By Huw Alban
June 23 2006

With the first free practice full of drama for Midland F1, fans were hoping to see the three drivers out there making up for lost time. They weren't disappointed either; in fact Christijan Albers gave us a lap time full of hope for the rest of the weekend.

The team must have worked like lunatics to get Tiago Monteiro's car ready. As has already been reported, the entire left front of the car was destroyed and the left rear wheel and side pod took a heavy thump. A massive cheer to the MF1 mechanics for doing a top stirling job to get Tiago back on the road for the second free practice session.

Giorgio Mondini and Christijan Albers were quickly out for the start of the session. With Giorgio stopping on lap 2 of the first free practice hour the team had a lot of work to do and were obviously trying hard to make up for lost time. The two circulated without incident for the first ten minutes of the session.

I have to admit that my eyes kept looking back down to Monteiro on the live timing screen, and I let out a whoop of delight as the number of Tiago's car turned from red to white indicating that he had pulled onto the track with 44 minutes of the session remaining.

The Portuguese driver immediately set about posting complete lap times which, bearing in mind what happened two hours ago shows a huge amount of confidence in the team and its mechanics.

At the half way mark, Tiago had recorded 6 flying laps with a best time of 1.20.676 seconds. Christijan Albers and Giorgio Mondini look to be doing the bulk of the tyre evaluation work with 24 laps in total between them and a best time from Giorgio of 1.20.819.

Midland F1 did a fine job of turning the M16 cars around during the second half of the session. The delay between their drivers entering the pit lane and leaving again was exceptionally short enabling all three drivers to run continously (and furiously) throughout the session.

In the last 10 minutes of the session, Christijan Albers put in a corker of a lap on a 1.18.609, only 1.6 off the current pace and 12th overall out of the 29 drivers taking part in this session. I think we can say that he's found his tyre choice for the weekend. Fantastic! Just what the fans needed to see!

Right behind him was Giorgio Mondini, also posting competitive and green sector times but his third and final sector was not so hot. Albers meantime has improved on his next lap to a 1.18.503, quick enough for 11th and now only 1.538 seconds off the pace.

Tiago Monteiro meantime is still circulating but posting very lowly times. Either he's nursing a problem with his recently fixed M16 or he is running race fuel in order to help the team pull back on the time they lost in the first session. Whatever the reasons, the fans have something to shout about today. From a dramatic beginning to the weekend, the team have recovered in fine style and given us reasons to be hopeful for the race on Sunday. Rock on!

Full timesheets from the Second Free Practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix:

1 Robert Kubica Sauber-BMW 1:16.965
2 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:17.095
3 Alexander Wurz Williams-Cosworth 1:17.337
4 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:17.490
5 Anthony Davidson Honda 1:17.627
6 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:17.805
7 Mark Webber Williams-Cosworth 1:17.848
8 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Cosworth 1:18.009
9 Nick Heidfeld Sauber-BMW 1:18.015
10 Jacques Villeneuve Sauber-BMW 1:18.035
11 Robert Doornbos RBR-Ferrari 1:18.201
12 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:18.279
13 Jenson Button Honda 1:18.429
14 Christijan Albers MF1-Toyota 1:18.503
15 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:18.549
16 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:18.614
17 Juan Pablo Montoya McLaren-Mercedes 1:18.761
18 Christian Klien RBR-Ferrari 1:18.865
19 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:18.868
20 Scott Speed STR-Cosworth 1:18.907
21 Nico Rosberg Williams-Cosworth 1:19.048
22 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:19.099
23 Giorgio Mondini MF1-Toyota 1:19.138
24 David Coulthard RBR-Ferrari 1:19.313
25 Neel Jani STR-Cosworth 1:19.541
26 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:19.624
27 Sakon Yamamoto Super Aguri-Honda 1:20.197
28 Tiago Monteiro MF1-Toyota 1:20.262
29 Franck Montagny Super Aguri-Honda 1:21.434

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