Motor Sport: FORMULA ONE world champion Kimi Raikkonen believes all he needs is a turn in fortunes to get his title defence in top gear.

The Ferrari driver is second in the drivers' championship, three points behind Lewis Hamilton. He finished third in Turkey and eighth in Monaco after winning the Spanish Grand Prix and he goes into tomorrow's Canadian Grand Prix with a poor record at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in the past few years.

Last year's race in Montreal was a bad one for Ferrari as main rivals McLaren scored a maiden victory for Hamilton, while team-mate Felipe Massa was disqualified for exiting the pit lane under a red light and Raikkonen could only manage fifth place.

Last time out in Monaco was another bad day for Ferrari. After claiming one-two on the grid, they collected only six points from Massa's third place on a nightmare afternoon for Raikkonen.

The Finn's problems started before the race when his team failed to fully fit his tyres at the three-minute warning before the formation lap and he was forced to serve a 10-second drive-through penalty when the race got under way.

Raikkonen then lost his nose cone twice, the second time when running into the back of Force India's Adrian Sutil after losing control of his car coming out of the tunnel. He was fifth at the time and would have held on to his championship lead.

Yet despite his poor showing in Monaco, and the loss of his lead in the drivers' championship, the Finn remained upbeat about the performance of his Ferrari.

"We were much stronger in Monaco, but for all the circumstances that happened for us and all the things that didn't really go the way we were planning," Raikkonen said. "For sure we had good speed and were definitely in a stronger position than a year ago in Monaco and we expect to be stronger here again than last year.

"Things can easily go wrong or right. If things go right I don't see any reason why we cannot win here. It's too early to say but that's what we are aiming for and then we will see what happens after this race again."

Raikkonen even said victory in Canada was not vital this weekend in his battle with Hamilton.

"Of course we would rather score maximum points than losing any more points to Lewis but there's still a long way to go and we've been in much worse positions before," he added. "It's not vital but for sure we want to have a good result."

Raikkonen, who admitted he may retire at the end of 2009 when his Ferrari contract expires, said he did not feel under pressure to retain his drivers' title.

"More often it always ends up very close between the top drivers, the top teams, but nobody knows," he said. "It's close now but I don't know. Hopefully we can come back and be in the front when it counts but I don't feel any pressure. We won (the drivers' and constructors' championships) last year and we were in a much worse position a year ago.

"One bad race doesn't really make any difference. Okay, we lost the (drivers' championship) lead in Monaco we could have easily taken a few more points but it didn't happen. So we come here and try to do better and try to get back the lead."

Ferrari's Massa recorded the fastest time during first free practice. The Brazilian clocked a best lap of one minute 17.553 around the 4.361km Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, a quarter of a second faster than BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica (one minute 17.809 seconds) while third fastest was McLaren Mercedes' Heikki Kovalainen (1:18.133.). BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld preceded Raikkonen while Hamilton was sixth-fastest in his McLaren Mercedes, clocking 1:18.303.

Overnight rain had made track wet on a cool and overcast morning in Montreal as the 90-minute session got under way.

Massa left it until his final lap to post his best time and Kubica, second in Monaco behind Hamilton two weeks ago, did likewise. Raikkonen was almost three-quarters of a second slower than his Ferrari team-mate despite posting the fastest sector one time of the session while Hamilton put in the fewest laps of all the drivers, eight.

Mark Webber was the fastest of the mid-division team drivers, the Red Bull driver clocking 1:18.712 ahead of team-mate David Coulthard, with Kazuki Nakajima of Williams ninth quickest in 1:18.809 and Renault's Fernando Alonso 10th. Honda's Jenson Button was the slowest of the 20 drivers, with a best lap of 1:21.542.