[sameerrao]

James Allen's comments

FRIDAY FORM GUIDE Friday practice in Montreal emphasised once again just what a demanding track the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is. And as James Allen explains, expect drivers, cars and tyres to be pushed to the absolute limit this weekend in what he expects to be the most unpredictable race of the year so far. Montreal is a really tough examination of a car and driver. The track is low in grip and takes time to rubber in. Off-line it is treacherously slippery and if you do go off-line most of the track is lined with walls. Hit or even glance one of those and you bend the suspension as many drivers did today. The cars take a real beating over the kerbs and it is the hardest race of the year on brakes, with four big stops on every lap. Then there is the chaos of the safety car, which is deployed here more often than anywhere else. This can catch out even a dominant car if it comes at the wrong moment and the order in qualifying is unlikely to be the order at the end of the race. Tyre management This year the race is going to be made even more tricky by the tyre choice. Judging from what we saw today the graining (surface rubber ripping off the tyre) was bad and the degradation (drop in lap time) is pretty severe – over the course of four laps on the super-soft tyre Raikkonen’s lap times went from 1m18.2s to 1m19.2s. So if you factor in the fuel burned over the four laps, the tyre lost 1.3s of performance in four laps! Managing the tyres on Sunday will therefore be the key to doing well. Bridgestone decided to go very aggressive on the tyres this weekend, bringing the soft and super-soft from the range. At the start of the year the plan was to use the super-soft only in Monaco but over the course of testing Bridgestone found that the super-soft would be worth trying in Montreal and at Budapest, both tracks where the grip level is notoriously low. The problem, according to one driver I spoke to, is that the super-soft tyres this year have a casing which is quite old technology and it doesn’t work the compound as the 2006 casings used to. There is no doubt that over a single flying lap the super-soft is faster and so we will see everyone using it in qualifying, as in Monaco. But the soft is a more consistent race tyre, so that will be the one most people use over two of the three stints. The battle resumes Alonso looks very fast and he is the man to beat on Sunday, but his margin today of 0.8s over Hamilton is exaggerated. Alonso did his usual trial run on 30kg of fuel to simulate the conditions at the end of qualifying tomorrow. His 1m16.5s was very impressive and in other runs he did a total of four laps faster than Raikkonen’s best in the Ferrari. Massa popped in at the end with a quick lap, but we don’t know how much fuel he had in the car. If he was doing the same programme as Alonso then Ferrari are in trouble in qualifying. It’s always hard to say. Ferrari were chasing it at bit early on but they found the sweet spot on set-up as the day progressed. I’m not sure what the balance of power will be like on Sunday, but the Ferrari does manage its tyres very well over the long runs, so that will help them. But in general I think that the McLaren is the faster car at the moment. Lewis did not take the fuel out and set his times on a higher load. He was learning this track today and trying not to hit any walls. He came through well and matched Alonso’s times for most of the day. I’m not sure that he will beat Alonso this weekend as this is a particular circuit. I still think Indy is his best chance. Toyota's troubles Toyota are very concerned tonight about the double suspension breakage on Trulli’s car. He twice broke the front suspension on the kerb at turn eight. He had not hit the wall beforehand. This track is no worse than others we visit in terms of suspension load and Toyota have identified the upright as the problem. According to other team’s engineers, it is not a part you can strengthen easily at the track, especially the other side of the Atlantic. Toyota are saying tonight that they are “hopeful” of being able to continue this weekend. The outside bets The Red Bull looks pretty fast once again, but they need to get the car to the finish. Mark Webber has yet to score a point in 2007, despite running in the points on several occasions. I fancy them to get a good result this weekend. Same for BMW. The car looks very consistent and fast here and as long as they don’t go for a kamikaze strategy as they did in Monaco, they could get their first podium of the season this weekend. It was very hot today and it’s forecast to cool down over the next two days, with rain forecast for tonight, which will wash the track clean again. This is set to be the most unpredictable race of the year so far.