11/06/2004

Grand Prix of Canada - Free Practice Report

Panasonic Toyota Racing enjoyed a positive opening day in Canada as the Grand Prix circus crossed the Atlantic for back-to-back races on consecutive weekends in Montreal and Indianapolis.

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve named after the late legendary French-Canadian driver who won this race in front of his home crowd in 1978 is the first real low downforce venue on the 2004 calendar and prospects look good for the Toyota team. Ricardo Zonta (1m14.871s) Cristiano da Matta (1m15.146s) and Olivier Panis (1m15.538s) finished the two Friday free practice sessions in seventh eighth and 13th positions respectively.

Zonta achieved his strong showing despite suffering from the effects of flu and was pleased with progress made throughout the day.

"We made some damper changes and improved the car quite a lot over the kerbs where we had some problems in the first session he explained. We also found good traction and I managed to do a lot of good tyre comparison work. I felt that I could have improved the car even more if I'd had time. At the end of the day I think that perhaps there was another 0.3s to be found."

Da Matta added: "This is a tough track on brakes and engines and it is important to be able to ride the kerbs well. That has been something that has hurt us in the past but I think that when you go to medium or low downforce tracks it is easier to improve the problems. The aerodynamic influence is less important. I was not very happy with the car in the first session but we made some good improvements and the second session ran very smoothly."

Panis meanwhile was least happy of the three drivers: "You have to feel that you have a stable car underneath you in order to be able to attack the lap here in Canada and I have to say that my TF104 wasn't giving me the utmost confidence today. The traffic was also bad again and some drivers really do have to realise that cars have mirrors!"

It was very close at the top of the combined time Montreal time sheets with Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Michael Schumacher setting the pace with a lap in 1m14.013s ahead of Takuma Sato's Lucky Strike BAR Honda on 1m14.086s. Rubens Barrichello (1m14.291s) was third quickest with the second Ferrari ahead of Fernando Alonso's Mild Seven Renault (1m14.426s) Anthony Davidson's BAR Honda (1m14.519s) and Kimi Raikkonen's West McLaren Mercedes (1m14.581s).