Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and George Russell spent most of the extended second practice session for the Canadian GP at the bottom, before timing their late qualifying simulations to perfection to leap to Friday glory.
Hamilton's best time of 1:13.718s was 0.027s ahead of his team mate, putting them comfortably ahead of Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc when a sudden squall drenched the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in the final ten minutes.
Before then there had been two red flags, one for Nico Hulkenberg suffering an engine fire in the Haas, and another when Esteban Ocon was ordered to stop on track by the Alpine team because of water pressure problems.
It hadn't been the best of starts to the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, with a CCTV issue at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve resulting in the loss of almost all track time in Free Practice 1. Pierre Gasly had suffered a driveshaft issue that left his Alpine stuck on the track at turn 8 a mere four minutes in with just 12 drivers having completed a timed lap by that point. Valtteri Bottas flew the flag for Alfa Romeo, but of course the times signified nothing when the CCTV syncing glitch meant that practice was unable to resume.
Feverish activity in the two hours between the end of FP1 and the rescheduled start time for second practice succeeded in resolving the CCTV issues, with a back-up in place in case of a recurrence. The session had been extended from one hour to 90 minutes by way of compensation, with the teams keen to get out on track as soon as the green light went on at the end of pit lane, under overcast skies and a significant risk of rain indicated by the FIA weather systems.
Bottas was once again quick to make his mark with a time of 1:16.895s but this didn't last long before Charles Leclerc, Sergio Perez, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris all got to work and went quicker. Bottas responded and went top ahead of Fernando Alonso with an improved time of 1:16.330s, but Carlos Sainz was nearly half a second quicker with his own run even before Leclerc chipped off another three tenths. Both Ferraris had started on medium tyres, but Verstappen was straight onto the softs and it was no surprise to see the Red Bull set a new target time of 1:15.333s. Perez made an eloquent point by promptly taking a further tenth off that to go top.
One of the last drivers to head out on track was Alex Albon, whose Williams was alone in carrying the latest upgrades from Grove meaning that it was daubed with lashings of flow-vis paint to allow the engineers to assess the impact of the new parts. Pierre Gasly was also back in action, seemingly no worse for wear from his FP1 breakdown, although he appeared to run over some debris early in the session. It didn't deter him from going quickest on 1:15.224s just moments later.
With the semi-permanent street track evolving all the time, it wasn't long before Verstappen was back in charge on 1:14.726s, 0.176s quicker than Sainz who had put in a committed run through the chicane positively daring the Wall of Champions to bite back. Elsewhere it was Bottas having problems as he ran through the grass at turn 4, fortunately with no harm done to driver or car. AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda also pushed his luck riding the kerbs, kicking up sparks high into the air.
The Ferraris were now on the soft tyre, Sainz lowering the target time to 1:14.196s. Leclerc looked set to beat that but made an error in the final sector and ended up two tenths shy of his team mate mate - but still well ahead of Verstappen, Gasly and Perez, with Albon sixth from Norris, Bottas and Esteban Ocon. The Mercedes cars of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were at the back concentrating on heavy fuel load runs up to this point meaning they were yet to put in representative times in the first 20 minutes.
At the second time of asking, Leclerc got a better run to move ahead of Sainz by a tenth. That was just before the end of the extra first half hour, which was marked by a re-emergence of red flags triggered by smoke billowing out of Nico Hulkenberg's Haas as it crawled to a stop down the main straight. The driver jumped out of the cockpit as soon as it was safe to do so, giving instructions to the marshals who were quick to arrive on the scene, enthusiastically wielding their fire extinguishers which inadvertently left the Haas crew with quite a lot of cleaning up to do overnight.
The session resumed after a ten minute hiatus during which time the clocks continued to count down. Leclerc remained top at the resumption, but Verstappen had improved to second just 0.074s behind followed by Sainz, Bottas, Gasly, Oscar Piastri and Kevin Magnussen, with Perez, Albon and Norris rounding out the top ten. When the cars got back to work Perez was immediately pushing hard, and he survived a scary moment just before the chicane, while Sainz hooked up a great lap to go top with a time of 1:13.844s a quarter of a second clear of his team mate and the rest of the field.
As Tsunoda had a fun ride overshooting turn 1, another red flag materialised. For the second time today it was for a technical issue for Alpine - in this case for Esteban Ocon, who was told "Stop the car!" with some urgency by the team pit wall which had detected a potential loss of water pressure on the A523. He pulled up at the exit of turn 9, and retrieval of the car meant a further loss of eight or nine minutes from the session duration. By the time the track reopened for business, dark clouds were massing over the nearby city skyline and were reported to be heading for the circuit. Would rain impact the final half hour of an already disturbed day of practice?
With the restart, Mercedes finally ended their heavy fuel runs and were hunting down some speed. Hamilton quickly moved up to fifth while Russell was initially only tenth on their first runs on the soft compound. While the Ferraris were seemingly done with their flying laps for today, Alonso was also on softs and making steady improvements of his own as he dialled himself into the circuit. He was up to fifth when the Silver Arrows found their rhythm at last, with first Russell and then Hamilton going top. The latter succeeded in setting the pace with a time of 1:13.718s putting him just 0.027s ahead of his colleague.
Alonso's next run was also pretty strong, putting him up to fourth where he split the Ferrari pair and pushed Verstappen down to six ahead of Bottas, Perez, Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly. Meanwhile there was a potential case of unsafe release on pit lane, when Nyck de Vries was slow to get away from the AlphaTauri pit box and was nearly collected by Magnussen in the remaining Haas. De Vries was involved in a second similar incident, this time with Norris, later in the session.
The drivers were now firmly committed to using the remaining time for race simulation laps. Despite the threatening skies, Russell was being careful not to make any meteorological predictions this week after his embarrassing stint as weather man in Spain. Even so, incidents abounded: Norris ran wide at turn 1; Gasly had a big moment coming out of turn 4 when he clouted the kerb and was nearly knocked into a costly oversteer; Albon went off at turn 1 and briefly stopped on the grass; but the one that really set a few hearts racing was Piastri slapping the Wall of Champions in the McLaren at the final corner, fortunately living to fight another day.
By now the wind was notably picking up - "It's pretty gusty!" reported Bottas, and he wasn't wrong - and the temperatures plummeting by the minute. Heads up and down pit lane did a double take at a hint of lightning, as the FIA information systems declared wet track conditions even though no rain had been spotted by onlookers. Red Bull and Mercedes took the opportunity to break out sets of intermediates and get them run-ready for Saturday when conditions are supposed to be distinctly inclement.
"It's not raining!" grumbled Leclerc when he was similarly sent out on a set of the inters, but the radar showed a heavy storm barrelling into the area. Moments later the crowd started scrambling for ponchos, and then suddenly the rain arrived with a vengeance at the hairpin in the final sector with Piastri first to encounter the sudden localised downpour. Some parts of the track remained dry but in other areas the rain was both heavy and horizontal, and that was pretty much the end of the day's running. Norris once again took the opportunity to get a taster of properly wet conditions before joining the rest of the drivers back on pit lane; a few hardy souls ventured back out to try practice starts to the delight of the fans in the grandstand, although they nearly paid for it as conditions rapidly deteriorated and the situation rapidly surpassed 'tricky'.
It all meant that Hamilton and Russell finished on top ahead of Sainz, Alonso, Leclerc, Verstappen, Bottas, Perez, Stroll and Gasly. Piastri finished just outside the top ten ahead of Magnussen, Norris and Zhou Guanyu, with Tsunoda in 15th followed by Tsunoda, de Vries, Albon, the sidelined Ocon, Williams' rookie Logan Sargeant, and Hulkenberg already tucked up warm and dry in the trailer after his early power unit fire.
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