Fernando Alonso jumped into contention with the fastest lap time in Friday’s second practice session in Montreal, taking his Ferrari round the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 1m 15.107s, to go 0.369s clear of world champion Sebastian Vettel’s 1m 15.476s.
Less than a second covered the first seven cars as Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari posted 1m 15.601s to head Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in their McLarens (on 1m 15.977s and 1m 15.989s) and Scottish rookie Paul di Resta’s Force India which beat Mark Webber’s Red Bull to sixth with a lap of 1m 16.089s to 1m 16.102s.
Vettel’s was a great performance as he recovered from his morning crash when he got the chicane wrong and, ironically, hit the area known informally as ‘champions’ wall’.
Sauber withdrew Sergio Perez after the first practice session, which had been dominated by Nico Rosberg for Mercedes. The Mexican had passed his mandatory baseline medical assessment test on Thursday, following his heavy accident during qualifying at Monaco two weeks ago, but complained of sickness after setting the 11th fastest time this morning. He will be replaced for the rest of the weekend by McLaren’s test and reserve driver Pedro de la Rosa, who set the 18th best time after getting out close to the end of the 90-minute session with a 1m 18.536s.
The Swiss team’s day got worse later when Kamui Kobayashi crashed into the wall exiting Turn Four only moments after Adrian Sutil had hit the Turn Five wall in his Force India. Neither was hurt, and nor was Virgin’s Jerome D’Ambrosio who repeated Kobayashi’s accident as soon as the track had been cleared. At that time Hamilton picked up a puncture on his right-rear tyre due to debris.
Behind Webber, Vitaly Petrov showed that he had no lingering problems from Monaco by taking eighth best time for Renault with 1m 16.324s, to pip team mate Nick Heidfeld’s 1m 16.422s, then came Rubens Barrichello with 1m 16.687s for Williams, Sutil on 1m 16.905s and Pastor Maldonado in the second Williams on 1m 16.941s.
Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari were their usual well-matched selves for Toro Rosso, with 1m 17.051s and 1m 17.684s, ahead of Kobayashi on 1m 17.757s.
The Lotus duo of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovaianen headed the next batch in the 1m 18s, with 1m 18.470s and 1m 18.482s apiece, then came De la Rosa, who did well to acclimatise to his new Sauber C30 for 1m 18.536s. Mercedes focused on race preparation, which explained 19th and 20th fastest times for the morning pacesetters. Nico Rosberg lapped in 1m 18.601s, Michael Schumacher in 1m 19.209s. A late improvement jumped Timo Glock’s Virgin ahead of the HRTs, with a time of 1m 19.810. Tonio Liuzzi was not as quick as he was this morning, taking his HRT round in 1m 20.284s to team mate Narain Karthikeyan’s 1m 20.311s. D’Ambrosio brought up the rear with 1m 20.922s.
Free Practice 1 Results
Free Practice 2 Results