F1 Canadian GP: Lewis Hamilton heads Mercedes 1-2, Red Bull off pace in extended FP2
After a bizarre CCTV failure wrecked opening practice se🅠ssion and led to the teams doing almost no meaningful running on Friday morn꧟ing, an extra half an hour was added to FP2.
And it was Hamilton, a seven-time winner in Montreal, who ended up just 0.027s quicker than Russell in their upgraded W14 as the first glimpse of thi🅠s 🌄weekend’s pecking order was provided.
However, Mercedes’ performance looked to have been aided by track evolution, with Hamilton and Russell completing their soft tyre qualifying simu♔lation runs more♚ than 10 minutes after everyone else.
Carlos Sainz was third and 0.126s off the pace♕, ahead of Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Ferra🔯ri teammate Charles Leclerc.
Reignin🌊g world champion Max Verstappen was over four tenths adrift of his former𓂃 title rival in the dominant Red Bull RB19 he has used to win five of the seven races so far this year.
Valtteri Bottas, who was fastest in the rather meaningless and curta𝓰iled FP1, put his Alfa Romeo seventh, ahead of the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez.
Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasl𒀰y completed the rest of the top-10 for Aston Martin and Alpine respectively.
FP2 was interrupte🍌d by two red flag periods, the first of which was caused when Nico Hulkenberg suffered a smoky engine failure in his Haas.
Minutes after the session resumed and the red flags were flying once more when Esteban Ocon stopped as a precaution with a🦹 suspe🧔cted water leak in his Alpine.
All the drivers managed to complete their runs before🐻 a heav🐻y downpour hit in the closing stages of the session.
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