Verstappen fastest in both practice sessions, Sainz & Vandoorne hit the wall
Final practice & qualifying on Saturday from 16:00 BST
Six races gone of the 2018 season and we have two wins apiece for Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo.
Valtteri Bottas, Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen will all be thinking they should and could have had more points on the board.
Image source, .At the bottom, two drivers remain without a point. Can Romain Grosjean and Sergey Sirotkin change that this weekend?
Image source, .Our first time of the day comes from Williams' Sergey Sirotkin with a 1:20.427. He needs a good weekend after a difficult start to his Formula 1 career.
Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Montreal, Canada
Daniel Ricciardo feels he has “such good momentum” at the moment after his Monaco win. But can he and Red Bull threaten the Ferraris and Mercedes on this power track, even with a Renault engine upgrade?
“Every upgrade is welcome,” he said. “They are never half-second upgrades but even 0.1secs is always welcome. The combination of that and if we do get the hypers hooked up again (like in Monaco)… 2016 we qualified 0.4secs from pole and were relatively competitive. We’re probably a little bit more so at the moment.
"Pole is a bit of a long shot but maybe we can get within a few 10ths. I am hoping everyone is forced to qualify on the hyper and then obviously it creates a lot more opportunity in the race with strategy. If everyone goes Q2 with the ultra-soft, it limits that.” Translation: Red Bull were better than anyone else on the hyper-softs in Monaco.
If that pattern repeats itself in Canada, and the performance gap between it and the ultra-soft is big enough that even the fastest cars cannot risk trying to get through second qualifying on the slower qualifying tyre but better race tyre, it might be game on. The lessons of Friday will be crucial in this.
Jennie Gow
BBC Radio 5 live pit-lane reporter
Everyone expected Daniel Ricciardo to have a grid penalty. However it seems Adrian Newey, the mastermind behind Red Bull cars, got it wrong.
They're going to use the old engine part that was in the cycle. Daniel is delighted. Speaking to him yesterday he was bounding around like an over-excited puppy.
Listen live to our BBC Radio 5 live commentary by pressing the play button at the top of this page.
Image source, Getty ImagesRed Bull's Daniel Ricciardo has escaped a grid penalty at this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix.
Chief technical officer Adrian Newey said on Monday that Ricciardo would "definitely have a penalty" after an engine part failed in his Monaco win.
But on Thursday Ricciardo said Red Bull would be able to replace the broken part with one used at a previous race.
The Australian, 28, said when he heard "whispers" of a Canada penalty he said he would prefer it at a later race.
Ricciardo suffered a failure of his MGU-K, a part of the hybrid system, during the Monaco Grand Prix. Newey said it "caught fire and was a burnt out, charred wreck". But Red Bull said they had been able to re-use an MGU-K from the engine that suffered a turbo failure in final practice at the Chinese Grand Prix.
"All I know is I have been told there is no penalty," Ricciardo said.
"If something happens in practice then we will be forced to change something and I will get a penalty, but for now, we still have enough parts to run and, if it is reliable, we will do the whole weekend with it."
Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Montreal, Canada
Fernando Alonso is celebrating his 300th grand prix this weekend, and on Thursday afternoon quite a few people were doing something with him, when McLaren put on a surprise event at their paddock club suite.
Alonso was presented with a book produced by the team with photos of every one of his events, and a film was played recapping some of the many highlights of his career. It was a reminder of just how much he has achieved, and the indelible place he has carved for himself in the sport’s history.
McLaren chief executive officer Zak Brown did not arrive in Canada until this morning but sent over a little speech which was read out. As he put it: “You have captured the spirit of the ultimate competitor, the racer’s racer. You bring that extra measure of magic to every performance that sets the great apart from the good.”
Alonso, who is not expecting an especially competitive weekend for McLaren, has repeatedly said he will not make up his mind whether to continue in F1 in 2019 until the summer and how many more races he will be taking part in is an open question. “What is it,” he said when we had a little chat at the event, “another 13 or 14?” “I make it at least another 34,” I said, counting next year as well. He smiled. “Mmm. We’ll see.”
Image source, EPATen minutes gone and most of them have gone out and had a look at the track, but no times from anyone to speak of just yet.
Who would you like to see replaced in Formula 1 and why? Who would you replace them with?
Redfox 1987: I would like to see Grosjean replaced by Charles Leclerc at Haas. I think it would be great to see Leclerc given a more competitive car and put him in the driving seat (pun definitely intended) for the Ferrari drive next season.
Ipkw: I would replace one of the Williams drivers and replace with Paul di Resta.
Here we go, 90 minutes of first practice.
Canadian Nicholas Latifi takes the place of Sergio Perez in the Force India and that is the only change to the normal 20.
Latifi, 22, is currently racing in the FIA Formula 2 Championship so this is a good chance for him to show what he is capable of.
Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Montreal, Canada
Mercedes are the only engine manufacturer not to have an upgrade in Canada, and much could hang on the Honda and Renault ones, as Red Bull will make a decision shortly after this race on whether to switch from Renault to Honda next season at least partly on the back of the relative performances of the engines here.
Renault’s, Red Bull reckon, will be worth about 0.1secs. Honda’s we don’t know yet in terms of performance, but it is also an upgrade to the internal combustion engine. Pierre Gasly will get a new ICE and some new - but not upgraded in terms of performance - hybrid parts but because Honda are keen to avoid grid penalties, Brendon Hartley, who is on the penalty limit for turbo and both MGU-H and MGU-K will only get the new ICE.
And what about Carlos Sainz? Well, he was just chilling...
And why not?
Image source, RenaultHere's Marcus Ericsson and the Sauber team during a walk of the track yesterday.
Image source, .Max Verstappen posts about how happy he is. See, he just needed some food in his belly to cheer him up.
So, Max, what about all those crashes?...
Image source, .Lewis Hamilton has been in a reminiscent mood as he remembered his first ever Formula 1 win.
It came in the Canadian Grand Prix on 10 June, 2007, when Hamilton, driving for McLaren, finished first, with Nick Heidfeld second for BMW-Sauber and Alexander Wurz third for Williams.
Image source, .Fernando Alonso has been in a happy mood as he signed autographs. It is a big weekend for him as he will become only the fourth driver in F1 history to start 300 races.
He will also set a new record of 238 races finished if his McLaren goes the distance on Sunday.
Image source, .So, what have the drivers been up to while they have been in Canada?
Craig: My comments appear on your #BBCF1, external live text every GP apart from the 2 I forgot about. I expect my contract in the post. My salary is negotiable and every GP (that I remember) can be subject to my useless but hilarious input. Unless they’re on early. Slide in my dm’s.
So we've had Max Verstappen going all WWE on us, and Craig going all big-time on us. What a week!
Which tyres will the drivers be praising in qualifying and then moaning about in the race?
Well, the red supersofts, purple ultrasofts and pink hypersofts are our options this week.
Image source, .Who would you like to see replaced in Formula 1 and why? Who should replace them?
And Brendon Hartley potentially being replaced is the inspiration for our talking point for today.
Our question is...
Who would you like to see replaced in Formula 1 and why? Who should replace them?
Tweet us using the hashtag #bbcf1 and we will stick your comments in this page throughout the afternoon.
Image source, ReutersThe class of 2018... at least Daniel Ricciardo looks happy
Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer in Montreal, Canada
You had to feel for Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley on Thursday, thrown into media day 24 hours after it emerged that Red Bull motorsport boss Helmut Marko had tried to replace him for the rest of the season with McLaren reserve driver Lando Norris.
Hartley, who has been around the block a few times despite this being his first full season, handled it well in the circumstances. “It is the second grand prix in a row I have been responding to rumours,” he said, rather ignoring the fact that they were not rumours, but well founded reports.
“It is not really interesting for me to comment. I know what my contract says. I am confident in the work I have been doing behind the scenes with Toro Rosso to develop the car. Things didn’t go my way in Monaco in qualifying but I felt very strong all weekend. I’m going to take the same approach this weekend, upgrades coming and looking forward to hopefully putting together a strong weekend.
"I know I have the ability to be here and doing a good job in F1.” Would he talk to the team about it? “I haven’t yet,” he said, “but in focusing on the weekend it doesn’t really make sense for me to have the conversation.”
Image source, Getty Images