23/06/2006
NEWS STORY
Bridgestone's five teams had a busy day's work on day one of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend today. Running on a track which is visited only once a year by F1, and which is used very infrequently, the teams had a lot of work to do setting up their cars and starting their tyre comparison runs over the course of two, one-hour long practice sessions. Conditions were initially cool this morning but warmed up during the day. Of the Bridgestone runners, it was the WilliamsF1 team drivers who set the pace with Alex Wurz, the team's third driver, completing his customary high number of laps as he carried out the bulk of the team's tyre testing work. MF1 Racing's Christijan Albers had a good second session today while Super Aguri's third driver Sakon Yamamoto completed 55 laps in only his second run in the car.
Hisao Suganuma, Bridgestone Motorsport Technical Manager: The track was very dirty this morning and the temperatures quite cold so the teams were faced with low grip conditions in the first of the day's practice sessions. The sun came out in the afternoon session and the track temperature increased, resulting in an improvement in the track conditions and the Bridgestone tyres starting to come into their ideal working range. We saw a little graining which resulted in a lack of grip and consistency of the times but as the track rubbers in over the weekend the graining will reduce, improving performances. Both soft and hard specifications are still potential candidates for Sunday afternoon's race and so far we have not experienced any heat durability problems. Some teams experienced a little higher wear than expected but that should also improve as conditions improve. The time gap between the top and bottom teams is slightly smaller than usual and this is probably down to the circuit configuration and conditions which are making it quite difficult for the top teams to use the full power potential of their cars.
To check out our Canada practice picture gallery, click here