09/06/2017
NEWS STORY
Lewis topped the morning session with Valtteri just 0.237s shy in P3. Lewis ended the day with the second fastest time in the afternoon session, with Valtteri fourth quickest.
Both drivers ran the SuperSoft and UltraSoft compound tyre in FP1. Lewis then used the SuperSoft and UltraSoft rubber in FP2, while Valtteri ran on the Soft and UltraSoft tyres.
Lewis Hamilton: It's been a pretty good first day for the team. The Ferraris are looking fast here and as the times show, it's super close at the top right now. I feel like we are still just a little bit behind the red cars at this early stage of the weekend, but we'll be pushing as hard as we can to close the gap ahead of qualifying on Saturday. After a tough weekend in Monaco, the main thing is that our car is already feeling a lot better around Montreal. It should be game on for the rest of the weekend.
Valtteri Bottas: After Monaco it was really nice to start this weekend with a positive feeling from the car. I think that we are looking quite competitive here, but it's only practice. After practice two, it's clear we still have a bit more work to do with the UltraSoft tyre to get more laptime out of those. But the car felt good on the Soft tyres that I tried. We'll focus on finding that edge of extra performance from the UltraSoft and fine-tuning the set-up overnight. Otherwise I really enjoyed it and had good fun out there, but it's the next two days that count.
James Allison, Technical Director: We had a trouble-free day with both cars which allowed us to get through our planned practice programme. As always on the first day in Canada, conditions were tricky owing to the low grip levels and the circuit seemed particularly dirty today. That factor, plus the number of cars on a short lap, made it difficult to put together consistent and meaningful running. Nevertheless, what we have seen so far suggests that we will have another ding-dong battle on our hands, like at the first six races - and it is very hard to predict who will come up with the goods on Sunday.