Canada, FP2: Hamilton quickest before crashing out of rain-hit FP2

Lewis Hamilton continued to set the pace at Montreal’s Circuit Villeneuve but after setting the session’s quickest time the Briton then crashed out as torrential rain disrupted the second half of the session.

With rain expected the first part of the session saw some teams conduct their first runs on the supersoft Pirelli tyres earlier than usual, with Ferrari’s Sebastain Vettel being one of the first to head out on the option rubber. His best time, a lap of 1:16.304s, would eventually be good enough for second on the timesheet behind Hamilton.

The defending champion’s session began on the soft tyre but his run was compromised when he had to take evasive action to avoid Romain Grosjean’s slow Lotus at the final chicane.

The Mercedes driver eventually bolted on supersofts and although there was a nervous moment when he thumped across the kerbs at the so-called ‘wall of champions’ he rose to the top of the table, his best lap of 1:15.988 beating Vettel’s by three tenths of a second.

When the rains came with just under 40 minutes left on the clock, Mercedes made the decision to send its drivers out for clutch calibration tests, putting both Hamilton and team-mate Nico Rosberg on intermediate tyres.

The rain quickly intensified, however, and Hamilton aquaplaned on the run to the Turn 10 hairpin, skidding off track and into the tyres barriers. The impact wasn’t heavy but was enough to end his session and as the rainfall grew heavier all running was abandoned by teams, thought the pit lane remained open.

After a poor showing in the morning session, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen looked far more comfortable in the second session, and eventually posted a time of 1:16.310 on the supersoft tyre, to claim third spot on the timesheet, just 0.006s slower than Vettel. Fourth place went to Rosberg whose best effort on the red-banded Pirelli tyre was a lap of 1:16.440, almost half a second down on his team-mate’s P1 time.

Lotus had enjoyed a productive opening session, with Romain Grosjean third in the morning, and the good work continued in the afternoon with Pastor Maldonado finishing fifth ahead of Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Grosjean.

Felipe Massa in the second Williams was eighth with Daniil Kvyat, who suffered a left-rear brake problem in the session, ninth ahead of Red Bull Racing team-mate Daniel Ricciardo.

Nico Hulkenberg, who had been fourth in the morning session, suffered a left-rear puncture on the soft-compound tyre, an incident that left the German mystified as he claimed he had not hit anything. Pirelli later reported that its investigations suggested a problem with the wheel rim rather than the tyre.

Hulkenberg ended the session in 11th place, ahead of Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz and the second Force India of Sergio Perez.