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Canada, FP1 & FP2: Hamilton tops extended 2nd practice session

FP1 had to be halted when problems were discovered

By Franck Drui

17 June 2023 - 00:12

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton went quickest in an extended, 90-minute second practice session for the 2023 FIA Canadian Grand Prix, beating team-mate George Russell to the top of the timesheet by just under three hundredths of a second in a session that ended with torrential rain.

Earlier in the day FP1 had to be halted when problems were discovered with the circuit’s CCTV system and for safety reasons running had to be stopped.

As a result an extra half an hour was added to the second session and when the 90-minute session got underway it was championship leader Max Verstappen who set the early pace with a lap of 1:15.333 despite complaining that his Red Bull RB19 was behaving strangely on downshifts. It didn’t hinder the Dutchman unduly and he soon lowered the bar to 1:14.726.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc then took top with a 1:14.576s, but team-mate Carlos Sainz found even more time with a 1:14.196 on soft tyres.

Leclerc jumped ahead of his team-mate again and he held top spot until the halfway mark when running was halted.

Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg stopped on the start-finish straight with smoke pouring from his car and the red flags were shown. After a 10-minute delay running resumed again with just over 50 minutes left on the clock.

Sainz immediately jumped back to top spot with a lap of 1:13.844 but the session was soon stopped again when Alpine’s Esteban Ocon came to a halt at Turn 9 having been ordered to pull over by his team.

The skies above Montréal were beginning to darken and many of the teams switched to longer runs in the last third of the session.

Russell, however, was not one of them and he took his Mercedes to top spot with a lap of 1:13.745, before Hamilton slipped past with a 1:13.718.

With five minutes remaining, torrential rain began to fall at the hairpin. McLaren’s Lando Norris bolted on a set of intermediates to test the conditions but he soon returned to the pit lane. Aston Martin were next to head out with both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll running on inters.

The rain intensified, however, and Hamilton collected P1 ahead of Russell, as Sainz completed the top three ahead of Alonso, Leclerc and Verstappen.

Pos.	Driver	Car	Time	Laps
01	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes W14	1:13.718	30
02	George Russell	Mercedes W14	1:13.745	31
03	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari SF-23	1:13.844	39
04	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin Mercedes AMR23	1:14.044	39
05	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari SF-23	1:14.094	39
06	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Honda RBPT RB19	1:14.142	34
07	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo Ferrari C43	1:14.220	40
08	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull Honda RBPT RB19	1:14.250	29
09	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin Mercedes AMR23	1:14.419	31
10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine Renault A523	1:14.477	39
11	Oscar Piastri	McLaren Mercedes MCL60	1:14.533	38
12	Kevin Magnussen	Haas Ferrari VF-23	1:14.544	36
13	Lando Norris	McLaren Mercedes MCL60	1:14.617	40
14	Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo Ferrari C43	1:14.811	37
15	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri Honda RBPT AT04	1:14.941	43
16	Nyck de Vries	AlphaTauri Honda RBPT AT04	1:15.002	38
17	Alex Albon	Williams Mercedes FW45	1:15.003	33
18	Esteban Ocon	Alpine Renault A523	1:15.092	17
19	Logan Sargeant	Williams Mercedes FW45	1:15.426	38
20	Nico Hülkenberg	Haas Ferrari VF-23	1:16.369	11