Practice 1: McLarens draw first blood

McLaren's Fernando Alonso led Lewis Hamilton in the first Friday practice in Montreal with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa coming third and fourth.Mark Webber confirmed Red Bull's improvement by coming fifth ahead of Giancarlo Fisicella...

McLaren's Fernando Alonso led Lewis Hamilton in the first Friday practice in Montreal with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa coming third and fourth.

Mark Webber confirmed Red Bull's improvement by coming fifth ahead of Giancarlo Fisicella (Renault) and BMW's Nick Heidfeld, confirming expectations that Red Bull and Renault are shaping up to take the battle to BMW for third place in the championship.

Alonso set a best time of 1:17.759 just 0.208s ahead of his team-mate while Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa were practically 0.4s behind on 18.136 and 18.167 respectively.

Webber was just over half a second behind Alonso and Fisichella a couple of hundreds further back on 1.18.620. BMW's other driver, Robert Kubica had problems - flames were seen coming out of his car - and he only did two laps.

Despite rain warnings, the session was carried out on a dry track. The Scuderia, as expected, gained the top two places in the speed trap while Heikki Kovalainen (Renault) was third followed by Hamilton. Full timings to follow.

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