Hamilton sets fast times, crashes in rain

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton set fast time in second practice for the Canadian Grand Prix before crashing as heavy rains came down midway through the session. The world champion took to the track on intermediate tires and crashed heavily at the hairpin turn.

The session would be red-flagged with around 50 minutes remaining and not begin again. The Ferrari duo of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were second and third with Nico Rosberg and Pastor Maldonado rounding out the top-five.

Lewis Hamilton
The ending might have been so-so but it's generally been a pretty good day. I made a couple of mistakes – pushing too hard and going over the kerbs at the final chicane and then what happened at the end there. Looking at the replays, I wasn't going that fast. But it was like sheet ice into Turn 10 so the car aquaplaned and I went off. It maybe wasn't the right call to go out but, with the weather as it eventually turned out, it didn't affect our running. I'm fine and it looks like it's just the front wing that was damaged to it's not the end of the world. In the dry, the car is feeling really good here and our long run pace was encouraging. Ferrari look like they've upped their pace so it will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow – but I'm sure we'll still be strong. It's great to be back in Montreal and I'm feeling good for the weekend.

Nico Rosberg
For me, it was a decent day. We got some practice in for qualifying and the race and that all went well. At the end of session two, we went out again to practice some starts in the heavy rain. But the conditions were really tough out there. I don't know exactly where we are with our speed but for sure Ferrari seems to be a threat. They were very quick today.

Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
That was a mixed bag today, like the weather. We had a strong first practice and looked competitive on the prime tyre. Then in FP2, we pulled the programme forward to get as much running done as possible before the rain came. We managed to compare the two tyres and do some high fuel running, which gave us some interesting results – and our competitors looked pretty strong in similar conditions, too, which we will have to analyse this evening to understand the competitive balance. We sent the boys out on intermediate tyres to do practice starts but the conditions worsened significantly as they went out, then Lewis aquaplaned off the circuit at Turn 10. The car didn't look too badly damaged so we'll repair it this evening and hope for a smoother day tomorrow.

Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical)
We had a good morning – running through our normal programme, looking at the car on low and high fuel and seeing where we are with fuel consumption and brakes in particular. We were anticipating rain around 30 minutes into P2, so we ran a very condensed programme on both tyre compounds to maximise dry running time. Race starts aside, we managed to gather all the data we needed. So, when the rain started we decided to head out just to get some practice starts done on the intermediate tyre, as this can be exchanged if you use it. Unfortunately Lewis aquaplaned off the circuit as the rain intensified, so we'll have some extra work to do tonight to check the car over and replace some parts but all should be well for tomorrow.

Full results: