Hamilton leads Vettel in first practice in Canada

Lewis Hamilton set the pace in the first free practice for the Canadian Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver finished the 90-minute session two tenths of a second ahead of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.

The pair were followed on their timesheets by their respective team mates, Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen. There was also a strong showing from Force India, with Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon ending the morning fifth and sixth fastest putting them ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Williams' Felipe Massa.

Drivers had been greeted by a dusty, leaf-strewn Circuit Gilles Villeneuve as they headed out on Friday morning. The 4.361km (2.71-mile) track is little used during the rest of the year, so much of the day's early running involved cleaning up the racing line for the weekend. Conditions were also cooler and more overcast then should be the case over the rest of the weekend.

There was an immediate setback for Carlos Sainz, who was forced to park his smoking Toro Rosso by the side of the track in turn 10 on its shakedown lap with an engine failure. He took no further part in the session. There was also an early spin for Raikkonen exiting turn 7, his team mate Vettel likewise losing the rear of his Ferrari in turn 1 which emphasised the problems with lack of grip. As the first man out on ultrasofts, Raikkonen went on to set the fastest time of the first half hour with a lap of 1:15.089.

The Ferrari drivers weren't alone in finding the track conditions a handful. Hamilton had an early moment of his own turning into the second chicane, but caught it before his Mercedes could come to any harm. Nico Hulkenberg had a proper spin at the same spot a few minutes later, while his Renault team mate Jolyon Palmer was beset by electrical problems with his dashboard.

• The updated power unit component list for Canada

By the time teams handed back their first set of tyres to Pirelli, Mercedes had squeaked into the top two spots despite sticking to supersoft tyres. Hamilton had set the pace with a lap of 1:15.003s from Bottas. After the hiatus and a switch to the ultras it was Bottas' time to lead the way with a flying lap of 1:14.0147, over a tenth faster than Hamilton's riposte. Both men were already faster than last year's top FP1 time of 1:14.755s.

In the final half hour, Hamilton pushed harder and retook control with a new effort of 1:13.809s. Once Ferrari returned to the fray, Vettel managed to insert himself between the two Mercedes cars in second. Raikkonen was unable to match his team mate's pace and was fourth fastest by the time the session concluded.

After setting the sixth best time of the morning, Ocon suffered a late spin in the second chicane. He swiftly managed to get his Force India back pointing in the right direction and was back underway. Verstappen also survived a late scare, locking up into the final chicane and badly flat-spotting the tyres on the RB13 causing a slightly early end to his session.

It had been a slow start to his first race back after his Indianapolis 500 adventure for Fernando Alonso. It also proved to be a somewhat brief one. After completing several shakedown laps but just one flying lap, a loss of hydraulic pressure on the McLaren forced him to park at the hairpin with 18 minutes remaining in the session. He told reporters that "the gearbox was doing strange things".

Sauber's Pascal Wehrlein was back in action after being medically cleared following his crash in Monaco. He was the slowest runner in FP1, but he was the only driver to set his fastest lap on the prime compounds available to teams in Canada.

Free Practice 1 results

Want to win a trackday experience? All you have to do is subscribe to our FREE newsletter HERE

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter