Michael spent the entire day working on race set-up, saying there would be plenty of time on Saturday morning to make the necessary changes to run the car at its lightest and fastest for the qualifying session. Rubens was happy with the overall balance of the car, but was not so satisfied with the way his brakes were working in the afternoon half of the two hour session.

Quickest was the winner of the Monaco GP a fortnight ago, David Coulthard. He lapped the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in a time of 1'15"407 in his McLaren-Mercedes. Second was Juan Pablo Montoya in the BMW-Williams (1'15" 543.) Kimi Raikkonen was fourth in the other McLaren (1'15"946) the last driver to break the 1m 16s barrier. Fifth is last year's Montreal race winner, Ralf Schumacher 1'16"018.) Toyota can be pleased with their performance on their first ever visit to this tricky track as Mika Salo rounds off the top six in 1'16"259.

The entire session was run in hot and sunny conditions and was free of any major incidents, although there were a few spins and the reigning world champion got just a little too close to the famous wall on the outside of the final corner. "I ran wide and just "kissed" the wall," said a poetic Schumacher!

The changes made to the circuit in the interests of safety have met with general approval from the drivers, although at tonight's Drivers' Briefing they will be discussing the fact that when leaving the new pit lane exit, now situated on the outside of Turn 2, they are actually travelling quicker than cars coming to this point on the track.

Local hero Jacques Villeneuve was an encouraging ninth in the BAR-Honda, but in Friday afternoon's FIA press conference, the Canadian warned his fans not to expect too much from him in qualifying.