Raikkonen puts Ferrari on top in 2nd practice for Canadian GP

Kimi Raikkonen

The battle for supremacy grew even closer in Montreal on Friday afternoon, as Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen edged Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton in second practice. Their respective team mates Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas – as well as Red Bull's Max Verstappen – all finished within half a second of Raikkonen's leading time.

However, it was far from all good news for Red Bull. Daniel Ricciardo suffer a suspected engine failure early on, while Verstappen brought out the red flags with 20 minutes to go after losing drive on his RB13.

Felipe Massa capped an encouraging first day for Williams with sixth in the times ahead of the Force Indias of Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez, who were separated by Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat. Romain Grosjean completed the top ten, despite several spins in the Haas.

The fastest times in sectors 1, 2 and 3 fell to Vettel, Raikkonen and Hamilton respectively, suggesting that Mercedes still have a small power advantage down the long back straight, but that the Ferraris still have slightly better handling.

The midfield scrap was equally tight, with Romain Grosjean 11th despite several spins. Nico Hulkenberg was next up for Renault, followed by Carlos Sainz's Toro Rosso and Kevin Magnussen's Haas.

It was a session with myriad minor incidents. Chronologically, it started with Grosjean spinning his Haas twice in Turn 6 (and later again in Turn 1); Hamilton going off in Turn 1; Vettel only just avoiding oversteering into the ‘Wall of Champions'; Hulkenberg brushing the wall in Turn 9; Verstappen going off in Turn 1; Stoffel Vandoorne spinning in Turn 14; Bottas spinning in Turn 1; Vettel going off in Turn 2 in avoidance; Marcus Ericsson clipping his Sauber against the aforementioned champions' wall; Vettel spinning in Turn 6; Kvyat spinning in Turn 1; Jolyon Palmer doing likewise in his Renault; Perez going off there in his Force India; and Kvyat in Turn 6.

QUOTES

Mercedes GP

Lewis Hamilton (2nd, 1:13.150): "It's been a pretty good first day for the team. The Ferraris are looking fast here and as the times show, it's super close at the top right now. I feel like we are still just a little bit behind the red cars at this early stage of the weekend, but we'll be pushing as hard as we can to close the gap ahead of qualifying on Saturday. After a tough weekend in Monaco, the main thing is that our car is already feeling a lot better around Montreal. It should be game on for the rest of the weekend."

Valtteri Bottas (4th, 1:13.310): "After Monaco it was really nice to start this weekend with a positive feeling from the car. I think that we are looking quite competitive here, but it's only practice. After practice two, it's clear we still have a bit more work to do with the UltraSoft tire to get more laptime out of those. But the car felt good on the Soft tires that I tried. We'll focus on finding that edge of extra performance from the UltraSoft and fine-tuning the set-up overnight. Otherwise I really enjoyed it and had good fun out there, but it's the next two days that count."

James Allison, Technical Director: "We had a trouble-free day with both cars which allowed us to get through our planned practice program. As always on the first day in Canada, conditions were tricky owing to the low grip levels and the circuit seemed particularly dirty today. That factor, plus the number of cars on a short lap, made it difficult to put together consistent and meaningful running. Nevertheless, what we have seen so far suggests that we will have another ding-dong battle on our hands, like at the first six races – and it is very hard to predict who will come up with the goods on Sunday."

Red Bull-Tag Heuer

Max Verstappen (5th, 1:13.388): "It wasn't the cleanest of days but in terms of performance I think we were OK. Before the stoppage in P2 it was a positive session, we felt like we had good pace and weren't far off the top four. This is nice to see at this track as it usually is not one of our favorites, we can be pleased with that I guess. The short runs were good and the updates seem to have given us something a little extra, with such long straights here it is always going to be difficult for us. We are not yet fast enough to beat the top two teams so we do our best to finish fifth and optimize what we have. We still need to investigate what the issue with the car was but I'm sure the boys will have it ready to go again tomorrow."

Daniel Ricciardo (15th, 1:15.072): "A bit of an uneventful day to be honest as I didn't get a whole lot of running. We had a bit going on this morning and then had an engine issue this afternoon. The positive is that Max's pace on the ultra softs looked pretty good, so hopefully we'll learn a bit more from their set up tonight and then push on for tomorrow. I doubt we got a lot of long run data today but at least Max did some good short runs. For me, we'll take a little bit from today but we obviously didn't get too many uninterrupted flying laps. But that's okay, because I've driven this track before so I'll just get into it tomorrow morning."

Ferrari

Kimi Raikkonen (1st, 1:12.935):

Sebastian Vettel (3rd, 1:13.200):

Maurizio Arrivabene, Team Principal:

Force India-Mercedes

Esteban Ocon (8th, 1:14.299):

Sergio Perez (10th, 1:14.501):

Dr. Vijay Mallya, Team Principal:

Jakob Andreasen, Chief Engineer:

Otmar Szafnauer, Chief Operating Officer:

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal:

Williams-Mercedes

Felipe Massa (6th, 1:14.063): "I think we've had a very good day. The car felt good on both new and used tires. I was very happy with the feeling I had in the car. Everything we tried on set-up seemed to improve it even more. We just need to keep everything under control for tomorrow, and hopefully we can be as competitive as we were today."

Lance Stroll (17th, 1:15.240): "It's a great track, I really like the rhythm and it's just good to be home. It was a good day getting used to the track, but I have to treat it as just another race at the end of the day as everything stays the same. However, it's great to have those Canadian flags in the grandstands. On the out lap I looked at the fans and saw them waving and cheering and that is really cool. I didn't get a chance to put on the ultrasofts, so we will see what they are like tomorrow. We were focused on some other things, so it was just part of the plan. It's still quite close in the midfield, as it has been all year, and everyone has been doing different programs, so we will see how it is in qualifying."

Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: "It was a good day. We did all of the things that we wanted to do and we had no problems with either car. We have some new aerodynamic and mechanical parts here, and we were able to do all of the relevant testing for those, while completing our tire programs with Felipe and Lance. Felipe did a solid job all day, and showed really competitive pace on both high and low fuel. Lance's main job, having never driven here before, was to learn the circuit; which he's done very quickly. He's shown reasonable pace for this stage of the weekend, and he hasn't used the ultrasoft yet. There's still a lot of work to do overnight to keep finding extra performance, but we're hopeful we can have a good day tomorrow and score some points on Sunday."

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering:

McLaren-Honda

Alonso on track while his Honda was running

Fernando Alonso (7th, 1:14.245):

Stoffel Vandoorne (19th, 1:15.624):

Eric Boullier, Racing Director:

Yusuke Hasegawa, Honda:

Scuderia Toro Rosso-Renault

Daniil Kvyat (9th, 1:14.461):

Carlos Sainz (13th, 1:14.621):

Franz Tost, Team Principal:

Jody Egginton, Head of Vehicle Performance:

James Key, Technical Director:

Cedrik Staudohar, Renault:

Ben Waterhouse, Deputy Technical Director:

Haas-Ferrari

Romain Grosjean (11th, 1:14.566):

Kevin Magnussen (14th, 1:14.676):

Gene Haas, Owner:

Guenther Steiner, Team Principal:

Renault

Nico Hulkenberg (12th, 1:14.604):

Jolyon Palmer (16th, 1:15.127):

Alan Permane, Sporting Director:

Nick Chester, Technical Director:

Sauber-Ferrari

Marcus Ericsson (18th, 1:15.611):

Pascal Wehrlein (20th, 1:16.308):

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal:

Results

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	TIME	GAP	LAPS
1	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:12.935	+0.000s	41
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:13.150	+0.215s	41
3	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:13.200	+0.265s	41
4	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:13.310	+0.375s	42
5	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:13.388	+0.453s	25
6	19	Felipe Massa	Williams Mercedes	1:14.063	+1.128s	38
7	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1:14.245	+1.310s	19
8	31	Esteban Ocon	Force India Mercedes	1:14.299	+1.364s	46
9	26	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:14.461	+1.526s	38
10	11	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1:14.501	+1.566s	41
11	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1:14.566	+1.631s	33
12	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1:14.604	+1.669s	38
13	55	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:14.621	+1.686s	43
14	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas Ferrari	1:14.676	+1.741s	35
15	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1:15.072	+2.137s	8
16	30	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:15.127	+2.192s	40
17	18	Lance Stroll	Williams Mercedes	1:15.240	+2.305s	40
18	9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1:15.611	+2.676s	31
19	2	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren Honda	1:15.624	+2.689s	20
20	94	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber Ferrari	1:16.308	+3.373s	31