MONTREAL (CP) - It was supposed to be Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen battling for the Formula One title in 2007, but much of the talk has been about their teammates.
Two-time defending world champion Alonso dominated two practice sessions on Friday at the Canadian Grand Prix but Raikkonen managed only fourth place.
Between them were Raikkonen's Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa and Alonso's 22-year-old McLaren Mercedes garagemate Lewis Hamilton.
Alonso posted the quickest lap of the day at the 4.361-kilometre Gilles Villeneuve Circuit in one minute 16.550 seconds, more than a half-second better than Massa's 1:17.090.
Hamilton did 1:17.307 while Raikkonen's best was 1:17.557. Nick Heidfeld of BMW Sauber was fifth at 1:17.905.
"I don't think we'll dominate like we did at the last race in Monaco," said Alonso. "And the track conditions here (slippery and hot) make it hard to estimate where our competition is. But so far, so good."
Alonso and Hamilton share the lead in driver standings going into the Canadian Grand Prix this weekend.
The Ferraris are right behind, but it is Massa, supposedly the second driver, who is in third place 10 points ahead of Raikkonen, the Finn who moved to Ferrari over the winter to replace retired seven-time champion Michael Schumacher.
Hamilton, the first driver ever to finish in the top three of the first five races of his career, will be gunning for his first F1 pole position in qualifying on Saturday (TSN, 1 p.m. ET). And he'll go for his first race win on Sunday.
"I don't care who is behind me - I try to beat everybody, whether it's the same car as mine or a different one," added Alonso.
The McLarens have held the upper hand early in the 17-race Formula One calendar, particularly with Raikkonen coming off two weak events in which his best result was eighth two weeks ago in Monaco. Another poor result could put the 2005 Canadian Grand Prix winner in a deep hole.
"We're in a position, after two bad races, where if we have one more bad race it can be a disaster, or it can swing the opposite way if the other guys have a bad race," said Raikkonen. "We'll just do the best we can and try to get good results."
While Raikkonen was seen as Schumacher's heir, he feels no pressure despite falling back since winning his first race for the Italian team in Melbourne in March.
"Why should I?" he said. "I try to do the best I can and if we can't do it, we can't do it.
"I try not to take on pressure. There are always people who don't like what you do and think you can do better. I do it my own way, no matter what they say."
Massa, the winner this year in Bahrain and Spain, is fully aware of the consequences of falling too far behind.
"If you look at the championship, there are four drivers fighting at every race, so if you have a bad race, it can affect you a lot," Massa told Autosport magazine this week. "You don't have any margin."
At McLaren, Hamilton has become the talk of the racing world by finishing in the top three in his first five F1 races.
Alonso has wins at Malaysia and Monaco, but his teammates' consistency has kept them deadlocked in the drivers standings. The team denied accusations of "drivers orders" - a command by team bosses that Hamilton not challenge Alonso - when they finished 1-2 in Monaco.
Fifth place in practice was taken by Nick Heidfeld of BMW Sauber, who is also fifth in the championship, just ahead of Giancarlo Fisichella of Renault, a team that dipped dramatically from a year ago when Alonso won his second title for the French team.
It was a difficult day for Robert Kubica, who replaced Jacques Villeneuve on the BMW Sauber team last August and looks to have inherited the Iberville, Que., driver's bad luck in Montreal. Kubica's morning practice ended without a fast lap due to a fuel leak, while he spun out in the opening minutes of the afternoon practice, but got out again late and placed 12th.
The Polish driver's Sauber team has been just behind the top two this season, with Heidfeld taking fourth place in three straight races and Kubica fourth in another.
But their energies are spent more on holding off the Renault team than on challenging the leaders. At Monaco two weeks ago, Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella grabbed fourth place to finish ahead of the BMW's for the first time this season.
Kubica said that may have had more to do with race strategy than power and believes his team can still steal points from the big teams if they falter.
"We have to take advantage of opportunities," said Kubica. "Here, it may be that someone is in difficulty.
"It looks like Ferrari and McLaren are quicker than us. but in Monaco, we were at the same level as Ferrari."
Ferrari managed only third and eighth places on the tight streets of Monaco, but are expected to do better in Montreal.
