Grand Prix of Canada - Preview
"I love Montreal and I am glad that the Canadian GP has kept his well-deserved place on the calendar. Being French, the people make me feel very welcome every year and the whole city gets behind F1, which adds to the atmosphere. The track is not one of the most technically complex, but it is enjoyable to drive nevertheless. It is a real braking circuit and you need a good braking stability and good traction to exit the chicanes very quickly. It is important to be able to change direction quickly and to put the throttle on as early as possible. Success at Montreal comes from the combined package, not one particular thing. Although it is a power circuit, which suits our strong RVX-04 engine, you also need to have the right set-up on the car to keep the grip over the kerbs, like Imola."
Race starting
12:30 (local time)
Time zone
UTC/GMT -5
Official website
www.grandprix.ca
Circuit length
4.361 km
No. of laps
70
Race length
305.270 km
Lap record
1.12.836
Team Talk
Cristiano da Matta - Car 16
"The Canadian Grand Prix is one of my favourites of the year. Everybody in Montreal really gets behind us and the enthusiasm of the fans is exactly what Formula 1 needs. The circuit is also fun to drive and technically demanding, offering drivers and engineers a nice challenge. Engine power and stability under braking are two important areas of performance, but the car also has to ride the kerbs well in order to set a good lap time. Our TF104 should be reasonably well suited to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve; our engine has proven itself to be one of the strongest and most reliable on the grid, but we need to find the car balance to match. I doubt we can finish in the points without benefiting from misfortune ahead of us, but we will continue to do our best and see what we can achieve at the end of the weekend."
Olivier Panis - Car 17
"I really love Montreal. It's one of my favourite grand prix weekends because of its atmosphere. The people are so nice and because everyone stays in the city you can enjoy yourself. It's also one of the rare occasions during the year that I have time to relax for three or four days before the grand prix, and I enjoy that because it gives me valuable time to train. I like Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and I have also had some good results there. Last year, we prepared well for Montreal and the whole team performed quite strongly, which resulted in me scoring my first point of 2003. At last week's Monza test, we worked expressly on Canada and US preparations and we looked reasonably good running Canada downforce levels so we'll be trying to get on the scoreboard this weekend."
Ricardo Zonta - Car 38
"I really like the Canadian Grand Prix weekend. It's a fun city and the track is very enjoyable to drive. There is a very long straight and the midfield is very tight and slow, with a lot of narrow second and third gear corners and high kerbs. That variety makes it quite demanding to set up the car to have a good performance over the whole track. The track is usually dirty on Friday, and quite slow and slippery. It improves a lot as the weekend goes on, meaning you can run with a different balance and less downforce. That makes finding the base set-up even more difficult on Friday, but at least you can still work on tyre characteristics, which are always important."
Tsutomu Tomita - Team Principal
"We are in the middle of a very busy time in the F1 calendar with the next round of back-to-back races upon us already. We have barely had time to get over scoring our first points of the year in Monaco and the disappointment of the Nürburgring, but our full efforts are now focussed on state-side success in Montreal and Indianapolis. First up is the Canadian GP, and whilst I do not expect us to make a huge leap forward compared to other races this season, our target should again be to lay a solid foundation in Friday practice and try to build on that for the remainder of the weekend. We simply have to keep motivated and hope that Toyota reliability will result in a top eight finish on Sunday afternoon."
2003 Flashback
The 2003 Canadian Grand Prix saw the Panasonic Toyota Racing team add another championship point to its tally as Olivier Panis opened his points account of the season with a fine eighth place drive.
Friday morning's practice session was a rain-soaked affair, but underlined Toyota's potential. Panis set the fifth fastest time (1m17.464s) after just 16 laps whilst Cristiano da Matta was eleventh (1m18.559s), completing 24 laps. An inconsistent track made the practice session somewhat inconclusive, however the team was pleased to have a generally trouble-free session.
The persistent wet weather dictated the outcome of the first qualifying session at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Panis secured a top ten qualifying slot after a trouble-free flying lap resulted in 10th place for the Frenchman. Da Matta, on the other hand, was not content with his 16th position after the increasingly heavy rain led to poor levels of grip on the track.
After a buoyant Friday, Saturday morning practice was troublesome for the team with both drivers having incidents during the sessions. Neither Panis nor Da Matta managed any significant running in the dry second session and were 19th and 20th respectively.
The all-important grid - determining qualifying hour marked a return to initial form as the team achieved its best ever combined qualifying result. Panis and Da Matta posted the 7th and 9th fastest times, securing the team's first two-car top ten result of the year to date and a personal best for Da Matta.
Solid work paid dividends come Sunday afternoon as Frenchman Panis finished the 70-lap Canadian Grand Prix in 8th place, scoring his own debut point of the year. After challenging for points for most of the race, Da Matta retired just six laps before the end from eighth position after a suspected suspension problem.
What the drivers said
Olivier Panis "I think this eighth place is a very good result for the team because everybody has done a fantastic job this weekend. I am a little bit disappointed for Cristiano because he drove a strong race, but this is my first championship point of the season and for me it is now the first step. The car went very well throughout the weekend and, from here, we need to continue to build on the car's performance for the second half of the season - starting from the next race at the Nürburgring."
Cristiano da Matta "I am very disappointed. I don't know what happened really. Something just wasn't right with the car's suspension at the exit of the chicane and I simply couldn't continue. Everyone did a great job and everything was running normally until the end. At least we can take one point home as a team - I think we deserved it after our combined team performance. The car was handling reasonably well in the race and I think we were running as quickly as we could have, so to miss out on certain points like that so close to the end is extremely annoying."
Race Schedule
11 June , 2004
11:00 - 12:00 Practice Session 1
14:00 - 15:00 Practice Session 2
12 June , 2004
09:00 - 09:45 Practice Session 3
10:15 - 11:00 Practice Session 4
12:00 - Qualifying 1
13:00 - Qualifying 2
13 June , 2004
12:30 - Race
http://www.formula1.com/race/circuitmap/721.html
PS: I will post some pics tomorrow...
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Ferrari a second a lap faster and McLaren's only doing a handful of laps 
Originally Posted by cp01ae
