Saturday combined practice report

The Scot, fastest yesterday, bounced back in the second Saturday session after he failed to set a fast time in the morning. However, he beat his team mate's first session time by over half a second, while Hakkinen failed to improve.

Mika Hakkinen, ironically, had made a strong case to re-assert himself as the lead driver at McLaren when he set fastest time in first Saturday practice for the Canadian Grand Prix.

Rubens Barrichello also went a little way towards answering his critics by posting third fastest time, less than a tenth of a second behind his team mate Michael Schumacher, who was second fastest.

It was a spin strewn second session, that nevertheless saw most drivers improve their times by a reasonable amount.

Johnny Herbert underlined his vast upturn in form displayed this weekend, by moving further ahead of Irvine, who spent a considerable amount of time off the road after spins at Casino and turn 6/7.

The Jaguars were split in the first part of practice by Jenson Button, who held his 11th place in the second part while the Jaguars fell back.. The Williams driver appeared to be learning the circuit reasonably well, but was still half a second, and six places behind team mate Ralf Schumacher, who now appears to be showing no ill effects from his injury which threatened to stop him racing.

Jacques Villeneuve made a step up in competitiveness at his home race. Since losing to Damon Hill in his first Canadian GP (where he claimed the Englishman was over-aggressive keeping him behind), Villeneuve appears to have been trying too hard at Montreal, and been rather ragged.

He was pushing the envelope, as a spin at turn 8 testified, but wrung the most from the BAR to go seventh.

Jordan showed better than they had in the morning, as Jarno Trulli was fifth, behind Hakkinen.


For a set of full times, click here.

For first session times, click here.