McLaren boost as Coulthard carries on in Monaco mode

David Coulthard raised McLaren's hopes with the fastest lap during practice yesterday for tomorrow's Canadian Grand Prix here.

Coulthard, winner in Monaco from a front-row start two weeks ago, again pushed the more fancied Ferrari and Williams drivers down the timesheets.

Ron Dennis, the McLaren chief, had said in Monaco that Canada was likely to prove a painful experience for the team after their first win of 2002, but Coulthard's time of 1 minute 15.407 seconds belied that. He was comfortably inside Michael Schumacher's 2001 pole position time of 1:15.782 for Ferrari, although the circuit here has been slightly changed since then.

The Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, on pole in Monaco, was second fastest in 1:15.543 and had led until Coulthard went faster four minutes from the end of the second hour-long session.

The championship's overall leader, Schumacher, was third in 1:15.788. The German, four times a winner in Montreal, is chasing his sixth win in eight races tomorrow as well as Ferrari's 150th triumph. He leads the title race by 33 points from his younger brother, Ralf, and Montoya.

Coulthard's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was fifth fastest, while Ralf was sixth in the second Williams on a bright and hot afternoon.

It was seven races into the least rewarding season of his career, that Coulthard finally achieved the victory that he had had been expecting much sooner.

The 31-year-old Scot went into 2002 anticipating launching a strong challenge for the World Championship. He was considered weak-willed when he conceded within three races that it was a hopeless task, but he was really only saying what others already knew to be true: the McLaren-Mercedes package was not going to be a match for Ferrari's F2002, especially when the red missile was being driven by a competitor as committed and focused as Schumacher.

In six races Coulthard struggled, his morale reaching rock bottom, but as he prepared for another circuit that should favour his silver arrow this weekend, his motivation had been restored as he basked in the glory won in Monaco.

"I don't know anybody who has the ability to see in the future," he said, "but certainly it was what we expected it to be, our best opportunity in the first half of the season because of the areas where we think we improved the car over last year. We had more downforce and it's only logical that if you hang all the wing on it around the streets of Monaco that that's going to help you."

Montreal does not require so much downforce, and, though it is another circuit on which overtaking is difficult, it is nowhere near as 'impossible' as it is in Monaco.

Coulthard concedes that he may not be able to challenge for victory here, but the triumph in the Principality has raised spirits not just at McLaren and Michelin but also at Mercedes, which has been criticised a lot this season for its failure to match BMW and Ferrari power outputs. They run beyond 880bhp, whereas conventional wisdom suggests that the Mercedes V10, once the pacesetter, is lucky if it musters 850.

"Naturally," Coulthard suggests, "we wouldn't expect to be quite as strong around this circuit, although we do have some improvements and a little bit more horsepower for here.

"You never know, the tyres could be a big factor. There are a lot of straights here, you don't run a lot of downforce on this track. We're not exactly sure where our performance is going to be. We would be very surprised if we were on the front row but obviously that's going to be the goal."

The Monaco success finally exorcised the ghost of Coulthard's disastrous race there the previous year, where a software glitch on the formation lap put him from a brilliant pole position to the back row of the grid.

This year's win also provided him with another timely boost as his inexperienced team-mate Raikkonen was beginning to overshadow him in both qualifying and races.

In Monte Carlo the roles were reversed, as Raikkonen damaged his car early in practice and played second fiddle to the on-form Scot all weekend.