Practice 3: Schumacher strikes back

Despite an early spin at the first corner, Schumacher was in great form during the rest of the session. The ever drying track surface always meant that the quickest times would be set right at the end, and it was Michael who produced the right lap at the right time. His 1m23.385s was 0.292s faster than Barrichello's final effort.

Brazilian GP winner Giancarlo Fisichella was the best of the rest for Jordan. The Italian always seems to revel in the high-speed Montreal track, but he was still 1.855s off the pace of Schumacher.

Renault's Fernando Alonso was once again the best placed Michelin runner, the Spaniard just ahead of Ralf Schumacher's Williams-BMW. The BAR-Hondas of Jacques Villeneuve and Jenson Button sandwiched the McLaren-Mercedes of David Coulthard, while Jarno Trulli (Renault) and Mark Webber (Jaguar) rounded out the top 10.

The session had to be restarted early on after Cristiano da Matta lost control of his Toyota and slammed into the wall on the exit of Turn 7, which damaged the right front corner of his car. Despite this, da Matta still managed to outpace team-mate Olivier Panis, who had a close encounter with a wall at the end of the first session today.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen was in the wars again, as he followed up his first session crash with an engine failure on his Sauber-Petronas. Team-mate Nick Heidfeld was 11th fastest, ahead of Ralph Firman (Jordan), world championship leader Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren) and the once again impressive Justin Wilson (Minardi).

Monaco winner Juan Pablo Montoya was just 16th fastest.