Red Bull under pressure for second

Forecasting what will happen in qualifying and the race based on Friday practice is a risky business, especially on a track like the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve where conditions will change a lot.

But judging by the first day of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, it's going to be a very close fight for the final podium position.

Mercedes is, as always, well ahead as the free practice times showed, but as well as the clutch of cars that ended up just behind on the timesheet, there's also one dark horse to climb the order from what might be a starting position outside the top 10.

RAW PACE

Each team's fastest lap came, as expected, during the Friday afternoon session using super-soft Pirellis.

While Red Bull was at the front of the group vying for best-of-the-rest courtesy of Sebastian Vettel, the battle between Red Bull, Ferrari and Williams was tight, with just two tenths covering the three marques.

RACE PACE

Given that the majority of the Q3 runners will qualify using the super-soft rubber, which Pirelli reckons to be 0.7-0.9s per lap faster, the battle at the front will be on the option tyres early on.

Alonso was fastest of all in the morning © XPB

Many teams opted to split their long runs between drivers on Friday afternoon, with one using the super-softs and the other the softs. But looking at the super-soft pace gives us an idea of how things might pan out.

Fernando Alonso did a relatively short long-run of just eight laps on the super-softs, so to get a feel of the relative pace we will compare runs of this length among the leading teams.

Most striking in this is that, while unimpressive on raw pace, the Force India is firmly in the hunt on race pace: both Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez were quick on their super-soft long runs.

Average pace over hypothetical first eight laps of race

1 Mercedes (Hamilton) 1m20.236s
2 Force India (Hulkenberg) +0.710s
3 Red Bull (Ricciardo) +0.745s
4 Ferrari (Alonso) +1.015s
5 Williams (Bottas) +1.022s
6 McLaren (Magnussen) +1.504s

Encouragingly for Force India, this pace is still there when you extend the relevant runs by 50 per cent. This removes Ferrari from the equation, but over a 12-lap comparable run, Force India is still second fastest.

Noticeably, both Force India and Red Bull are stronger on pace over the longer stint relative to Mercedes than over the shorter one, suggesting tyre degradation on the super-softs is good for their cars. Williams, by contrast, slips behind McLaren, which appears to be looking after its rubber well.

Average pace over hypothetical first 12 laps of race

1 Mercedes (Hamilton) 1m20.527s
2 Force India (Hulkenberg) +0.499s
3 Red Bull (Ricciardo) +0.535s
4 McLaren (Magnussen) +1.053s
5 Williams (Bottas) +1.123s

Data for long runs on the soft tyre was patchy, although it did give encouragement to Williams. Felipe Massa averaged 1m20.025s over an eight-lap stint, which was faster than that managed by Hamilton on the hypothetical eight-lap super-soft stint above.

Ferrari too was rapid, with Kimi Raikkonen averaging 1m20.528s, only two tenths off the Hamilton super-soft average.

STRATEGY

The soft tyre proved enormously durable, able to go "maybe 70 laps" according to Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery with "negligible" degradation. That represents a full race distance.

The super-soft/soft pace crossover point will be intriguing © XPB

The super-soft has an anticipated life of 25 laps in terms of wear, with the degradation rate around 0.1s per lap. So while the super-soft is faster by the aforementioned 0.7-0.9s, it won't be too long into a stint before it's slower than the soft rubber.

"This creates some possibilities for crossover," said Hembery. "That would mean probably some teams even aiming for a one-stop and others looking at a two-stop. It depends how their qualifying session goes and how many super-soft sets they use."

There's every chance that teams will lean towards a one-stopper if they can, with a marathon stint on soft rubber possible without too much performance drop-off. Much will depend what the final crossover point is - when the soft becomes faster than the super-soft in a run.

So the big question mark is over how the track evolves, which it should continue to do given how green it was at the start of running.

GARY ANDERSON'S CONCLUSIONS

It's always difficult to make too much of Friday practice because differing fuel loads can bias the outcome very easily, which might explain some of the confusing indications created by analysing the raw numbers above.

From what we've seen this year, Montreal should be a Mercedes power unit track, but so far it hasn't entirely turned out that way. Vettel third and the two Ferraris fourth and fifth is a bit of a surprise for them on raw pace.

At a circuit like this, where top speed and good braking are vitally important to laptime, you must either have a powerful engine or you trim out the aerodynamics to achieve a competitive top speed. If you do that, you need a car that has stable rear grip under braking.

Hamilton had the overall edge on Friday © LAT

Red Bull has never been a team to worry about top speed. Its car has always been quick enough off the corner onto the straight that it was able to make up for a lower top speed, but both looked a little light on the rear today.

Mercedes still appears to hold the upper hand. Both drivers seemed to be able to do the laptime when they pushed, whereas others seemed to make more mistakes.

Hamilton's long run was very impressive. So the other teams had better hope that Lewis and Nico haven't kissed and made up just yet, as a lovers' tiff might be the only thing that can help anyone other than them get to the top step of the podium!

Ferrari appears to have closed the gap on Mercedes, but I think it's just the nature of this circuit; I believe it has the second-best power unit out there, which is good for this circuit.

Its problems lie in a lack of downforce, or more importantly when it has to balance a high level of rear downforce, the front wing assembly can't cope without hurting the rear of the car.

With Montreal not requiring high overall levels of downforce, Ferrari can trim the car to suit and in turn get a better balance than at other circuits. The same is true for McLaren.

Williams has a fairly efficient package that, at some circuits, just lacks overall downforce. But normally it can balance it quite well, and in Montreal that will play into its hands.