15th and 16th respectively, and both must be hoping
for a change of weather as well as fortune.
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