Hamilton crashes after setting fastest time

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of second practice for the Canadian Grand Prix but another Mercedes error saw him cause a red flag.

With rain threatening the session, teams completed plenty of running early in FP2 in order to gather data on the supersoft tyre ahead of tomorrow's qualifying. Hamilton was already fastest overall by 0.316s from Sebastian Vettel when rain began to fall 45 minutes in to the session, seeing all the drivers return to the pits.

However, with the rain starting to fall heavily, Mercedes surprisingly sent both drivers back out on intermediate tyres despite the track being very wet. Hamilton was ahead of team-mate Nico Rosberg and despite a cautious approach he was then unable to stop at the hairpin, aquaplaning straight on in to the barrier.

The incident brought out the red flag as Hamilton's car was recovered, with Rosberg able to return to the pits without major drama. While the session was restarted with half an hour remaining, nobody ventured out again. The decision to send its drivers out on intermediates despite the conditions comes just two weeks after Mercedes cost Hamilton victory in Monaco.

The earlier running saw Vettel and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen separated by just 0.006s in pursuit of Hamilton, with Rosberg ending FP2 0.452s slower than his team-mate. Vettel also spent much of the high fuel running following Rosberg, dropping off but closing the gap to the Mercedes at will, giving Ferrari encouragement it may be competitive in race trim.

Pastor Maldonado and Romain Grosjean were fifth and seventh respectively as Lotus' impressive start to the weekend continued, with Valtteri Bottas splitting the pair and team-mate Felipe Massa eighth in the second Williams. Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo were with 0.1s of Massa and 1.1s of Hamilton's best time as five teams occupied the top ten places.

While Fernando Alonso ran inside the top ten in FP1, the McLaren looked less competitive in qualifying rim as Alonso could only set the 15th fastest time and team-mate Jenson Button was 18th, 2.1s off the pace and with only the two Manor drivers behind him.

Aside from Hamilton's crash, the only other driver to suffer damage was Nico Hulkenberg. The Force India's left rear tyre deflated early in the session, with Pirelli saying it believed the failure was due to an issue with the wheel rim rather than tyre.