Rosberg fastest in opening practice

Practice for this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix started this morning under clear skies.

Nico Rosberg set the fastest time in the 90-minute session. He edged out Ferrari’s Alonso by half a second. His Mercedes teammate Michael Schumacher was third fastest. Massa and Button completed the top five but were a full second slower than Rosberg.

Lewis Hamilton was sixth fastest, having lost some track time due to a steering problem. Barrichello, di Resta, Heidfeld and Hulkenberg rounded off the top ten.

Mark Webber was down in 12th place for Red Bull while Vettel was 16th fastest. The reigning World Champion missed out on the final part of the session, having crashed in the infamous wall of champions.

How the session unfolded :

The session started with the usual installation laps as drivers sampled the track conditions.

Aero tests were the order of the day for several teams, most notably Ferrari.

Toro Rosso’s reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo – driving Buemi’s car this morning – kicked off the proceedings twenty minutes into the session. Sauber’s Sergio Pérez – declared fit to drive this weekend – followed suit a few seconds later.

The early benchmark was set by Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard was largely faster than Ricciardo, lapping in the 1’19 bracket. Michael Schumacher was his closest rival and rapidly got within four tenths of a second of the Ferrari driver.

As the first third of the session elapsed, the German improved and took over at the front, beating Alonso’s mark by a full second. Lewis Hamilton joined in on the fun and placed his McLaren in third place. The session then came alive and lap times tumbled as the track conditions improved.

Hamilton demoted Schumacher to 2nd while Alguersuari settled in 3rd place ahead of Alonso. The hierarchy was then shuffled and, halfway through the session, Massa was leading from Rosberg, Webber, Alonso and Hamilton.

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel was still to post a time, as was Renault’s Vitaly Petrov.

The German came out not long after that and slowly gathered speed. He was about to get into the top five when he made a mistake in the final chicane and crashed into the infamous ‘wall of champions’. The session was red-flagged but resumed some minutes later.

Alonso jumped at the front and briefly traded fastest time with his teammate Felipe Massa before improving significantly and reclaiming the lead. Nico Rosberg spoiled Ferrari’s party in setting the fastest time with ten minutes remaining.