Hispania upbeat about step forward

Italian Tonio Liuzzi was 0.5 seconds faster than Virgin's Timo Glock in first practice, before both Liuzzi and Narain Karthikeyan outpaced Jerome D'Ambrosio in the second session, although the Belgian's running time was limited by his Turn 4 shunt.

Team Principal Colin Kolles was encouraged by the progress the team made with the new parts it has brought to Montreal.

"We had a lot of upgrades on the car today and it seems like there is some improvement but we still have to evaluate the data," he said following the day's sessions. "Today we worked on the set-up for the race; now let's see if we can make another step forward in FP3.

"We are feeling more positive this weekend than in Monaco, we have all the new parts we planned and it looks like there is some improvement"

Both of Kolles' drivers were pleased with the steps the team has taken so far in Canada, too.

"We had a lot of new parts on the car: the diffuser and the rear wing which was specifically made for this track amongst others, so we have to fine-tune this. But it is a positive step," said Karthikeyan.

"We have to find a good balance and mechanical grip for tomorrow because you need to save your tyres here," he added. "Tomorrow we have to wait and see what the weather conditions will be and hope to improve from here."

And Liuzzi was in similarly high spirits, calling the experience "not a bad day at all."

"We had to test the aero upgrade, the new exhaust, and our new rear wing. We found that we improved our balance and overall speed a bit, now we need to work on tuning the exhaust system. I'm happy about taking another step forward in our competition against our nearest rivals and I think tomorrow's qualifying will be interesting."

"Overall we can be positive about the rest of the weekend," he enthused.