MONTREAL -- For a Nationwide Series rookie at Montreal, Jacques Villeneuve didn't need much time to get up to speed. He was required to attend Friday's rookie driver meeting, but decided against taking the pace-car tour, probably because Villeneuve may know the place better than any other driver in the garage area.

"I didn't go around the track," Villeneuve said. "We just had a meeting. It's not a question on how to drive the track. It's the different rules in NASCAR. They're different than open-wheel racing on the road course, so there was stuff I needed to know, as well."

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This track has always been a rough track for racing because there are so many opportunities to overtake so people will go for it. In NASCAR, that's even truer.

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JACQUES VILLENEUVE

Villeneuve was sixth-fastest of the 43 cars which made at least one lap during final practice for Saturday's NAPA Auto Parts 200. His best lap was 93.533 mph, almost exactly one mile an hour slower than Marcos Ambrose, who topped the speed chart despite having to make some repairs in between sessions for a gearbox issue.

The second of two session was hard on several cars. Ambrose, whose No. 59 Ford is sporting a retro STP paint scheme this weekend, needed some tweaks to the connections on the gearbox after his car began to show signs of smoke a couple of laps into the practice. Boris Said and Brad Coleman also brought out full-course red flags after stopping on the track with mechanical issues.

And the session came to an end when Steve Wallace's transmission broke while he was trying to traverse the back side of the course, dumping a large amount of fluid on the track. The No. 66 Chevrolet wound up on the back of a flatbed for the ride back to the garage area.

The rest of the top five included Max Papis, Scott Pruett -- who turned the quickest lap of the day in the first session -- Patrick Carpentier and Said.

But the story of the day was Villeneuve's return to the track named after his father, Gilles. The 37-year-old Quebec native finished second to teammate Damon Hill in the 1996 Formula 1 event here, and won the 1993 Formula Atlantic race. But driving a stock car on the 14-turn, 2.709-mile circuit located on a man-made island in the middle of the St. Lawrence River is a new challenge.

"This is very, very different," Villeneuve said. "There's a lot of suspension movement, it's very low grip, a lot of power. It just drives very differently. And you can't drive them aggressively. You have to drive very smoothly to go fast. It's a little bit strange."

Villeneuve credited a couple of days of testing at South Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, S.C., for being able to quickly find a comfort zone.

"We did a couple of days and quite a lot of laps," Villeneuve said. "We did a lot of work on the setup, trying different things, and we kept gaining time. On an oval, a lot of things don't really react like I'm used to. On a road course, even though it's NASCAR, I could relate a lot easier to the different setup changes."

By the Numbers

Nine Canadians are entered at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

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If there's one concern, Villeneuve said it was trying to chase a setup that's specific to Montreal's tight turns and long straights.

"We really had a great test last week," Villeneuve said. "Obviously, the track was different. I really hope what we found on that other track works here. If not, the lack of knowledge I've got in these cars might not give me enough time during practice to actually fix any problems. That's my worry."

Villeneuve's Sprint Cup season came to a premature end when he crashed in the qualifying race for the season-opening Daytona 500. He said despite his open-wheel success, he never was able to land a sponsor willing to fund his stock-car venture.

"I'm sure if I had tried to do [this] in 1998, after winning the championship, it would have been a lot easier," Villeneuve said. "At the end of the day, even though there's a lot of respect for what I've achieved, ultimately all anybody wants to know is how did you do in the 36-race season on the ovals, and are you still hungry enough to do it? That's always the biggest question mark, I guess."

Still, Villeneuve said he was surprised at the amount of cooperation he received from other drivers in the series.

"Everybody's been very helpful," Villeneuve said. "Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon -- even Juan Pablo Montoya. We didn't get along in [Formula 1] but in NASCAR, he's been a very nice guy. That's a nice thing about NASCAR. Everybody seems to be helping each other out, to a certain extent, obviously."

Last year's race turned crazy with a handful of laps remaining. Villeneuve said that's just a combination of the circuit and the drivers.

"This track has always been a rough track for racing because there are so many opportunities to overtake so people will go for it," Villeneuve said. "In NASCAR, that's even truer."

Also
• NAPA Auto Parts 200: Practice 1 | Practice 2 | Preview
• Lack of sponsorship costs Villeneuve ride in BDR's 27 Cup car