F1: Verstappen nips Leclerc to lead 2nd practice for Canadian GP

Defending World Champion Max Verstappen turned a lap of 1m14.127s to top the 2nd practice session for the Canadian GP in his #1 Red Bull. Verstappen also topped Practice 1.

Charles Leclerc improved his time to within a tenth of his championship rival up front. It remains to be seen if the Ferrari man will take any penalties this weekend for new PU components – he hasn’t got any on his plate so far, but there is still time to put some new parts into his pool, and they are rumored to go on the car on Saturday.

Carlos Sainz Jr. was third in the #55 Ferrari, 0.225s behind.

Sebastian Vettel was a surprise 4th fastest in his #5 Aston Martin, just 0.315s as the team work to pull itself off the back 1/3 of the grid.

Fernando Alonso rounded out the top-5 for Alpine after going 3rd quick in Practice 1, 0.416s behind.

In the last 20 minutes, Verstappen made the switch back to the medium tire as he began to focus on race pace and longer runs here.

With the potential of weather on the way, it is no surprise that the track was a busy place at the end. Everyone was on longer runs, and the hard tire made an appearance on the Alpine cars which is interesting – are they planning to run that compound during the race?

The medium tire, which actually proved a match for the softs in FP1, has been holding on well in FP2 with Verstappen and Gasly having managed 21 laps and counting on the yellow-marked rubber. All of which is giving Red Bull and AlphaTauri valuable data to analyze tonight with a view to defining their strategies for Sunday.

Once again, George Russell easily beat his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, this time by 4/10ths of a second, as he continues to show the world that Hamilton was never the greatest driver of all time.  He just had the superior car and an inferior teammate all those years.

Hamilton still isn’t happy – he’s labelled his car “undriveable” on the radio and headed back to the pits.

So Mercedes still haven’t found a decent set-up, Ferrari are struggling with bouncing and engine reliability issues, and Perez can’t find a balance that suits him. Looks like the only driver who will be truly happy this evening is Verstappen.

It also seems like Vettel will be in some hot water along with Gasly – he too has failed to return to the track in the exactly mandated way, and as such will have to explain himself to the stewards after the session.

Poor Valtteri Bottas never set a time as his Alfa Romeo sat in the garage almost all session with an anti-stall issue.

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED

• Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was fastest in both free practice sessions for the Canadian Grand Prix today, on each occasion using the P Zero Red soft tire. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was just 0.081s behind him in FP2, also on the soft tire.
• Following last night’s heavy rain, the weather was warm and dry during the day, with FP2 finishing in 26 degrees centigrade ambient and 33 degrees on track. More heavy rain fell immediately after the session, which will have the effect of ‘resetting’ the track before FP3 tomorrow.
• A bit like the last race in Baku, FP1 was actually the most relevant session to the race: with both getting away at 2pm local time. FP2 was potentially less representative, taking place somewhat later than both qualifying and the race.
• Only the soft and the P Zero Yellow medium tires were used in FP1, with the P Zero White hard tires used by just two teams in FP2. Leclerc ran FP2 exclusively on the soft tire: the only driver to do so.
• There’s currently a gap of around 0.5 seconds between the soft and the medium tire, with a similar estimated gap to the hard. There was a high degree of track evolution throughout the sessions, but tonight’s rain will wash away any rubber that has been already laid down.
• It was interesting to see many teams doing long runs in FP1, which was probably down to a combination of reasons. Firstly, there was a need to gather data in case FP2 was affected by rain. Secondly, experiencing a surface that had been ‘reset’ by heavy rain was relevant, as these are also the conditions that the teams will face tomorrow and perhaps also on Sunday. The soft was very much the focus of the running today: even on a slippery track this morning, we only saw some very light abrasion on this compound. The hard was used much less, perhaps due to teams saving it for the race. As we’ve seen already, the weather has been extremely unpredictable so far, and we expect that to continue for the rest of the weekend.

Practice 2 Results