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Mark Webber lost his World Championship lead in Canada, but fifth place represented handy points and some damage limitation at a track which was never going to play to the strengths of the Red Bull.

Webber also had to recover from a gearbox penalty that dumped him from second to seventh on the grid, and had he started from his rightful place, he might have come away with more.

The Aussie ran two stints on prime tyres and by staying out before his final stop on options, he led the race for a while. However he was caught by Lewis Hamilton even before he visited the pits, and fell back to fifth. His race was compromised by an earlier than planned first stop, after the tyres went away.

“We knew it was going to be a bit like that here today, the tyres playing a huge role in the race, when we made the pit strategies that we did,” said Webber. “I think in the end we did the best we could do.

“Obviously they split the cars, with Seb on the option in the middle while I stayed on the prime, and was going to finish the race on the option. It’s dangerous waiting for a safety car as well, in terms of when that happens obviously your race is pretty much over when you’re in the front as the race is neutralised.

“So mixed emotions, after the penalty this morning, but then I had a good first few laps and I managed to get into a few people and that took its toll a bit on the first set of tyres, so I was in trouble a bit earlier than I would have liked. It wasn’t too bad.”

Webber said he wasn’t surprised to drop from the lead down to fifth when he made his last stop: “I knew everyone was pretty close together, I was obviously monitoring the gaps to Lewis. I was going away a little bit at the start, because I knew he was pacing to get to the end. I was just trying to hold my pace constant, and in the end the tyres didn’t want that pace, so in the end they go away.

“It’s virtually impossible to keep them happy, the tyres, they keep degrading no matter how slow you drive. So in the end it wasn’t really a surprise, because I knew people were tightly packed up behind Lewis. To come back out fifth… It would have been nice to get a few more places, and I wanted some champagne today, but in the end, it didn’t happen.”

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali says that Fernando Alonso had the performance with which to win in Canada, despite the team adding nothing new to the car since its lacklustre performance in Turkey.

Alonso led for a while but lost both the lead to Lewis Hamilton and second to Jenson when he fumbled behind other cars.

“Today we could have done much, much more than what we’ve got,” said Domenicali. “The performance that we had today was really good, honestly. And the car was exactly the same as it was in Turkey, where we were nine-tenths behind. So we need to be prudent before doing something exaggerated on one side or the other side.

“For sure the tyres are a key factor, no doubt about it. I think today we did the right choices, in that respect. Today we could have done much more because certain unfortunate situations led Felipe on one side to start in the middle of two cars, and it was not possible to go anywhere else. Fernando was in the middle of backmarkers which unfortunately spoiled his race on the laps that were crucial for the race. Part of the game.

“But on the performance side we have to make sure we keep developing the thing, and the things that we are doing are real, and we bring more downforce on the tracks where we need it, and above all on the tracks where we have certain kind of tyres connected to the need of downforce, that is the key point.”

Domenicali insisted that Ferrari is very much in the title hunt. Alonso lies fourth, 15 points behind Lewis Hamilton.

“Going back to the championships, they are very, very open. If we would have won the race, we would have been leading with Fernando. That means everything is really very open, and that’s the motivation that we should leave inside to make sure that we push race by race. Today was a picture that was totally different from the picture that we had two weeks ago.”

Ferrari has a lot riding on a major update package for Valencia. Domenicali admitted that the team has spent too much time chasing its version of the F-Duct, which has slowed down development in other areas.

“For sure there is a need of a more aggressive push. If I may say, it was clear that we had concentrated too much effort on this ‘beep’, blown rear wing. I want to say ‘beep’ because I cannot say what I think!

“So we spent a lot of effort there, not being focussed on the other areas of the car. Now from Valencia onwards will be to develop the other parts of the car apart from this ‘beep,’ because it’s a very complicated system that took a lot of resources out of the global project.”

Mark Webber has had to drop five places on the Montreal grid after a gearbox change.

The Aussie drops to seventh, which means that Sebastian Vettel is alongside Lewis Hamilton on the front row, with Fernando Alonso moving up to third on the more favourable side of the track.

Jenson Button starts fourth, Tonio Liuzzi fifth, and Felipe Massa sixth.

Canada promises to be an exciting and unpredictable race, not least because of the different tyre strategies being employed.

Christian Horner says he’s surprised that only Robert Kubica among the top 10 runners joined RBR in running the harder prime tyre, but McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh says he’s happy with the choice of options.

“Frankly Lewis was quick on both types of tyres,” said Whitmarsh. “We had quite a lot of debate in the team as to which way we should go, I guess we’ll know in 24 hours whether we got it right. Inevitably everyone has to use the option tyre at some point, and I think it will be difficult for someone who starts on the prime to say run 20-30 laps and then switch to the option and then go to the end. So I think then definitely you have to two-stop if you start on the prime.

“Obviously we’ve got two guys who have got to look after the tiers at the start of the race, and we’ll see how it works out. If there are some safety cars that will either make it look a better decision or worse decision, but in terms of getting to the end you have to run at some point with the option tyre, it’s clearly going to be a short stint, or relatively short stint, and as everyone had to do that, we’re choosing to do it at the beginning of the race.”

Clearly it was a close decision, even within McLaren: “There are people in the team who felt we should have qualified on prime, and others who felt that we should have qualified on option. I don’t think we’re going to share all of our strategic thinking. I think we’re in reasonable shape. We’ll see tomorrow. It’ll either work or it won’t…”

Lewis Hamilton has got away with a $10,000 fine for his transgression at the end of qualifying (see previous story). He will thus keep his pole position.

It seems that the fact that the requirement to return to the garage in a minimum time is enshrined in an FIA memo, rather than the sporting regs, left a loophole for McLaren to exploit.

The bottom line was that Lewis was able to complete his flying lap at a lighter weight than he would normally have done, although in this case the difference was probably not enough to have secured pole.

McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh kept a straight face when asked if he was ‘disappointed’ to get a fine: “There was a memo requiring cars to get back in a time. It’s not a regulation. But I think we’ve accepted it, we’ll pay it, and we’ll move on. I think we’re happy with the outcome…”

Whitmarsh also outlined what happened: “We have complied with the regulations. We didn’t set out to do this. It’s not Lewis’s fault, a mistake was made. We had a choice, we could have got back to the garage, but having done so we would have been short of fuel for the sample. The regulations require a sample, so we felt that was the dominant requirement rather than an FIA memo, which isn’t a regulation, which talked about a lap time required to come back.

“There’s nothing in the regulations that says that after qualifying you have to return to the garage. If you had broken down or a wheel had fallen off or something else, then those things happen.

“Not enough fuel was put in the car – there was a miscommunication.”

He also said he didn’t expect other teams to try the same in the future: “I think they would run the risk then of it being decided that it’s systematic, and you then run the risk of what is the opnion of the stewards on the day. So I don’t think it will happen en masse…”

The FIA is looking into Lewis Hamilton’s actions on his in-lap after securing pole in qualifying in Montreal.

Hamilton was told by the team to stop on the circuit because he was so marginal on fuel that he was in risk of not having enough left for the FIA sample at the end of the session. The car must have at least 1-litre in the tank for scrutineering purposes.

He stopped on the straight before the pits and after coasting for a while, got out and pushed, before being picked up by the medical car and given a lift home.

The question mark is over the fact that drivers are given a lap time within which they have to return to the pits during qualifying, a legacy of the fuel saving days of several seasons ago.

The FIA view is that if a driver suffers a genuine problem and has to stop, it would be treated as force majeure, and that does not apply in this case.

Furthermore, in the two sectors that he completed he was well over the prescribed 30% limit. His first sector was 33s (as opposed to around 21s on a normal quick lap), and the middle sector was 55s (compared with 24s). In other words he would not have made the time even if he had finished the lap.

One chief engineer from a rival team told me: “It’s definitely illegal, they took advantage by cheating. Otherwise next time we’ll all put one less lap in the cars.”

While clearly there has to be some provision for drivers suffering a genuine mechanical problem after setting a time, it would seem that McLaren has some explaining to do. It’s thought they told the FIA there was a miscommunication in the team about the fuel level in Lewis’s car.

Jenson Button says he was satisfied with his fifth place lap in Montreal, but admitted he was impressed by the pole effort of team mate Lewis Hamilton.

Button had a slightly scrappy qualifying session, and at one stage had to fight his way out of Q2.

“It was alright,” said Button. “I struggled in Q1, but I realised I wasn’t getting enough heat in the tyres. I ended up doing longer runs, I was doing three laps in Q3, instead of the normal two that most people did. It worked for me and I’m pretty happy with the lap.

“The problem was the tyres were cooling down too much, and I had one rear brake that for some reason was getting very cold, I had to really hammer the brakes on my out laps. It was a fun Q3. I’d rather be further up and alongside Lewis, but I’m happy with the lap.

“I crossed the line thinking that was it for me, so Lewis did a phenomenal job. He’s very quick round here, I think he’s qualified on pole every time he’s raced here.”

Button says that thanks to the different tyre choices at the front, the race will be a fascinating one.

“It’s good to see that people are running different tyres in Q3, it’s the first time this year. We’ve got primes and options, our main rivals, which are Red Bull, are running primes. It’s going to be an interesting start of the race, seeing if they can overtake.

“It’s a quicker tyre the prime tyre, but at some point, they are going to have to run the option. If they are stuck up behind Lewis, I’m sure they are going to be frustrated. It’s going to be a fun race, I’ looking forward to it. Strategy is going to be important so working with your tyres quickly. So being flat out every lap might not be the quickest way to the end of the race.”

Lewis Hamilton likened the Montreal circuit to an ice rink after struggling with a serious lack of grip on Friday. Hamilton branded the option tyres “useless,” and said they were so bad that he had to give up on them and pit early.

Although the McLarens were quick in the morning, the team seems to be in more trouble than most as it attempts to find a set-up.

“I’m not happy with way this afternoon went,” said Hamilton. “Today in general the track has been incredibly difficult to drive, just very difficult to switch the tyres on, and get the heat into the tyres. It’s just like being on an ice rink out there, it’s so slippery, and it’s such a huge difference to when I was here before. We’re struggling a little bit, that’s for sure.

“I find when you go out there, and the tyre should be coming in, the car is just sliding all the time. Masses of oversteer everywhere, you’re just correcting the car all the time.”

Asked where the car could be improved, Hamilton said: “Everywhere! We’re not pulling away down the straights, we have a lot of bottoming. There’s areas we can improve, We’re going to have a big debrief now about where we want to go with the car. But it’s a bit of an unknown, because we tried a few things, and it was just as bad, if not worse. On the option tire it’s unbelievable. The graining I had on the option tyre, I had to come in, it was so difficult.”

There’s speculation that the tyre situation could lead to a variety of strategies come Sunday.

“It’s going to be an interesting one. I don’t think you’re going to be seeing a long first stint on the option tyres, that’s for sure.

“It just chews up, it’s useless, so maybe you will see a two-stop. I am sure it will be quicker than what I just drove…”

Sebastian Vettel topped the times on Friday afternoon in Montreal, but like most drivers he struggled towards the end of the session when he had severe graining on the option tyres.

That made life difficult for everyone, and few drivers were really able to set representative times. In the circumstances Vettel was understably cautious about his potential for the weekend.

“Friday lap times are not that important obviously,” he said. “All that matters is that you are on top of the ranking after qualy and on Sunday after the race. So we’ll see. I think we are in decent shape, so it’s looking good, I feel comfortable in the car.

“Obviously it’s very slippery. For two years we didn’t have a race here, so the circuit needs time. But I think it was already much better in the afternoon than in the morning.”

Vettel said he was really struggling with the tyres: “Everybody is, I think it looked quite funny. If you had a look in the end when people put a bit more fuel and stayed out a bit longer all of us were sliding probably. It was more like rallycross than F1…”

Fernando Alonso gave Ferrari some encouragement by taking second place in the Friday afternoon session in Montreal, but typically he was not getting too excited about the performance.

His team mate Felipe Massa was fifth in the same session, and intriguingly the Ferrari drivers appeared to have less severe graining problems than their rivals.

“I think it was OK today, a little bit better,” said Alonso. “But also in Istanbul I remember we were fourth and fifth on Friday practice, and then in qualifying we were out of Q2. So we need to stay concentrated, stay focussed for tomorrow, because everything can change when everybody goes flat out in qualifying.

“This is only Friday, only practice, we used these sessions to try the tyres and work a little bit on the brakes as well. This is a very hard braking circuit, so I think we just concentrate on the race situation and we don’t pay attention to the times. Tomorrow everything can change.”

Alonso had a few moments under braking during the day, but he said it was due to experimentation.

“Braking we know is one of the key facts in this circuit. One in terms of performance, because we know how much you can gain in braking zones, and then as we said now we’ve been working on the brakes all day long, just trying different materials, different cooling levels etc, to make the car perfectly ready for Sunday. On those occasions it was not easy the car sometimes to brake. Hopefully tomorrow it will be OK.”

The Spaniard says the track, which has in large part been resurfaced, is in good condition:“I think it’s good. New asphalt in most of the corners, just Turn 8 remains with the old asphalt. No problems at all today, so everything was fine. In terms of level of grip and how smooth is the circuit, it’s improved as well, no bumps. I think it will remain good all the weekend, because there are no signs of anything.”